Page 63 of The Gambler's Prize
The lax approach to due process suits me this time. “I appreciate it, Judge.”
I fold up the paper and put it safely in my pocket, shoving away my anger. Checking on Florian is more important than worrying about the scum who drugged him, even if I were in a position to fight, which I’m not.
“Now can I please see Florian?” I ask.
The judge helps me to stand up. Surge after surge of pain overtakes me, almost making me black out, but I won’t give in to it. Florian is out there, alone and ill. A doctor’s tent has been set up temporarily for the fair. It’s close by, but it feels like miles away. My limbs feel like quivering jelly as I hobble over. I ignore every flare of agony and eventually make it to the tent with the help of Judge Draved.
Inside Florian is lying on a makeshift bed, half conscious. The bitter scent of a sickroom smacks me in the face: sweat and bile and medication. Florian looks so incongruous here. I’ve only ever seen him bright as a spring breeze, healthy and vital. He’s always pale, but now a waxiness covers the usual bloom of his cheeks. Dark shadows haunt his eyes, which are open. But he’snot seeing anything, his gaze flitting around mindlessly. He has no idea where he is, and very little control over his body. I watch as he flails around the bed, then heaves up the contents of his stomach into a bucket, accompanied by a pitiful sob. His skin is coated with sweat, his shirt off and his whole torso glistening with sickly sheen. His scars are obvious, reminding me again how much he’s suffered in the past at the hands of those loan sharks. Groans come from deep in his throat, but he’s too far gone to form words. I push past the doctor and sit beside him on the bed. I smooth back his beautiful dark hair, which has clots of vomit in it.
“I gave him something to make him expel the poison,” the doctor says. “Now we wait.”
“Is he going to be okay?” I say. My voice barely makes it through the choking feeling in my throat.
The doctor shrugs and turns to his next patient.
I kiss Florian’s burning cheek, stroke his hair. He doesn’t react at all, just keeps staring into nothing, muttering to himself. His hands are shaking. I wrap my arms tightly around him, trying to bring him back to me. I hope that somewhere beneath the drug haze he can sense that I’m here with him, looking after him.
Chapter 27
Grimes
After a few hours, the doctor closes up the medical tent for the night and tells me to take Florian home. I hire a horse and cart because he’d never be able to manage the long walk.Abaskis wicked stuff: he remains in much the same state for the next three days. I lose track of how many times I empty the sick bucket. After a while he’s bringing nothing up, just a tiny bit of bile. Or it’s just a dry heave that cuts him in half, wracking hisslim body with pain. Between vomiting I feed him tiny sips of water and wash his fiery forehead with a cool towel. He lies in my own bed, the window open to provide what meager breeze the hot days can offer.
My neighbor Breta runs in and out to check on us, and to bring something for me to eat, because I refuse to leave Florian’s side. I attempt to feed him tiny bites of food to get his strength up, but every time I try he looks even more nauseated, pulling his head away in desperation, his eyes pleading with me.
I still feel like shit, too. My whole body aches from the gang’s beating, as bad as after my toughest fights. But it’s nothing compared to Florian’s suffering. Compared to what could’ve happened to him if Hevra had gotten his way. Judge Draved told me that according to Galbravan law, Florian’s thirty-year sentence with Hevra would’ve begun after he served out my two years. Being placed in the same sentence as that scumbag gave me a crawling feeling all the way up my spine.
I snatch a few moments’ rest here and there when Florian is sleeping fitfully. But I refuse to leave the room, either dozing beside him on the bed or in the chair by the window. I want him to know I haven’t left his side, if he’s capable of understanding anything at all.
Breta watches me care for him, hands on her hips. ThatI told you solook on her face would be enraging if I had any energy to spare on getting enraged. At last she says she wants to talk to me in private. I’m not sure how much Florian can even understand in his state, but she’s adamant. So I get him settled, a little quieter, his head on the pillow and his eyes fixed on the wall, and creep outside the room.
“Do you still deny you love him?” Breta demands.
I shake my head. I’m too exhausted to argue anymore. It seems pointless to deny it to myself, or her. I knew when Dravedtold me Florian had been drugged, and I imagined him helpless and alone in his enemy’s power, without me to protect him.
“Then make it up to him when he wakes up,” Breta says.
Make it up to him?Easy for her to say.
**
Finally, on the third morning after his poisoning, Florian looks at me with something approaching lucidity in his blue eyes.
“Hey,” I say, like he’s back from a long journey. “How are you feeling?”
“You caught me again,” he whispers. His voice is creaky.
He doesn’t sound mad about it. Can’t he remember my confession, my revenge plot? Maybe his memory is still patchy. He lurches for me suddenly. Trying to kiss me. Apparently he remembers our lovemaking, if nothing else. I pull back, feeling guilty when hurt steals into his exhausted eyes.
“What’s wrong?” he says. “Don’t you want to?”
Don’t I want to? Stars, I want to more than I want to breathe.
“Why doyouwant to?” I ask. “Can’t you remember what I told you?”
“Yeah. You won me in that bet because you hated me and wanted revenge.”
I blink at the matter-of-fact tone. “Okay, sowhydo you still want me?” I say. “I treated you so poorly.”
