Shadow Queen - By Deborah Kalin Page 0,52

as Dieter edged his plate nearer me.

For the first time since the Aestival feast, our meals had been served individually.

‘Matilde?’ Amalia touched my shoulder, then my forehead. She thumbed back my eyelid. ‘What could take you so quickly?’

Shoving her hand from my face, I stuck my fingers down my throat. My stomach heaved, vomit burning my throat as it flooded out of me, splattering the floor.

‘Again,’ said Amalia, suddenly understanding. ‘As often as you can stand it.’

On hands and knees and staring into my own vomit, I couldn’t summon the strength. My elbows trembled, threatening to give way at any moment. Sweat slicked me from brow to ankle, trickling now across my nape.

‘Again,’ she commanded.

When I didn’t move she did it for me, prying open my mouth and thrusting her hand in until my jaws creaked with the strain. Vomit streamed out of me again, hot and burning, leaving a terrible taste of bile in its wake.

Amalia slipped an arm around my back, a hand under my elbow, and prodded me to rise.

I tried, but dizziness overcame me and my hands slipped in the mess.

She hauled at my arm, trying to pull me upright by sheer force of will, but she couldn’t lift me; my body was a slack weight now.

‘I’ll be right back,’ she said, standing and departing the room.

I lay where she left me, grateful the heat had lessened. The pain still spiked through my veins, however, and the room spun in and out of focus.

Eventually Amalia’s footsteps returned, a second pair in counterpoint. ‘Here,’ Amalia said. ‘Help me lift her.’

Hands hefted me by foot and shoulder. I fought my eyes open, catching a bleary glimpse of the bed drawing close.

Voices cussed and shouted in the distance, but the mattress was taking me, the room was black and I was screaming, screams no one could hear.

TWENTY-ONE

I LIVED IN a ceaseless nightmare, wracked by fever, even the slightest touch lancing me with pain. Light blinded me, voices haunted me and a constant knot of agony in my gut nailed me in place.

I had nothing to gauge the passage of time except the occasional touch of the faceless, hovering overhead, and the frequency with which they poured their dark, choking brew down my throat. It was as if I was drowning in the mattress, pulled down and under, all my cries going unregarded.

But I didn’t drown, and eventually, little by little, I began to swim back to the surface. Gradually, the moments when calm granted me rest grew more frequent, lasting longer each time. The voices haunting me quieted a notch further, until I realised it was my own cries that had ceased.

Eventually I opened my eyes to find not a faceless creature with hands of lead, but Roshi. She was sitting on the bed’s edge at my feet, propped against a bedpost, dozing. Her features were drawn and dark shadows rimmed her eyes.

The suite was silent, though distant sounds from the Turholm drifted in: the snuffling of the pigs as they hunted in the gardens outside my window, a clatter of hooves, footsteps in a nearby corridor. For a moment I lay still, relishing the pleasure of having my mind returned to me, though new physical discomforts crept over me, too. My back ached, stiff with lying down so long.

Before long dark memories, the scrape of the plate across the bench, prowled at the edge of my thoughts.

When I stretched, Roshi jerked awake, her gaze flying to me.

‘You look dreadful,’ I said.

She smiled, relieved. ‘You look worse.’

‘I feel worse,’ I said, shifting as a sharp pain ratcheted down the muscles of my left side. The sheets bore the rank odour of sickness in their weave. My mouth was dry and raw, and the ache in my head made thought slow and difficult. ‘What’s happened? Since the dinner, I mean,’ I said, trying to push myself up.

‘Don’t sit up,’ said Roshi, holding the edge of a cup to my lips and gently tipping it. The water was icy, cleaning the horrid taste from my mouth.

‘Not too much,’ she said, pulling the cup back. ‘I doubt your stomach is strong enough. You’ve had enough salep poured through you to turn you into an orchid yourself, and that was the nicest part of your treatment. It was … unpleasant.’

Her talk of orchids made no sense to me, but I had no inclination to learn the details of my treatment.

‘The leech fears permanent damage to your stomach,’ she added with a sorrowful look.

‘What