nearest hostel. Jinhai asked if he should find a physician, but Tauran hesitated. Kalai had told him of all the uncomfortable things physicians had done to him in an attempt to fix his fainting condition, and so long as they didn’t know if that was what this was, Tauran didn’t feel too compelled to put Kalai through a series of experiments, especially while he was unconscious and unable to consent.
Luckily, the hostel wasn’t far. Tauran gave Jinhai money to pay for a room. And then it was just the three of them.
Tauran got Kalai as comfortable as he could on the plain room’s single bed. His skin was burning, beads of sweat clinging to his face, so Tauran pushed the blankets aside and rolled them up at the foot of the bed.
“Come on, sweetheart,” Tauran murmured. He brushed Kalai’s sweat-damp hair back. Twenty-five minutes. “You’re starting to worry me, you know.”
Kalai was still, as if in a deep sleep. His breathing had slowed from the rapid gasps in the mountain to something more normal, but there was no sign he felt Tauran’s touch or heard his voice.
A soft sound alerted Tauran to Jinhai still standing behind him in the center of the room. Jinhai writhed his hands, shifting from one foot to the other.
“Thank you for your help, Jinhai,” Tauran said, turning to face him. “I couldn’t have done this without you.”
Jinhai gave him a small smile. “I will go up,” he said, and nodded. “Up. And ask.” He pointed at the ceiling, then raised his eyebrows in question, searching for understanding.
“Sure,” Tauran said. Jinhai had already spent a lot of time with them and away from his studies. “But the wild dragons will have to wait until Kalai is better.” There was no way he was leaving Kalai to go back up there alone.
“Shio-vayu, Hala,” Jinhai, in formal greeting, raising both hands to his chest. He was out of the door before Tauran had even completed his own farewell.
Tauran sighed softly, gazing at Kalai’s pale face. His expression was tense. Was he battling the doroxian even in his sleep? Tauran bit his bottom lip, then bit down harder, giving the blurriness of his vision another reason than the ache in his chest. He hadn’t thought this would be so hard. But in a foreign land, barely able to communicate, and without Leyra and Arrow around, he felt almost as lonely as he had in the years before returning to Valreus. He squashed a desperate urge to go outside and call Leyra to him. He didn’t want to take his eyes off Kalai for even a second. “It’ll be okay,” he said, taking Kalai’s limp hand and holding it tight. “I’m looking after you.”
* * *
The small hostel offered a meal service, announced by the ringing of a bell. Tauran stayed where he was, gently wiping the sweat from Kalai’s forehead and checking to make sure he didn’t get too hot or too cold. Tauran didn’t know what else to do, felt absolutely powerless. His pocket watch lay open on the bedside table. Three hours had passed since Kalai had fallen ill and he still hadn’t woken. When was the last time Kalai had eaten and drunk? That morning? At breakfast? Surely, he needed to drink. He’d dehydrate if he didn’t wake up.
Tauran could do nothing but wait. Wait and sit and stare at Kalai’s closed eyes and long dark lashes, his slightly parted lips, the beautiful, sculpted features of his face. His skin, which had darkened to a deep gold while they’d been on the road, was nearly as pale as Tauran’s.
Eventually, Tauran’s leg began to hurt, and he stood and walked in circles, then sat back down, but it didn’t help.
The hostel fell quiet. Outside, the moon rose, cutting in and out of frame in the many-paned window before descending too high for Tauran to see.
Tauran’s leg felt locked in a vice meant to crumble his bones to dust. He rubbed the muscle above the knee, but he had little hope of replicating the effects of Kalai’s talented hands.
The telltale sound of rushing wind under wings startled Tauran from his trance-like focus. Straightening, he listened. Did he imagine the clicking of claws against pavement, the deep breaths through large lungs?
“Arrow?” he called. Even a Swiftwing wouldn’t fit through the doors of the hostel, but Tauran was just about ready to let the dragons stick their whole heads through the window for a shred of company.