Sky Woman: Book One of The Empress Saga

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Meals needed to be rationed. The dates and peaches Enfri had stashed within her pockets were all she and Jin were going to get. After tossing away the pit of a date, Enfri looked at the mushrooms growing in a corner of the wellspring cave.

How bad could they be? she wondered, then immediately discarded the idea. If they were anything like skullcaps, a single bite could be fatal and hurt the whole time she spent dying.

Jin was wiping her mouth with the edge of a used bandage. It was heartening to see her in a sitting position. Her recovery was going well. Enfri supposed that Jin would carry the scars for the rest of her life, but she'd be alive to carry them.

After the last changing of her bandages, Jin hadn't had the nerve to put Enfri's dress back on. She could hardly be blamed. The blustering rag stank to the heavens and was now soaking in the runoff from the wellspring. In its stead, Jin wore her own leggings and the silk wrap around her upper chest. An immodest outfit, but Enfri's tattered shift was no better.

Jin had been unusually quiet— even for her— since the previous day. She accepted Enfri's treatments and directions, but was apparently unwilling to offer up any words of her own. She seemed preoccupied. Whatever her reasons, Jin was unable to look Enfri in the eye.

Enfri's stomach growled for more to eat. One peach and four dates remained of her food supply. Maddening, considering that a wealth of food lay just at the spire's base and likely even more in Jin's saddlebags. The interdiction put all that food out of reach, and there were other things Enfri wanted that lay on the wrong side of the cave entrance.

Her eyes fell on the two vials of oren sitting a few paces away. Jin wouldn't admit it, but she must have begun to feel the negative effects of withdrawals. On occasion, Enfri would see Jin staring at those bottles with a ravenous light in her eyes. Either them or the partial dose lying on the cave floor. The hungry look would then vanish as if it had never been.

"How long have we been in here?" Enfri asked her. "Two days?"

Jin nodded.

"There's the little bit of oren left? Maybe you should..."

Jin shook her head sharply. She must have intended on waiting as long as possible before taking the small dose remaining. It was only a sixth of the way full, but it was something.

She's at her limit, Enfri concluded. If she doesn't leave this cave by tonight, the oren withdrawal could kill her.

If things went on, Jin would soon decide that she needed the oren more than she needed a sky woman. When that happened, Enfri's reprieve would come to an end. Deebee hadn't yet returned after going off to think yesterday. No other way out of this situation had presented itself. What Enfri needed was more time.

She took stock of everything she had left. Other than the fruit, Enfri had one more linen bandage. The bottle of essenroot and nightshade remained, but that was worse than useless. Some sunwillow; it had proven effective before, but there wasn't much merit to being trapped in a cave with a hallucinating assassin. Enfri kept that close for a last resort.

The only other thing was a cured spark blossom. Enfri turned the dried, brown flower over in her fingers. Breathing burning spark blossom fumes was a stimulant and beneficial in fighting off viral sicknesses. Good for the lungs when used sparingly. Colds and flus of all kinds were driven off by the pungent smoke. The blossoms were also dreadfully habit forming. Enfri had scolded many goodmen over mixing a blossom or two into their pipe tobacco.

Enfri's mouth fell open as a memory came to her. Earlier that spring, Goodman Wainwright, a notorious smoker, had come down with bronchitis. His pipe habit was the first thing Enfri told him to quit, but his addiction and subsequent withdrawal turned him into an utter terror. Enfri had suggested to his oldwife that she have him burn a blossom every morning and before bed.