A Shadow in the Ember (Flesh and Fire 1)

I turned and left then, knowing that nothing of the cranky woman was left in this realm. She had entered the Shadowlands, passing through the Pillars of Asphodel that Ash had spoken about. I walked the coast, confident that Odetta had been welcomed into the Vale and was likely already complaining about something.

I woke the morning before the Rite with a throbbing headache that didn’t go away, no matter how much water I forced myself to drink throughout the morning.

Training was sheer torture as the headache managed to spread into an ache that settled in my jaw and brought queasiness to my stomach. The stifling heat of the tower room didn’t help.

Sir Holland circled me, sweat glistening off the dark skin of his forehead. I tracked him wearily. He lunged at me, and I should’ve easily blocked his kick, but my movements were slow. His bare foot connected with my shin. A pained breath punched out of my lungs as I hobbled back on one leg.

“You okay?” Sir Holland demanded.

“Yeah.” I bent over, rubbing my shin.

“You sure?” He came to my side, dragging the back of his hand over his forehead. “You’ve been sloppy all afternoon.”

“I feel sloppy,” I muttered, straightening.

Concern pinched Sir Holland’s face as his gaze swept over me. “You look a little pale.” He planted his hands on his waist. “What’s going on? Is it Odetta?”

I shook my head as sadness flickered through me. It had been two days since Odetta had passed, and I’d caught myself heading to her floor to check in on her at least a dozen times before realizing there was no reason to do so. “I just have a bad headache, and my stomach feels a bit off.”

“Does your jaw hurt?”

I frowned. “How do you know?”

“Because you’re rubbing your face,” he pointed out.

Oh, I totally was. I stopped doing that. “My jaw hurts a little,” I admitted. “Maybe I caught something, or a tooth has gone bad.”

“Maybe,” he murmured, and my frown increased. “Go ahead and take the rest of the day off. Get some rest.”

Normally, I would’ve protested and trained through whatever discomfort I felt, but all I wanted to do was sit down. Or lay down. “I think I’ll do that.”

Sir Holland nodded, and after giving him an awkward wave goodbye, I turned for the door. He spoke out. “I’ll bring something up for you that I think will help.”

“I don’t want a sleeping potion,” I told him, reaching the door.

“It won’t be that.”

The throbbing and gnawing ache in the pit of my stomach had intensified by the time I made it back to my chambers. I barely managed to peel off my clothing and change into an old men’s shirt that had been left behind in the laundry. As oversized as it was, the hem reached my knees. It wasn’t as light as my night rail, but it was all I had the effort for.

A knock sounded on my bedchamber door a little while later. It was Sir Holland, and as promised, he carried a tankard and a pouch.

“What is this?” I asked as he handed the items to me, and I looked down at the steaming, dark liquid.

“A little bit of chasteberry, chamomile, fennel, willow, and peppermint,” he said, lingering at the doorway. “It’ll help.”

I sniffed the liquid, brows lifting as I sat at the foot of my bed. The scent was sweet, minty, and earthy. “It smells…unique.”

“That it does. But you need to drink all of it, and you should drink it fast. Okay? You don’t want the potion to cool any more than it already has.”

I nodded, taking a long drink. It didn’t taste bad but wasn’t particularly easy to swallow either.

Sir Holland sat on the edge of the bed, his gaze fixed on the sunlight drifting through the small window. “You know what I was thinking about? The conversation we had a while back when I asked you what you were.”

“Yeah.” My brow scrunched. “You said I was a warrior.”

Smiling faintly, he nodded. “I did. I’ve been thinking about that. About who you remind me of.”

I was half afraid to hear this. “Who?”

“Sotoria.”

It took me a moment to remember who that was. “The girl so frightened by a god that she fell to her death from the Cliffs of Sorrow?” I wasn’t sure if Sotoria was more myth than reality, but I was kind of offended. “What about me makes you think I’d run off the side of a cliff?”

“Sotoria wasn’t weak, Sera. Her being frightened by the god was only a part of her story.”

“Wasn’t the other part her being dead?”

Wry amusement settled into his features. “The young maiden’s story didn’t end with her death. You see, the one who ultimately caused her death believed that he was in love with her.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” I said, relieved to feel the ache in my head already lessening, “but he only saw her picking flowers. He didn’t speak to her or anything. So, how did he believe that he was in love with her?”