Chapter 324

He tried to read past the warning, expecting the system to tell him what had triggered it, but the pain sharpened before he could focus, and he groaned and pressed the heel of his hand against his temple. When he finally lifted his head, the hand on his shoulder was gone.

The taller Warlady had backed away to three paces, which was exactly far enough that he could not have reached her in a single step, and she had settled into a low, even stance with her knees slightly bent and her hands raised in front of her, open and ready. The shorter one had moved around to his left, so that the two of them held him between them at angles that would not let either get in the other’s way. Neither of them had drawn a weapon. What he felt instead was the air changing, thickening around them in a way he recognized from the morning at the pool when Mireille had stopped holding back her presence, except that these two were keeping theirs narrow and close, a pressure held ready to be used and not one being displayed. Their faces had changed as well. The taller one’s had gone carefully blank, like that of someone carrying out a procedure she had trained for and hoped never to need, and the shorter one’s had lost its color.

"Oh no," the shorter one said, barely above a whisper. "Is he turning into a Faded?" Her voice climbed on the last word, and he heard it clearly enough through the ringing.

"No, it’s not that." He raised an open hand toward them. "I just have this..."

"Keep that where I can see it," the taller one said, without moving. "Stay down."

He had meant to say that he had a headache. Then the ringing rose until he could barely hear himself, and he lost the rest of the sentence, and he realized that the word would not have been true anyway. A headache did not ring inside his skull without a source, and it did not arrive together with a warning that could not name its own cause. How could he tell them he was all right when he had no idea what had just put him on his knees?

System, what is causing this? he asked.

? [Diagnostic incomplete. Cause unknown.]

He had seen answers like that before, when he asked the system about people it knew nothing about, but never about something happening inside his own head, and the fact that it had nothing to offer frightened him more than the pain did.

He could not blame the women for what they were doing. Everything the Capital had ever taught the Royal Guard about a male who collapsed clutching his head would tell them to prepare for the worst, and from where they stood he looked exactly like the thing they had been trained to stop.

It did not end all at once. The next swell was the worst one, and he kept one hand braced against the wall and pressed his forehead against the other arm and breathed through it with his eyes shut. The one after it was smaller, and the one after that smaller still, and between them the pain began to loosen, first behind his eyes and then across his skull, like a hand slowly opening. The tone thinned until it was only a thread beneath everything else, and as it thinned he became aware of the two women speaking above him in low, quick voices, and then, a little at a time, he realized he could make out the words.

"He asked for a second," the taller one was saying, her voice level. "I’ve stood in front of three of them, and none of them ever asked me for anything."

"The briefings say it can start slowly," the shorter one answered. "A headache first, then the rest."

"Then we watch his eyes and we wait. I’m not sealing the whole wing over a man who’s still answering questions."

"Then I’m calling for a physician."

"Do it."

The shorter Warlady turned away and spoke into her communicator, keeping her voice low and flat as she gave their location on the upper level of the residence, reported one guest unwell but conscious and responsive, and asked for a physician to be sent to his suite. Zaeryn thought about telling her that was unnecessary, and then he thought about the ringing, and found that he could not claim it was.

"Tell me your name," the taller one said. She had not moved out of her stance.

"Zaeryn Noctis." His ears were still ringing faintly, though he could follow what she said.

"Where are you?"

"The Crown Guest Residence. The upper hallway." He swallowed. "It started a while ago. I thought I could keep walking, but moving made it worse."

"Look at me."

He raised his head. She crouched in front of him, keeping an arm’s length between them, and studied his eyes in the amber light for several seconds, first one and then the other, with the focus of someone who knew exactly what she was looking for and hoped not to find it.

"Your eyes haven’t changed," she said at last.

The pressure in the air let go all at once, and he only understood how heavy it had been when it was gone. Her hands came down, and to his left the shorter Warlady let out a long breath.

"I told you it wasn’t that," Zaeryn said.

"You told us after you were on the floor," the taller one replied, though there was less edge in it than the words suggested.

"Sorry," the shorter one said. She still looked pale. "You looked like the briefing."

"It’s all right." He meant it. "I’d have thought the same."

"Does it still hurt?" the taller one asked.

He turned his head toward her carefully. There was a little soreness behind his eye, and he waited for the movement to bring the pain back. When it did not, he let out a breath he had not known he was holding.

"It’s easing up," he said. "I’d like to go back to my room."

She offered him her hand, and he took it. She let him set the pace as he got to his feet and kept her grip on his forearm until he was steady, and his legs held, although they felt as if they belonged to someone who had run a long way. His shirt was damp against his back and his free hand had begun to tremble, so he put it in his coat pocket where nobody would see.

The walk back took longer than the walk out. The two Warladies no longer stayed behind him but kept to either side, close enough that he could hear them breathing, and he listened for the tone at every step. The thread of it lingered for a little while, so faint that he could not tell whether he was hearing it or remembering it, and by the time they reached his door it had stopped altogether. The hallway looked exactly as it had before, and it did not feel like the same hallway.

"We’ll be right outside until the physician gets here," the taller Warlady told him.

"Thank you," Zaeryn said, and it sounded inadequate to him, and he went inside.

The suite was as he had left it. He sat down on the sofa beside his slate, and when he glanced at the screen there was still no reply from Sage. Now that he was alone he turned his head a little farther to one side, and then the other, and then leaned forward until his elbows rested on his knees. He could not feel so much as an ache behind his eye. That should have reassured him, but he had felt perfectly well when he walked out of the suite, too.

What the hell was that?