Total pages in book: 169
Estimated words: 161535 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 808(@200wpm)___ 646(@250wpm)___ 538(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 161535 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 808(@200wpm)___ 646(@250wpm)___ 538(@300wpm)
“Hush.” His voice is low and soothing, and he continues to trace fingertips over my face, as if he’s memorizing me. “It’s the very smallest bit of magic.”
“I’m not sure it’s worth it,” I say sleepily. I should tell him to get off me, but the weight of his body over mine is comforting, and I’m hazy with endorphins. There’s nothing I want more than to drop off to sleep again. “Gonna go back to bed.”
“I’ll get a towel to clean up,” he whispers, and nips my ear. “As for it being worth it or not, haven’t you realized yet I’d do anything for you?”
Chapter
Thirty-Six
One Month Later
I’m painstakingly drawing the veins on a nettle leaf when my vision blurs and my head throbs painfully.
“That’s enough for today,” I say aloud to the books around me. I blow out the candle on my desk and stand up, stretching. I’ve been working night and day on the books, carefully drawing out images of plants, bodies, and how to prepare the medicine, and my body is feeling it. My shoulders lock up when I sit down to work. My lower back twinges and is supported by fluffy pillows on a high-backed chair. My wrist hurts from trying to force a feather quill to do the same work as a normal ballpoint pen. My eyes get tired because of the low light, and it gives me headaches.
In short, it sucks.
But oh, the progress we’ve made. It’s been about six weeks since I started, and I’ve got nearly a full book of solutions for the local village, everything from pain relievers to decongestants to healing burns. Most of it is surface level cures but I’m feeling good about it. If we can help with the smaller issues, they won’t turn into bigger ones. I’ve got all kinds of plans for a second book because one won’t be enough.
Rubbing my shoulders as I walk a few paces around the monastery floor, I stretch again and wince at how stiff I am. I hurt all over, too. It’s like one big body-wide toothache. “Now if my body could just keep up.”
Time for a shoulder rub and a break. I tidy up my materials, moving my chair to its place by the hearth again, returning the pillow to the bed, and putting away the inks and quills. Omos has cheerfully supplied everything. I feel so guilty about using his supplies, but he reassures me that generosity is the way of his goddess, and he will accept no payment. I’ll go along with it…for now. I’m going to have to figure out how to repay him in the future, though. I wish I had the gold necklaces I’d been showered with when I first arrived.
That feels like a million years ago.
I head outside, the bright afternoon sunlight in my eyes. After spending all day inside the dark monastery, it’s blinding. I raise my hand to my brow, squinting at my surroundings and looking for Kalos. There’s a chill on the wind, storm clouds in the distance, and I shiver. We don’t have warmer clothes. It’s not something I’ve been focused on—my entire drive has been around my book.
Or around Kalos. I fully admit I’ve been dickmatized…and it’s been awesome.
The monk stands in the road, framed with sunlight, and he’s talking to two men with heavy packs on their backs. Pilgrims, then. Omos waves at me, all cheerfulness. The man has never met a stranger. I wave back and go head towards the goat pasture to find Kalos. Omos wants to host every single person that passes through, but newcomers make me nervous. He told us he’s been robbed three times in the last year and doesn’t mind because “his goddess would want him to share.” I mind, though, and I’m very aware that Kalos’s presence needs to remain a secret if we’re going to be safe. Omos has agreed that while we’re staying with him, guests sleep in the barn for everyone’s safety, but I don’t want anyone lingering around, either.
This isn’t our house, of course—it belongs to Omos and the other missing monks—so I can’t dictate how Omos handles his home. After all, we’re staying here out of his generosity, too. But that doesn’t mean I have to be easy about it.
I start hiking across the grassy pastures. The goats are grazing at the farther pastures because the nearer ones are shorn clean, and as I walk, I realize some of the aches in my body lift. We’re too far apart, then, me and Kalos. We’re stretching our spirit-tether. No wonder I’m so achy.
After a short hike to the back of the grassy pasture, near the bee hives, I find Kalos. He’s reclining in the tall grass, humming to himself as he weaves together a grass crown. He has a long stem of grass hanging from his mouth, and his silvery hair ruffles in the breeze. It hasn’t grown out any since we cut it, and it makes me wonder if it’ll grow at all, because he isn’t human. He hasn’t sprouted a single beard hair, either. I know because I’ve licked every inch of his jaw and face. Do his nails grow, I wonder idly. Does it even matter?