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Consciousness returns to her, drop by hazy drop. Everything is very warm, and her mouth is very dry, like her tongue has been wrapped in cotton wool. She shifts, trying to roll over onto her other side, and is immediately rewarded with a jagged lance of pain tearing up her right side.
Ow.
"Don't move."
It takes all of Nova's focus to open her eyes. Has controlling her eyelids always been so hard? Taking shallow breaths against the pain radiating through her, she screws up her focus and bullies her eyelids into opening.
She's not in any room she recognizes. It's too dark to be an infirmary, the bedding and drapery on the magnificent four-poster bed too lavish, too ornate. A fire burns merrily in an ornately outfitted hearth across the room, and scattered around her is the detritus of healing. Bandages, pitchers and bowls of water, bloodstained towels, empty bottles.
And sitting in an indecently large armchair by the side of the bed is one Viago de Riva, looking as stormy as ever as he turns the page of his book.
Nova stares at him, at him nonchalantly reading as she continues to come back to her body bit by bit. Curiously, Viago's eyes don't seem to move on the page he's just turned to. It could be a trick of the flickering light in the fireplace. She stretches out her leg on the side that doesn't hurt like a bitch and closes her eyes again.
"Where are we?"
"A villa on the outskirts of Avira, in the Weyrs." There's sound of a page turning. "Until very recently, the property of one Leonello Covazzi. It was not wise to move you very far, given the…extent of your injuries."
Ah. That explained a lot. Nova swallows thickly. Her mouth is so dry. "So Covazzi's dead."
"As a doornail. Caprice ensured what little was left of my half-brother would be an exemplary message sent to the rest."
Nova sighs, the sound turning into an involuntary whimper of pain - and then hears the book snap shut before the weight of it skids down the bed, near her feet.
"Here." A bottle uncorks near her ear, and then she can smell the sickly-sweet greenish smell of one medicinal brew or another beneath her nose. The scent makes her gag; she frowns, head shaking from side to side as much as she can.
"You are in pain," Viago says, disapproving. The cold glass rim of the bottle presses against her bottom lip. "Take something for it."
Nova shakes her head again, and tries to lift a hand to bat it away before Viago finally relents. She only just woke. Even if her side's in agony, she does not want to go back to sleep. "Water. Please."
The cool, lush sound of water splashing from pitcher to cup is the sweetest sound she's ever heard, and she forces her eyes back open so she can take the cup. Viago holds it steady for her as she drinks, great noisy gulps of it, the sweetest thing she's ever tasted. Half of it spills down her to the sheets but she scarcely pays it any mind, focusing instead on draining the cup, and then a second. Her hand closes over Viago's when he helps her to drink again, the leather of his glove skin-warm even as cool water drips down their hands.
Sated, finally, Nova sags back into the bed and closes her eyes again. The cup's set with a soft clink of glass on hardwood on the bedside table, and then Viago settles back in his chair. She hears him exhale softly, and, licking the last remaining drops of water from her lips, wonders if he wishes he hadn't tossed his book to the side.
"So your half-brother is dead."
"One of them, yes."
Nova doesn't remember the moment of Leonello Covazzi's death. She does remember the company of mercenaries that shouldn't have been there and yet, somehow, were. Clearly Covazzi had caught wind of the premature demise of the last three of Viago's half-siblings and made some investments in his own well-being. Viago was perfectly capable of handling himself, but Nova can now recall, with perfect clarity, the flash of a hired longsword as its wielder sought to cut down the leader of the Crows.
One man and his two loyal assassins, cutting a bloody swath through the bastard progeny of the King until they could grasp for the line of succession. In the moment Nova hadn't thought. She had merely moved between that sword and Viago, the only one of the entire lot worthy of being called King.
It was worth it. It was all worth it. Even as Nova takes shallow breaths, feeling the fire of the wound every time she moves.
"Mmm. Pardon the pun, Highness, but your half-brother was a real bastard."
"He was certainly tenacious, I will give him that," Viago muses. He sounds…contemplative. Nova cracks an eye open to see him in his armchair, arms crossed, absently rubbing his thumb along the edge of his jaw. There's a strange, contemplative set to his brow, a distance in his eyes.
"Did you know him?" she asks.
Viago scoffs. "Hardly. Covazzi's mother was the younger sister of a minor count here in the Weyrs; apparently her elder brother had the good sense to keep her away from court after our father was too…attentive to her. He knew he was a royal bastard, of course, but if a royal bastard decides to lay low and keep to his agrarian pursuits, then apparently he may be an exception to the rule of Crows, or exile."
There's a distinct bite of bitterness at the last three words. Nova falls quiet, wondering if, after everything, Viago would prefer to be a nobody of minor nobility out here tending to the affairs of vinyards and wheat harvests, not poisons and contracts.
"For what it's worth, I don't think you would be very happy as a gentleman farmer," she offers at last.
"Happiness is immaterial," Viago retorts. "Efficiency, accuracy, and self-control are the only standards to which I should hold myself."
"Suit yourself, Highness." Nova tries tugging the bedsheets up further and immediately regrets it. Viago's frown deepens, and then he's standing over her, pulling the sheets further up to her chin. It's a…surprisingly tender gesture, from the Fifth Talon.
At the beginning of this mad endeavor, when subterfuge was cast aside and Viago had - begrudgingly - revealed his ambitions to the two of them, Nova and Caprice had sworn their loyalty to him. Their oath, that they would see Viago installed as King of Antiva, or die trying. It was one thing to swear an oath, to know that it is only three of them trying to overturn an entire line of succession.
It's something else entirely to have someone who holds your oath of devotion fretting over you in an infirmary bed and tucking you in. Nova does not know what to say, not even to thank him. For a long moment they look at one another, Nova exhausted and sore, Viago standing awkwardly at the edge of the bed, as if unsure why he did that.
"You should - take some more medicine," he says hurriedly. "You're still in pain."
"It's not so bad," Nova says softly. "You're taking care of me. I'll recover."
"Yes, well." Viago clears his throat, looking away. "You…you did not have to do that. For me. I could have handled one mercenary with a sword. And now you're - you didn't have to risk yourself unnecessarily."
"You have my oath, Highness. What else could I have done?"
Apparently Viago doesn't have an answer for that, only medicine. Nova watches him uncork the bottle once more, and though she begins to pull a hand from beneath the blankets to reach for it herself, he only shakes his head and holds it up to her lips for three measured sips before pulling it away.
"Rest," he says. "We will return to Salle as soon as you're well enough to ride. Caprice and I can handle the next contract."
Nova struggles to open her eyes once more, given that her eyelids have suddenly grown exponentially heavier. "I can - with you two, I can…"
"Rest," Viago says, steel in his tone. "That is an order, Nova."
Though she wants to resist, to object at being left behind, a wonderful warmth is spreading through her veins like honey, dulling the edges of the pain. Nova sinks back into the pillows, darkness rising up to greet her. The one sensation that she holds onto before losing consciousness is the scent and feeling of leather, butter-soft and blissfully warm, stroking the skin of her brow.