I Built This City Chapter 62: Chapter 62

Read chapter 62 of I Built This City by ThePudding on NovelPedia.

Jack He awoke in darkness, with a dull ache in his arms and the weight of exhaustion over him. Even when Jack opened his eyes, he saw nothing, aside from a faint red blob on his left. He tried to reach for his eyes, only to find his arm was sluggish… and weighted down, as if he were restrained. His body was warm—almost uncomfortably so—and his throat parched. With some effort, he thought back to where he might be. He’d gotten turned around—he remembered that much. It was embarrassing, because he was pretty good at navigating the forest. Somehow, he’d ended up in a part he wasn’t familiar with… probably part of the prohibited area, now that they had a new lord. He shouldn’t have chased the hare so far. The snow had come down faster. Not a storm, but enough to blanket the area quickly, and he remembered clearly the ground giving way into the stream. He’d gotten soaked, desperately looking for a place to stop and build a fire. A fire which had sputtered away minutes after he’d gotten it going. That’s right. He’d given himself up for dead. As he came to his senses, he felt the snug blankets around his body, pinning his arms to his side. One side was warmer than the other, and the faint crackle of a fire reached his ears. Someone had found him before he’d lost his life, and was warming him. Belatedly he realized he was naked, the blanket the only thing giving him modesty. This only mattered when he heard the feminine voices nearby. “… Fighter if you can get her alone. Once she trusts you to keep her in check, she acts almost exactly like Apprentice.” “Really? I’d never thought she’d be the one to keep those traits.” “We normally don’t show our differences when together, but we have different ideas of how to live our lives if we ever go our own way.” “It wouldn’t bother you, being separated?” “That would depend on—oh, our guest is awake.” Maybe it was the faint muffling of his hearing, but Jack struggled to tell the difference between the voices. They all sounded like Bea, the girl that had started working at the inn half a year ago. He didn’t know her that well, but he’d thought her voice was distinctive. That he couldn’t tell the difference between these was disorienting. He’d barely seen Trisha, the owner of the village that had appeared out of nowhere, but he knew that was Bea’s twin sister… maybe they were relatives as well? The conversation made no sense to him. Another attempt to move loosened the blanket, and also caused the pillow at the side of his head to reveal it was a furry animal. He heard the cat mewl and grumpily move away, leaving the side of his head that was facing away from the fire suddenly colder than the rest. The sudden movement gave him pause, and he stopped struggling. “Don’t move about too much,” the sweet voice murmured, much closer now. “We managed to save your fingers and toes, you should be fine, but your eyes will take another day or two to fully heal. Maybe not that long, but we are being careful. You had some severe snow blindness.” Jack tried to say something, but struggled with his dry tongue. Before he could wrestle it into behaving for him, he felt something propping up his head, and a wooden cup pressed to his lips. Warm but not scalding bone broth assailed his nose, the herbs and scent strong enough to cut through his congestion. He drank slowly, unsure if his stomach could handle too much. “Take it easy. Don’t worry, you can handle solid food, but we want to give you some liquid first.” “Do you recognize this one, Cobbler?” “Yeah, he’s from the village. Jack, I think. Once he can talk we can ask him if he knows Bea.” Jack didn’t feel hungry, but he drained the cup anyway. He knew better than to argue with his caretakers. He was sure that there were multiple girls here, now… though he was having real trouble distinguishing their voices. “Scout should be back in a few hours. If he’s from the village, they’re probably looking for him.” “Almost certainly. We don’t want them stumbling on us befor