“You’ve been ill for two weeks.”
“What?”
Vlad sank into the chair beside her bed, his elbows resting on his knees and hands clasped beneath his chin. The posture was almost prayer-like.
“The fever lasted ten days,” he continued, his voice low and strained. “After that, you were unconscious for another five. It seemed like you might…” He trailed off as though finishing the sentence would bring the nightmare to life again.
His broad hands, now covering his mouth, trembled slightly as his gray eyes stared into the distance. The past fortnight replayed relentlessly in his mind—a torment that only he remembered. Words spoken long ago by Ivan during a bitter winter pierced his thoughts like a harpoon:
“While fever can be deadly, I am a competent priest, not one of those quacks.”
