Page 13 of Heart of Fire (Royal Ice Dragons #3)

HANNA

I would never in a million years understand Dare.

But maybe I could understand this place where he came from, so I went out to learn all I could about the mines and this village at the border between two lords’ territory.

I blended seamlessly into the peasant world in my own kingdom, where I had practiced for years. I’d been curious to understand everything about the strange world I was born into, where the half-healed Scourge walked among us. Here, I was keenly aware of my ignorance. It would have been easier to learn with Dare at my side.

Except, of course, for the fact that he was unbearable.

It was harder too because in my kingdom, people were outside constantly, which is helpful for a chronic eavesdropper like myself. Here, everyone was hidden behind closed doors; even when they ventured outside, they drew scarves up to cover their faces from the cold.

I walked along the dingy little street looking at the unassuming faces of the ice-bricked houses. I wasn’t eager to go back into the pub. I’d rather find some women who could give me more information about village life.

A woman with a weathered and lined face carried a wash basket across my path.

People were almost always talkative when they were doing laundry. It was such a dull chore. Spies loved public laundry houses.

I ran back to Dare’s cottage, searched around for his discarded clothes, and ran back to follow her into the laundry house. It was the one and only time I intended to touch Dare’s dirty socks.

“Oh, Carrie, what are you doing here when you’ve got a sick baby at home to take care of?” one of the women called to her, looking up through the steam.

Though she sounded concerned, Carrie bristled. “Well, I’d rather not be here, I’d rather be with Elsie, but all her bedding is soiled. Would you have me leave the wee thing wrapped up in dirty blankets?”

No one noticed me as I lingered and pretended to pick through my wash, thoughtfully preparing for my own chores.

“No, of course not, but you could show some care for your neighbors and not come in spreading your child’s sickness around,” another woman snapped. She was hauling her still wet laundry into her basket, determinedly not looking at Carrie, who stood there ashen with her hands white-knuckled on the basket.

“She’s got an infection, she got so sick from that scrape,” Carrie said desperately. “She’s no threat to any of your kids.”

“An ‘infection’ she got in the mines when people have all been coming down with those strange illnesses,” another woman said. “It’s thoughtless of you.”

“And your poor little one, all alone while Tariv’s in the mine,” another woman added, with that sympathetic judgment that feels worse than any other.

“She’s asleep,” Carrie snapped. “She sleeps all the time now.”

My heart sank.

So if it was an infection, it sounded like it had swiftly progressed. I thought of the healing poultices I carried in my bag, though I feared that I would give too much away about who I was. They would expect only the Royals to have magic.

Still, they knew Dare had taken a wife, and it wouldn’t be surprising if he had found one among the nobles.

I took a step forward, still trying to decide what to say. The women all paused, side-eying me suspiciously, their conversation damned by the presence of a stranger.

“Well, I’ll be going,” another woman said briskly. She strode past me with her basket of still wet laundry on her hip.

The laundry house was hot despite the cold outside. Carrie looked as if she were on the verge of tears as she unbuttoned her coat determinedly.

“You shouldn’t be here,” another woman said a little more kindly.

“I’m not going to let her die in dirty sheets.” Carrie’s voice wavered.

“I’ll bring you over some bedding. This all needs to be sanitized, it can’t touch the rest of our laundry.” Her voice was gentle.

“Good morning,” I said, not sure how to insert myself into this intense conversation. “I couldn’t help overhearing.”

The same woman who had just been speaking so gently snorted as she looked up at me. “Seems you could have.”

“Forgive the intrusion,” I said, striving to sound sincere. As someone who often had to sound sincere as part of my job, I wasn’t convinced that my true everyday sincerity always came across anymore. “I have a poultice with me and some skill with healing. Just a little. Maybe I can help.”

Maybe they would assume I didn’t have much magic. I could be the bastard child of some noble and a peasant for all they knew.

But really, my healing powers were limited because my magic was shaped so differently. No matter how much Honor assured me that I had boundless power at my fingertips if I just knew how to grasp it, it always seemed to run through my fist like a handful of water.

“You’ve got skill with healing?” Carrie regarded me with a mix of suspicion and hope, her lips pressed into a tight line.

“Your kind usually don’t care much about us,” the elder woman said, her shoulders square as she studied me.

I couldn’t respond to the accusation. It was true. “Please, let me try.”

Their wariness was as thick as the steam rising from the laundry tubs, but they glanced at each other. The older woman shrugged. “What harm can she do?”

“She could kill her,” Carrie snapped back.

“Wee babe’s dying anyway. Worth trying something.”

The brittle honesty shocked me. Carrie turned and walked out of the laundry house, her back stiff, the basket on her hip. The only sign she had heard me or agreed to my offer was that she left the door open behind her, the wind whistling inside.

“I’m curious if you can make yourself useful,” the woman said behind me.

“I’m always curious about that too.” I abandoned the washing and followed the mother across the narrow streets.

Carrie left the door open as she walked inside her house too. I ducked under the low doorway. It was another one-room, crowded with the various things needed for living for three people, and therefore much more grim than Dare’s dwelling.

The room smelled of vomit and of pus; it overwhelmed the scent of the dried herbs hung from the rafters. The table was covered with dishes of half-dried food, as if all the parents’ attention had gone into taking care of their daughter while their world disintegrated around them.

“Her name is Elsie,” the mother said, her voice brittle.

I knelt beside the bed, taking in the pallor of Elsie’s skin and the dark lashes against her cheeks. “May I see her wound?”

“Sure,” the woman said, sounding resigned.

I unwrapped the wound and tried not to cringe; it was green and glistening with leaking fluid and I almost choked on the odor. The original damage didn’t look as if it had been that severe. But now it was killing the girl.

This was the kind of injury that was so easily cared for with magic. Even the most uncaring lord should be able to provide the simple care needed to keep people working, even if he wasn’t driven by mercy. “Doesn’t Lord Kustav have a healer he can send down to you?”

“He stopped bothering a while ago, given the rate at which we’re dying in his mines,” she said bitterly.

Right. I needed to know more about the sickness in the mines, but this woman would tell me far more once she saw her daughter healed. I removed the poultice and unwrapped the cloth from around it.

I placed it gently over Elsie’s wound, the poultice glowing beneath my fingers as my magic activated it. The bag of herbs warmed underneath my touch, not uncomfortably, but like the healing touch of the sun, if summer ever came to the Ice Kingdom.

When the little girl’s eyelashes fluttered open, Carrie let out a gasp of relief.

“Does that feel better, Elsie?” I asked.

She blinked up at me, revealing large brown eyes. They widened in alarm at the sight of a stranger.

I backed away, letting her mother gather her into her arms.

“Is she going to be all right?” the woman asked, her voice choked as she rocked the little girl in her arms.

“The poultice should draw out the infection, and as the healing works through her bloodstream, she should be recovered in a matter of hours,” I answered. Whatever deadly toxins existed in the mines had entered her bloodstream more readily when her skin was broken open, but it was easy to fix.

The woman began to cry, tears that seemed like a mix of relief and anger. “If that was all that was needed…”

“I’m sorry,” I said, though I wasn’t sure what I was apologizing for. Not being here sooner? Not being able to fix their lord’s cruelty?

It bothered me that Kustav was supposed to be one of Kaelan’s allies. And it also bothered me that Kaelan trusted Dare was working for him when Dare seemed to be on his own mission.

“Funny that you nobles have all the magic, all the power, while even our gods in the temple couldn’t heal my little girl. But you can.” Carrie’s face was unexpectedly furious as she watched me over her daughter’s shoulder.

I didn’t understand what I had done to offend her.

“She’s like a princess in a story,” the little girl murmured to her mother. “I want to give her a gift! Let me give her my weaving!”

“No,” the mother shook her head.

I was glad I had my back turned to them, because while the little girl’s words were sweet, I felt a flash of horror. I couldn’t be recognized as a princess.

Unfortunately, there was someone watching me. I was startled when I turned to find a pair of dark eyes, framed by harsh wrinkles, fixed on me intently.

The older woman from the laundry house had come in. She was staring at me, her gaze so intense I wasn’t sure what to make of it until she said quietly, “Thank you.”

“Of course.” I nodded goodbye to Carrie and Elsie and fled outside.

Unfortunately, the woman followed me.

“Of course? Of course that child was going to die,” she said as she closed the door softly behind us.

It made me sad to think that there was no communication with the miners while they were away and that Elsie’s father must be working now, thinking he might come home to a dead child.

And worse, that little girl would likely have to go back into the mine, where she might be injured all over again.

“My name is Perin,” the old woman told me as we started back across the street toward the laundry house.

Hoofbeats thundered down the street in the distance.

I groaned internally. Horses detest dragon shifters. At best, the horse’s obvious distaste often made people distrust me, the same way people distrusted those who are despised by dogs.

“Hurry.” Perin seized my arm and towed me with her. “That’s the lord now.”

I didn’t know why we were hurrying, but I rushed along.

We cut through an alleyway, narrow with spilled trash frozen into the ice. We emerged quickly onto another street, and a horse lunged in front of us, blocking our path.

I took a step back into the shadows, but she squared her shoulders, resigned. Running would just attract attention now.

The man looked down at us, arrogance written across his bearded face. The horse picked up its hooves nervously but didn’t bolt or throw its armored rider. Which would have been a nice distraction.

“My Lord, I don’t think you’ve seen this one before,” he called.

It took all my discipline to keep my eyes on the pebbled ice below our feet and to not look up at him. I didn’t want him to see my murderous intentions, which Kaelan had accused me of not hiding nearly well enough.

There was the slow sound of more hoofbeats growing louder as the lord came closer. Besides me, Perin had frozen like a rabbit in the midst of a hunt.

“What’s your name?” he demanded.

Perin spoke for me. “She’s a bit simple?—”

“Look up at me, girl.” The new voice was smooth and dripped with malice.

I schooled my face to an expression of fear before I looked up at Lord Kustav. He was older, old enough to have been lord of this land when Dare was just a boy just across the border. His hair fell in long curls around the shoulders of his ornamental armor.

If I called my fire, I could boil him in that armor like a Solstice goose.

He studied me with a glint in his gaze. “Pretty thing, aren’t you?”

Married thing , was what I wanted to say.

“She’s married, my lord,” the woman said.

“Is she?” he said, his voice mild. “And you lot always tell me the truth about that, don’t you?”

Her face was pale as she stared down at the ground. Perin’s obvious fear caused a protective surge to rush through me, but she pulled me away before I could respond, begging the lord’s pardon.

“Go on,” he said. “We’ll meet again, little girl.”

I put my arm through hers, keeping my face down toward the rough icy ground, as we hurried away.

He laughed behind us.