Page 14

A s I leave the outpost, air suddenly coils around me with telltale force. Before I can resist, it reels me backwards, depositing me at Quin’s side. His hand presses against my back, steadying me, though the heat of it feels more like something unspoken—and reprimanding.

I wince-smile. “Ah, there you are!”

He doesn’t believe for a second that I’ve been looking for him and he’s half right. I’d been walking blindly, my stomach sunk low and my mind lost in thoughts. Those thoughts, though, were predominately Quin-related. Still are.

I follow him down the hill to a hired buggy and make the way back to his inn. He doesn’t push me to talk; nor do I offer to. I don’t know how. What’s the best way to run away from a king I’d once told off for doing the very same thing? I can’t use his ‘can’t be responsible for you’ line; neither would I get a chance to hit his paralysing acupoints.

His tactic of riling me up and angering me hadn’t made me leave willingly, but perhaps that was a personality thing. It didn’t work on me, but Quin trying it must mean he believes it to be a tactic that’d work on him .

I nod to myself as I climb the stairs and follow him to his chambers. I’ll have to restrain him somehow. So he doesn’t chase after me and make the whole process difficult.

A streak of dirt running down his cloak has my plan uniting. I clear my throat and speak to his nape. “Your clothes have drakopagon pitch on them.” I sniff, almost inhaling a lungful of his hair when he steps backwards. “Still smell of smoke, too.”

His cane makes a light snick when he turns. It lands very close to my leg. His dark eyes hold mine cautiously.

I fidget. “It’s been a long day. Bathing is in order.” I force a smile. “You first, your majesty.”

He starts to frown and stops upon glancing at his dirty attire. He gives me a warning look and orders me to come along.

I wait outside the bathing chamber while Quin strips and plunges into flowered depths. When he calls me in, I come, but not before I spot an aklo trundling across the yard with the king’s requested clean clothing. I halt him quietly, duck inside to a steam-filled room, and gather the sullied laundry.

Quin eyes me, and I tell him an aklo is here to collect them. That I’d rather we weren’t interrupted. He waves water droplets, allowing me to carry on, and I rush back to the aklo and dump the clothes atop the pristine ones.

“W-what—”

I pat his shoulder. “Your guest has requested no one enter for the next hour.”

“But his—”

“An hour.”

The aklo leaves and I nod, momentarily satisfied, before the achy sludgy sinking stomach returns and I slouch back into expression-veiling steam.

“That sigh. Explain,” Quin says.

I crouch at the edge of the bath, keeping my distance, but it’s no use. Quin wades towards me, his bare chest and the familiar lines of his flutette emerging through the steam. It’s quite the sight, and for a moment, I’m lost in a stare. Until he grabs one of my feet and topples me onto my arse. With deft hands, he strips my boots and socks and casts them behind me.

“Explain,” he says as my feet drop into the water.

The heat surrounding my soles adds to a shiver that’s already rolling though me. I glance nervously towards my boots and then back at Quin leaning in the corner beside me. His face is angled pensively towards the water’s surface and droplets slide down the side of his face, his nose.

I open my mouth and shut it again. What to say, to break things with finality? So he knows there’s no hope? So no lingering feelings remain?

“Last night”—my head jerks up and I clamp the sides of the bath, breathless. What had happened last night that he’d been so upset this morning? He clears his throat and starts again. “Last night you told me you were leaving.”

I’d told him?

“This morning you took all your belongings. Your grandfather’s books. You left.”

I swallow. This was the cause of that dark assessing look outside the constabulary. This was why he strapped me to his side all day. “I—”

Quin raises his head and his expression flashes with exasperation. “You promised me you’d say goodbye.”

“I—I—” I scramble to my feet. “Then, goodbye!”

I get one step away from the bath before I’m met by a sudden, ferocious wind. It buffets me relentlessly, and despite how fruitless it is, I push with all my strength and stagger against it. I whirl around, glaring at him where he leans against the side of the bath with a frown and flattened lips. “You can’t keep me here. It’s dangerous. Let me leave. I’m tired of following you around.”

“I don’t believe you.” His eyes pierce mine and I’m slammed with that underground kiss.

My cheeks burn, and I curl my fists. “That was nothing,” I say and laugh. “A momentary whim. A good story. That’s all. There was an opportunity. I took advantage. Meant nothing else. Let me go.”

The wall of wind behind me eases to stillness.

I take the most confident steps I can to collect my boots. Quin is watching me quietly. I’m afraid he’ll notice my trembling fingers, my wobbly knees. Afraid he’ll think that moment meant more... It didn’t. It really didn’t. I’m shaky because I have to leave him when I vowed to help, when I promised to always be by his side. It feels wrong, like failure, like some kind of betrayal...

I shove my boots on without looking back, and this time I make it to the door before I’m stopped. Not with wind this time, but by the splash of him coming out of the water, the snick of the cane he summoned, the tone of his voice.

He doesn’t use kingly authority with me, yet his voice is firm—unyielding, demanding. The voice of an upset friend. “Cael.”

I stiffen and stand there, breathing in and out, unable to continue forward, nervous to turn back.

“Talk,” he says. “Don’t take me for a fool that believes you don’t care.”

His words ring in my head and my chest rises and falls. It takes me a long time to find words, and when I do they come out strange to my ears. Gravelly, weak. “I’m trying to make it easier... to leave.”

“Throwing out hurtful words will haunt you later.”

There’s already a sick guilt churning my gut. I palm my face and rub it. Slowly, I turn—and keep going full circle with a yelp. “Get back into the water!”

“I know why you got rid of my clothes. I want to make it clear: I don’t care. I’ll chase you until I get a proper goodbye.”

His promise sends a long shiver through me and I flap a hand for him to submerge himself. When I hear the telltale sounds of him slipping into water, I steady my breathing, remove my boots, and inch to the edge of the bath.

I’m flustered and hot and I can only lift my gaze as far as his flutette. Water stirs; each ripple from his chest to my feet laps against me, weighted with expectation. I dip my fingers into the water to halt it and sigh when the water sifts between them.

“You’re not objecting to my actual departure,” I murmur.

“No.”

For all I’m trying to leave, I don’t like how simple this no is.

Quin speaks again, “That’s not an easy ‘no’.”

I raise my eyes. His lips are pressed in a sad, wistful smile.

He leans back against the edge of the bath, lips pressed with exasperation and something softer—or perhaps, raw. “I never wanted to like you,” he murmurs in resignation. “But you’re like a weed, Cael. No matter how many times I try to pull you out, you keep coming back. Persistent and unstoppable.”

“A weed!” I kick a spray of water over his cheek.

His bittersweet smile momentarily sweetens. “You wore away my resolution. I knew you cared about my brother, fancied yourself in love with him, but whether you were aware of it or not, there’s always been a pull between us.”

“That’s not—it’s not—”

He slams a wet finger to my mouth. “Don’t.”

“But—” my voice is smothered by more of his fingers and I give up with a glare over them.

“One day you’ll acknowledge it.” He drops his fingers from my lips and uses them to rub between his eyebrows. “For now, I’ll begin.” He hauls in a breath and lets it out again past the angry grit of his jaw. “When you were... when you lost your magic...” His hands ball at his sides and my throat feels like it’s doing something similar. I look away.

“I couldn’t contain my feelings,” he murmurs. “It’s more painful to see the one you like hurt than to be hurt yourself. It made me volatile. For the first time, I got angry with my brother, and I could feel him starting to resent me, too. Taking you from his home...” his voice breaks. “It began fracturing us.”

I swallow hard, whisper, “I know, and I won’t let that happen.”

Water ripples around me again and each break over my ankles has a way of making my eyes sting. “This is why I must leave,” I say. “Why I tried to sneak away, lashed out with words that would hurt you. That kiss...”

Quin watches, waits. His eyebrow quirks but his lips are set in a firm line. Ready for whatever I’ll say.

I’m shaking now, the ripples are coming from me and slapping him. “It wasn’t an opportunity. Wasn’t for a good story.”

He’s still waiting, and I kick the water irritably. “It just happened. I couldn’t help it. Something overcame me.”

His lips twist as if he was studying me and coming to a briefly satisfying conclusion, and I swallow and shake my head. “It was just a kiss. Nothing more. A terrible thing to do when I promised your brother...”

Quin shuts his eyes.

I continue, “We must part ways. But I approached it wrongly. I should have acknowledged the journey we’ve shared together. I should thank you for supporting, encouraging, and protecting me at each step.” I lift my gaze and meet a quietly watchful one. “Can we leave everything between us as memories?”

It takes him a few steadying breaths before he answers, “As a man, I don’t want to. As a king, I know I should. As a brother, I will.”

My eyes burn; I slap them and haul in a stinging lungful of air that still resonates with Quin’s magic. I want to leap up and take my leave so I can find somewhere quiet to... grieve. I tighten my resolve and smile.

It wobbles. “What will you do next?”

“I’ll follow my cousin to the mountains, collect her witnesses before winter sets in, and bring them back to the royal city to attest to my uncle’s guilt.”

“What if it doesn’t work?”

“It must. Nicostratus will help me.”

Brothers working side by side. They have better chances this way. “If fate should ever have us meet again... should I avoid you? Pretend I don’t know you?”

Quin is quiet, and I understand.

He says, “What about you? What will you do next? The Medicus Contest—” He cuts off, recalling he’d lost my soldad.

Even if I had it... In the end it’s a wooden badge with a few carvings on it. Completing the soldad was never the true goal. Carrying it stood for something more. Healing. Helping. Saving lives. Advancing medicine. Education. Equality. Responsibility.

All things that exist beyond vitalian magics.

How prejudiced I’ve been. How privileged—even as a par-linea. My soldad isn’t something to be checked off to feel satisfied. I don’t believe Quin ever meant that when he gave it to me. There’s always been another layer to it. Peel back the facade, and see the truth shimmering. The soldad was an expectation. No, not an expectation, a belief. In me.

I meet Quin’s steady gaze, purpose thickening through my bones. “I’ll go to Iskaldir, learn healing through crude—learn healing through their methods.”

He inclines his head, as if he expected as much, and then he tests me. “Travelling south is dangerous. You’ll have no powerful backer.”

“I have family there. Maybe fate has been trying to send me this way all along.”

“You must be the master of your own fate.”

I swallow and nod tightly. “I want something from you.”

“Name it.”

“I might be gone a while. Would you have someone check on my family sometimes?”

“Whether I manage to overthrow my uncle or not, I’ll make sure they—and your friends—are cared for.”

I touch my clasp to take it off and hesitate. Quin has stiffened. I drop my fingers. “I don’t want to give this back. Even if I should.”

“Why should you? It’s a gift.”

“It’s a token .”

His gaze clashes with mine and it’s hard for me to brace against the emotions flickering through him. He balls his fists underwater and presses himself more firmly into the corner of the bath.

It’s time now.

With trembling hands, I pull my feet from the water, the warmth lingering even as I clutch my boots to my chest. My heart pounds with each step I take toward the door and my last words are whispered. “I wish you success as a king. And happiness as a man.”

I pack what’s left at the inn and head into the woods. Before I pick up my things from the constabulary, I take refuge in Grandfather’s cabin.

I spend the time reading every book there that references southern healing. I commit it to memory.

Two days later, I leave it all behind.

The forest is cool and damp, and water from an earlier rain drips from leaves overhead like tears. At the fork in the swiftly flowing river, I indulge the pull I’ve tried to ignore for days. Something still niggles in my chest, something that has been niggling at me since my last trip into these woods; no, before. Since the coffin. I feel like... what if ...

I’m leaving, I’m not sure when or if I’ll ever return, I...

I follow the river towards the memory of my childhood.

The violet oak.

Winds blow and large, hand-like violet leaves wave, capturing my attention. Beckoning me closer. The scent of the powerful wood has me imagining two young boys curled tight in the hollowed trunk, telling stories and falling asleep, heads tucked together.

I bite my lip and move slowly towards the rush of indigo and bursts of lighter purple. I touch the rough surface of the trunk, and the past comes alive. If I close my eyes, I might imagine I’m a child again, crawling in here for the night. I can almost hear our voices...

I duck into the hollow and step on something out of place. Hard, the wrong shape to be a protruding root. I shift my foot and crouch, and wipe away a layer of dirt.

My fingers tremble.

I rub my thumb over the riverpearl edging and over the four carved stamps inside the frame.

I sink onto my haunches, heart hammering. What if ...

He’d lost my soldad. Here.

He’d come here.

I shut my eyes as it all slides together.

He’d called himself Prince Nicostratus, but back then, Nicostratus’s mother had wanted him dead. He’d known it. He couldn’t use his real name. His safest bet, outside, was to assume another identity. What better than pretending to be her son? Hired hands would make sure not to harm ‘Prince Nicostratus’.

My chest seizes with a flutter and the swoop of something inexpressible, the sudden dropping of my stomach. Hollowness. Something’s been torn from me. And then... I’m laughing.

How did I not see it sooner? How stupid. How utterly mortifying.

He’s always been wearing masks.

My laughter keeps coming. I can’t stop. It’s this or complete loss of feeling. And I have to cling on, to this at least.

I laugh so hard tears stream down my cheeks; so hard birds lift from their perches and rush crying into the sky.

I laugh so hard I won’t hear the crack of twigs where he waits, where he watches from the darkened bushes.

The prickle of his gaze skitters alongside my hectic bouts and I brandish the soldad in my firm grip as I push my feet away from the violet oak, away from the stream, away from him.