Page 19 of The Shattered King

I wouldn’t call the elder prince’s occasional visit checking up on , but I was in a good mood, so I held my tongue.

“You’re walking into court now,” I offered. “Mingling with other lords and ladies, some local. I know it’s not your favorite pastime, but you’re allowed to expand your relationships.”

He tilted his head slightly, regarding me. “Is it so obvious that I don’t enjoy it?”

I rolled my lips together. “Not so obvious, Your Highness. Shall I begin? I wouldn’t mind standing for a bit.”

He acquiesced, so I came around to the back of his chair. Before I touched him, however, he said, “Tell me about your family.”

The personal question twisted my tongue. “I ... It is not a short answer.”

“Go on.”

The sudden interest, the sudden kindness, made me feel off-kilter, but I obliged.

“I am the oldest of eight. Surviving, that is. My brother, just under me, is a soldier, now. He’s about your age.

My sister Lissel is running the household while I’m away.

Then there’s Dan, who’s an apprentice to the local tanner, and Colt, who is the most unruly boy of my acquaintance. ”

I thought I caught a soft chuckle from the prince.

“Beneath him are Heath and Pren. They’re twins, eleven years old. And the baby, Terrence. He’s ...” A cold feeling came over me. “Nine.” I missed Terrence’s birthday.

Homesickness struck me hard and true, right in my center.

Words built on my tongue. So you need to send me back.

Yet I could not voice it, not when the prince had inquired so kindly.

Not when this extended branch of peace was still young and green.

So I let the admonition die on my tongue and swallowed it.

“Your parents?”

“They died when I was sixteen.” A lump formed in my throat.

Eight years later, and it still hurt to think about it.

I still carried my mother’s knife, one of the few things of value she’d left behind.

A little four-inch blade with a citrine embedded in the handle.

I leaned against the back of the chair, my thumb just grazing his shoulder.

“We were shopping in Grot. Lord Fell must have been in quite a hurry, because his carriage killed both of them, and my sister, when it hit.” I settled my fingertips on his crown.

“But he gave us five silver pieces for each of their heads and let me personally haul their bodies back home, so all is well.”

The room fell eerily silent. I hoped he didn’t notice the tremble in my hands when I dowsed into him, desperate to focus on my work. If the prince responded, I did not hear it.

I worked hard and long that day, grateful for the distraction.

And as a way of saying thank you for my remarkably improved treatment, for I could not think of any but Prince Renn who would do such a thing.

Even Prince Renn’s demeanor had softened toward me.

I fit together a few more of his broken pieces and, thinking of holiday berry garlands, had the thought to try stringing a few of the baubles together, to better hold them in place.

Not ones that looked similar, but felt similar.

The more whole ones seemed to vibrate in my palm, playing a note into my flesh like a tuning fork.

When Prince Renn again excused me for dinner, his color was good, his bones straight, his breathing even. I had done well today.

Still, as he went into his bedroom to change for the meal, I lingered in the suite, glancing over the multitude of books littering it, reading their titles.

If rumors had spread even to the prince’s guard, then surely they had spread to him as well.

And while I was grateful he did not subtly ostracize me as others had begun to do, I wanted answers.

I had never been one to suffer quietly, and I was not about to start.

When the prince re-emerged with Sten, bringing his cane with him, his blue-eyed gaze immediately fell to me. “Nym?”

I stood. “Might I speak to you privately, Your Highness? I will be brief.”

Curiosity softened his eyes. He murmured something to Sten, who stepped out into the corridor, leaving the two of us alone.

“Is something bothering you?” he asked.

“More so I would like to know what’s bothering the others. They have acted strangely since my recovery, and I thought you might know why.”

A sort of stillness overcame him. Dread, perhaps. He took a moment to contemplate before answering. “The healer, the one from Rove,” he answered. “He came to heal you, and reported to me directly. He said ... He told me there was something wrong with you.”

My stomach tightened. “Wrong with me?”

His grip tightened on his cane. “I do not mean to repeat—”

“Please do,” I interrupted. “Precisely what he said.” That I’m sure both Ard and Sten overheard, for the prince was never without his shadows.

He sighed through his nose. “I’ve never read a book on craftlock, so I’ve nothing to compare it to. But he said your lumis was off. ‘Macabre and unnatural’ was his exact phrasing, I believe.”

I’d worried as much. I’d promised I would be brief, but I still took a few seconds to collect my thoughts.

“I see. You can send me away, if it bothers you.” I would rejoice over the dismissal, and yet I feared it at the same time.

We still had so much left to do. It would be like abandoning the hive’s brood box before putting in its frames.

“I won’t.” He leaned on his cane. “The more I think on it, the less it surprises me that you’re different.

You’re the only person who’s been able to help me.

” He gestured to his upright form, as though I had somehow missed it.

Still, turning the cane against his palm, he asked, “Do you know what he meant? What’s so .

.. different ... between your lumis and the next? ”

I felt Ursa then, as though she stood beside me.

I summoned a smile and shook my head. “Perhaps he was simply out of practice.” I curtsied. “Please, if the dinner tires you, call on me. I will not be far.”

I left, and as I approached the tower, Ursa whispered, “ It’s not so bad. ”

“It is what it is,” I whispered. “Let us just hope others think the way the prince does, and I don’t become a complete pariah.”

I ate with Lonnie again in the kitchens; if she’d heard the rumor about my “macabre” lumis, she didn’t mention it, and neither did I.

After finishing our stew and scrubbing our dishes, we headed out into the bailey.

She was telling me a story of how the cook scared off the onion boy, when Death exhaled against the skin of my neck, raising the fine hairs there.

I froze. Lonnie paused. “What’s wrong?”

“Give me your hand.” I reached for her, terrified she’d gotten the rat sickness, when a sudden clanking of chains reached my ears. I turned just as the heavy portcullis of the northern gate slammed down as soldiers filtered through. It pinned one of them with a loud bang!

The man’s scream chilled me to my very bones.

Lonnie and I rushed toward the scene, but other soldiers flocked, and then servants and other castle denizens emerged to see what the noise was, building onto the growing throng.

Lonnie had gone white as parchment; I forced her to sit down before diving into the crowd.

From the east, I heard Physician Whitestone barking, “Get back, get back!”

Bodies pushed together, craning to get a better look. Voices formed a cacophony throughout the bailey. “Move, please,” I called, pressing between people. When they didn’t budge, I began throwing elbows. “In Alm’s name I said move !”

Few heard me, but all felt my blows. I got called a few nasty names and received a few curses as I wound my way to the gate.

Death was so strong it choked me. The portcullis had skewered the soldier through the thigh, his face looking like a corpse’s already.

Blood pooled beneath him. Another soldier stood at the winch that would raise the gate, while two others held on to the portcullis itself, as though they would lift it up.

They didn’t move it, however. I was no doctor, but if the soldier was bleeding out this quickly, I knew that moving the piece of iron stuck in his thigh would only speed up the process.

Whitestone pulled a saw from the bag at his hip. He was going to amputate.

“Wait!” I cried, and ran toward them, skinning my knees as I dropped at the soldier’s head. “Let me, let me!”

“He is dying !” Whitestone barked, and even tried to push me away.

Lowering myself to the soldier’s head, making myself smaller and denser, I withstood the physician and dowsed.

What I saw before me was a hallway of doors and heavy locks, dangling keys. The locks were undone, the doors swinging open, the black of death darkening the edges of the lumis, gray tendrils reaching down to pollute the rest of it.

I ran, grabbing door handles and pulling doors shut, meeting resistance with the third and fourth.

I threw my weight into them, then my magic, drawing on hers , urging their hinges closed.

Snapping locks in place and turning their keys, forbidding them from opening again.

Another door opened behind me; I drew in so much magic it made me dizzy, commanding it closed again, then continued down the line.

The lumis trembled, the gray wavered, but I kept going, screaming in my other self, “Raise it! Raise it! ”

The gray tendrils blackened and crept inward.

The doors shuddered. I grabbed two at a time and heaved, drawing them closed, shutting their locks.

I threw their keys down the hallway, forbidding them from reopening again.

Door after door, lock after lock, until the gray lightened and receded, the lumis calmed, and I knew I had saved him.

Coming back to myself, I barely had time to turn my head before I vomited on the ground. The crowd honored me with a subtle groan of disgust, followed by murmurs of “Healer? She’s the healer?” and “Is he dead?”

They’d raised the portcullis. The injured soldier was pale, his skin clammy, but his leg was whole again.

I had saved him, and yet Whitestone cursed and threw his saw into his bag, then snatched it up and marched back for the keep.

The other soldiers came forward to collect their comrade, the one who’d been on the winch saying, “Thank you, lady. Thank you.”

I nodded, wiping my mouth on my sleeve. Stood and backtracked before blood could ruin my dress. I hesitated as the crowd slowly dispersed, feeling lightheaded. It would pass.

Lonnie and Kard, the man who had earlier asked me to town, approached. “Are you all right?” Lonnie asked.

“That was amazing ,” Kard added.

I managed a weak smile. “Yes, I’m fine. I think I’ll turn in for the night, though.”

“Okay. You’re sure?”

I was tired, but well, and assured her as much. I made my way back into the keep. I’d just entered the north tower when a loud swishing of skirts and clanking of weapons announced Queen Winvrin and two trailing guards. When she saw me, her eyes widened.

“You, what are you doing here? What has happened?”

I chose to answer the second question first. “The portcullis fell on a soldier, Your Majesty. He is fine, now.”

Her forehead crinkled. “And you healed him?”

“I did.”

“Why are you in the bailey and not in my son’s suite, awaiting his return? I thought it impertinent you did not accompany him to the dinner, in case something should befall him, but you have left your duties altogether!”

The audacity of the barrage unhinged me.

“Forgive me, Your Majesty, but I also must eat in order to function. I was just leaving the kitchens when your faulty gate nearly took the limb off one of your men. Had I not been there, he would have died.” He would not have survived Whitestone’s amputation, I was sure. “You are welcome.”

Color burned across her cheekbones. “Insolent wretch! Will you never learn?” She snapped at one of her men: “Take her to the dungeon. Now. ”