Page 24 of The Shattered King

I could request a bath be brought to my room now, courtesy of Prince Renn, but that evening I used the little pitcher and basin he’d gifted me and used a cloth to wash the scent of smoke from my skin and hair, and then my dress. Changed and cold, I went to bed with unpleasant dreams.

Eager to get to work, I woke just before dawn the next morning and readied myself, then walked a few laps around the keep until the sun crested. I reported to Prince Renn’s room; Ard let me in. In the salon, Sten, who seemed to have had a worse night than me, said, “He’s still asleep.”

“Should I wait?”

He shook his head. “Her Majesty the queen was here last night. She made it clear her expectations would be met.”

Nodding, I stepped into the prince’s room.

I toed to the curtains to open them a handbreadth so I could see.

Odd—I’d started my work just like this, coming in here while the prince was asleep, working on him at every given moment.

And yet now, after so much time together, it felt intrusive.

Still, I’d rather the queen not pay me any visits, nor berate her son for his leniency, so I grabbed a chair and pulled it over.

He lay on his side, so when I sat, he faced me.

He breathed deeply, still in the throes of a dream.

His chest clicked when he inhaled, but his color remained good.

I reached forward to dowse, but hesitated, instead taking the moment to look at him.

Really look at him, because he looked so different now than he had when we’d first met, and only part of that was due to his improved health.

The rest was colored by my opinion of him, which had improved markedly.

Still, I really looked at him, since I had been given a minute to do so.

His golden hair was mussed with sleep, drifting over his forehead and into his eyes.

Even in the darkness it bore a kind of radiance, like it’d been spun of actual gold.

He had thick eyelashes, but they were so light in color they were easy to miss.

I understood his desperation to be well, to appease others, to fit in—being so chronically ill, others could easily treat him as less-than.

View him as a child. But the prince was very much a man.

It lay in the line of his jaw and the curve of his nose, the slope of his cheeks, the rise of his shoulder above the coverlet.

The gods had masterfully created him, and so I wondered why he need suffer so constantly.

Why his lumis refused to accept the whole of our ceaseless work.

Perhaps the gods wanted to spare his brother’s overlarge ego—I did not think Prince Adrinn would take kindly to competition in any form, whether it be in the training ring, in courtship, or for the crown.

And I wondered how much, if at all, Renn would be like his brother were he not so violently humbled day after day after day.

He had two books on his night table. The first was a categorizing of Canseren flora, and I supposed he hadn’t gotten much opportunity to see it for himself, unless the queen took him out on well-cushioned carriage rides, but with her overbearing nature, I doubted it. He was just as much a prisoner as I.

Prisoner felt like too harsh a word.

I turned the spine of the second toward me, surprised to see the title, City of Honey: A Primer on Bees , inked across it.

Something shifted in my chest, or my lower throat, like I’d swallowed without chewing.

I wasn’t exactly sure how to interpret the existence of this book in his bedchamber.

Thoughtful? Curious? There was nothing Prince Renn needed to learn about bees for his sake.

There were no hives at the castle, at least not that I’d seen.

I glanced at him again, those pale eyelashes splayed, his lips parted softly, his chest rising and falling evenly. It felt like watching Dan or Colt sleep. There was a sort of appeal to seeing boys who tested your patience sunup to sundown in a state of harmless innocence.

That something shifted in my chest again. I forcefully ignored it. Just like Dan and Colt.

Not wishing to wake him, I carefully pressed three fingers to the back of his wrist and slipped into his lumis, picking up just where I’d left off, for his lumis was now more familiar to me than my own.

One way or another, I would make it so Renn could tour the world.

And knock his elder brother on his backside in the training ring.

My mind was still on Prince Renn and his illness even after he excused me for the day. Still unused to the free time, I sought another form of study to help me with my healings.

I meant to see if the gods might help me, and determine if Ann was right.

I wandered to the all-gods shrine, getting lost only once.

The shrine was open to everyone, so I didn’t worry about being turned away.

As I slipped through its double doors, I noticed a handful of worshipers there.

Leaning against the back wall, I scanned the tall windows depicting the gods in order: Hem, god of kings, justice, order, and war.

His son, Salm, god of the land and sea. His son, Rolys, god of the skies, light, and weather.

His son, Evat, god of forests, agriculture, and animals.

His son, Alm, god of music, culture, and healing.

Finally, his daughter, Zia, goddess of fertility and femininity, and all the little things too unimportant to assign to anyone else.

My eyes flickered between the depictions of Alm and Zia, right next to one another.

Alm’s glass was heavily red, like my sash, and Zia’s was heavily violet, like my cincture.

I pinched both in my fingers, kneading the materials.

Just because one wore the cincture of a specific god did not make her loyal to only that god, yet still, I felt pulled between the two.

Which was silly, as I’d never been a devout Hemist. Not like Ursa.

“ Imagine if we had a place like this in Fount, ” she said on cue.

I nodded, not wanting to talk to myself in this quiet space, where witnesses would surely overhear me. In Fount, we had simple unpolished shrines, usually cairns strewn with little offerings. Nothing as great as this.

But I wasn’t here to ogle the gods. I roamed around the shrine, searching until I found a set of narrow alcoves low to the floor at the front, set beneath Rolys and Evat.

There was a rug there, and I knelt upon it, taking one of the weathered books carefully from a cubby.

There were six copies of scripture here, some in better repair than the others.

I set the book on my knees and started thumbing through it.

“ Try going to the Rulings of Alm ,” she suggested. “ The rulings are in the back. ”

I flipped to the back and scanned through the section, reading the first and last line of each paragraph to see if anything stood out. Healing was the smallest section under Alm’s domains.

Herbs of the ground and oil of the sea are given through Alm to mankind for use in healing the body, mind, and soul.

There was no reference to craftlock, though I could see how it could be interpreted to be included. Body, mind, and soul were the three categories of magic: healing, mindreading, and soulbinding.

I wondered if I should study more on clinical medicine—if that would provide me insight to Renn’s lumis. I doubted it. Whitestone was a clinical physician with years of experience, and he hadn’t been able to find a cure, either.

I thumbed through the rest of the section, frowning.

“ Try Wisdom of Priests . It’s near the middle,” Ursa offered.

I flipped back. The Wisdom of Priests section was enormous. I scoffed. Stood and moved to a bench.

I read, and read, and read, moving around according to Ursa’s suggestions. Mankind is made mortal so that the gods are eternal, yet equal is the weight of souls, one passage read. Rest is a cleansing balm to the working man.

Well, there was my answer. I just had to tell Renn to rest more.

Sighing, I flipped over into Prophecies , the shortest section of the book. Skimmed through it.

The ghost of kings shall rise and search endlessly, following its sins to the end of worlds.

For by blood alone shall blood be undone.

And then the familiar scripture everyone knew, even the least devout. When the kingdoms of men falter, the blood of the Allmaster shall rise up, garbed as an angel of fire, and balm its people as rain to the earth.

I wouldn’t mind an angel of fire putting an end to this stupid conflict and sending Brien home. I hated thinking about my closest brother and what he must be facing right now. Fearing he’d perish, or that he already had.

Another prophecy read, When mankind falters from belief, the fist of Salm shall smite the land and break brother from brother, husband from wife, and in their sorrow, the people will find their worship.

That one had happened. It spoke of the separation of Sesta and Cansere by the narrow Midly Strait, eons ago.

I searched until Ursa had no more suggestions for me. Until my back grew sore and my eyes heavy. I set the book back in its cubby, glanced again at the depictions of Alm and Zia, and went on my way.

I had, at the very least, tried.

Renn made it to late morning before turning from the danerin board and coughing into a handkerchief. Heaviness flooded my limbs at the sight of blood there.

“Hem blast it,” I swore, rising from my seat. I’d been tending him all morning. How could he be deteriorating already?

Wiping his mouth with one hand, he stalled me with the other. “It’s fine. Sit. I want to finish this.”

“But—”

He accepted a glass of water offered by Sten. “It’s fine. It happens.” There was a pitch to his voice that whispered he might have been congested as well.

I narrowed my gaze. “How often is it happening?”

He gave me a withering look. “It’s your turn, Nym.”