Page 3 of The Shattered King

But Rove and the surrounding hillsides were beautiful.

Green and blooming with the late spring, bursting with aspen forests and white-speckled dogwood.

I would have loved to wander through the trees and explore the winding rivers, and had I been in the capital for any other reason, I would have.

But Lissel and the others were waiting for me, so I set off for the city proper, masking how small and uneasy the hugeness of everything made me feel.

Not only were the buildings wider and taller than anything in or near Fount, but the people .

They crawled the cobbled streets like termites to a mound.

Livestock and stray dogs weaved between them.

Merchants with carts or tents crammed into alleyways and street corners, vying for the spaces closest to the gate, where vulnerable newcomers might spot them first and spend their merits before ever truly stepping foot into the pandemonium.

Did Rove abound in healers as well? Yet there were so many people, surely I could make a few merits here after the Noblewights dismissed me.

I dared let myself dream of taking a coach home.

Though I’d been sorely tempted to burn my draft letter, it granted me easy passage through the gate, the guard absently pointing the way up Castle Road, which, obviously, led to the castle.

That was not to say the route was easy; the cobbled road was miles long, and almost entirely uphill.

Men with handcarts offered to pull me up, one way, for three copper merits.

I haggled them down to one, and the fee I claimed healing that man on the ship went into another stranger’s pocket as easily as that.

But I would not waste half a day trekking to the castle. My pride was not as unshakable as that.

More soldiers than I would have suspected marched the grounds, uniformed in black with meager red stripes over breast and shoulder; all I knew was that the less red, the more important the throne deemed them.

Brien’s uniform would be bright scarlet, easily marking him a target.

My stomach turned. Fortunately, none of them paid attention to me or my escort as we passed; my business was entirely separate from theirs.

While there were no sheer cliffs or thunderstorms, Rove Castle was foreboding.

It was the largest fortress in Cansere, and it grew with every block the handcart pulled me, until the turrets seemed to grow eyes and stare down at me, leaning over to determine my worthiness.

I didn’t worry about the answer. One need not concern themselves with a test they plan to fail.

I approached the castle gardens. Guards there watched me until I reached a certain unmarked spot, at which point they advanced with spears ready in their hands, though the tips aimed skyward.

I was a woman without notable stature or weapons; I was hardly intimidating, though their armed nearness made my chest tight. I ignored it.

“Business?” one asked, sounding bored.

I said nothing, only presented the draft letter.

Neither of them took it from my hands or commented on its poor, crumpled condition.

They did appear to recognize it, albeit with unimpressed expressions.

The lack of esteem didn’t bother me; there had been twenty years of healers coming, failing, leaving. I was nothing special.

The other asked, “Papers?”

I pulled my identification papers from the bottom of my bag and held them out in my other hand.

They checked to ensure my name matched, then the one on the right escorted me into the bailey, walking two paces ahead of me.

He took me into the keep, the old stone walls blocking out the sun and sending gooseflesh running up my arms and legs.

I clenched my teeth against the cold and followed him up a narrow, winding set of stairs, down a hallway, and up a wider, straighter set of stairs to an anteroom of sorts, where he had me sit.

To my surprise, one other healer already occupied the space; he’d placed his draft letter atop his pack, which sat on the bench beside him.

He looked to be about forty, with a dark beard and kind eyes, and when he glanced at me, I looked away and chose a chair as far from him as possible.

The guard departed, and the other healer made no move toward me, nor any attempt at conversation.

I thought it unfair of me to be grateful for it, but I did not like being alone in closed spaces with strange men.

Had the guard stayed, I might have offered a greeting.

As it stood, the silence thickened between us.

I waited nearly an hour before a servant in black-and-red livery—the colors of the Noblewights—entered through the opposite door. “Denwick Pastorson,” he read from a scroll, and the other healer stood, taking his bag with him, and exited the room.

Once he was gone, I stretched my legs, pacing the short length of the chamber, suddenly nervous.

I did not associate with the aristocracy; even the lord local to Fount had never called upon my services.

I did not know what to expect other than what I had heard in the stories merchants related as they passed through my hometown: Healers and doctors alike came to the castle, failed to heal Grejor’s second son and third heir, and returned home.

When the draft started, physicians had come in droves.

Now, only trickles. The queen had nearly run out of land from which to seize healers, and soon she’d have to accept her blood-son as he was.

I supposed she made all the effort because she loved him; Grejor’s heir, as well as the princess, were from his first wife.

However much I hated my situation, I could not deny a mother’s love for her child was powerful.

Needing to busy myself, my hands strayed to my hair, which was terribly snarled from travel.

I had my father’s dark locks but my mother’s barely tamable curls, and though my hair fell just past my hips, the weight of it did little to loosen its tight curls.

I finger-combed through the knots as I paced, wondering if I would receive some sort of demerit for my appearance, for I wore only simple clothing dusty from travel.

Suddenly self-conscious, I smoothed my wild curls as best I could and braided them to hide their unkemptness.

I had only just tied off the braid when the servant and Denwick returned.

The servant—a footman, I presumed—wore a blank expression, but Denwick appeared disappointed.

He tipped his head toward me before passing back the way I had arrived.

Though I was the only person in the chamber, the footman read from the same scroll, “Nym Tallowax.”

I stepped forward, and he led me past the door.

The hallway beyond was narrow but carpeted and hung with draperies, unlike the one I’d seen previously.

A few busts and urns lined the way, and once we turned, old paintings in gilded frames watched us pass.

I glanced at them, recognizing no one, holding the straps of my bag, fearful I might turn and knock something over, then be demanded to make recompense.

The footman took me to a set of ornately carved double doors, then held out his hand for me. I stared at his palm, confused.

“Your letter,” he explained.

I pulled free the draft letter and set it in his hand. He opened it, then pushed open the left door and read aloud, “Nym Tallowax of Fount, to see Her Majesty Winvrin Noblewight on behalf of Renn Reshua Noblewight.”

He gestured to me, and I stepped past him.

The room beyond was the most lavish yet, full of splendor and far more extravagant than was necessary, which didn’t surprise me.

It seemed a salon or parlor of sorts, about the size of my entire house were the rooms to be laid out adjacent to one another, which was to say a large space for someone in Fount, but not overly large for the castle as a whole.

Red drapes covered much of the cold stonework, and the floor was entirely carpeted in cream; wear from passing feet could be seen closer to the door.

Several pieces of furniture formed a U across the room, including a hard-backed chair from which stood an older woman in modest purple silk, her graying hair pinned immaculately from her face, expression blank save for the slight sour turn of her mouth.

Her gaze was shrewd, her shoulders painfully square.

Her dress had a rhombus-shaped cutout between her breasts, just large enough to display a bright-yellow diamond wedding pendant hanging there—by far the most expensive pendant I’d ever seen.

A white cincture made of lace encircled her waist—white for Hem, god of kings.

I’d never seen a woman wear white for her god allegiance.

The delicate tiara atop her head denoted her as Queen Winvrin Noblewight, the woman who had started the draft program for healers, who had made one-third of craftlock legal.

Which meant the man lying on the asymmetrical couch just behind her was the youngest son of King Grejor, Renn Reshua Noblewight, the sickly prince.

He did not look at me, but rather away, through the walls as though there were some window holding his gaze.

I knew he was twenty—four years my junior—from word of mouth, but I would have guessed him the same.

He was slender, dressed in the red and black of his family, though a blanket covered him from the navel down, masking what rumor claimed were profoundly malformed legs, crippled from a fall down the hard stone steps of this very castle when he was ten.

The paleness of his skin whispered he did not get much sunlight, though his hair, thick and trimmed around his face and falling down the back of his neck, was bright enough to rival it, gold as the gilded frames hanging on the wall behind him.