Page 33 of The Shattered King

We went to Nations Row, a street on the east side of the city where people from all over the world set up stalls and laid out rugs to sell their wares.

It felt like entering a rainbow; merchants hung bright draperies and colored ribbon, windchimes and mirrors, even large colorful birds, anything to attract attention over their neighbor.

Musicians crowded between stalls, playing drums or bells, stringed instruments I didn’t recognize.

One stall had hoisted a giant pinwheel; another had its entire back wall pinned with flowers.

I would have stopped, overcome, had Renn’s retinue not continued on.

Remembering myself, I hurried after, seeking out the prince, and I grinned.

His face, too, opened in childlike wonder.

He asked the merchant if he could touch the rainbow bird, which was called a parrot—a fact Renn already, unsurprisingly, knew.

Seeing Renn’s clothing, the merchant did one better and allowed him to hold it and feed it a shelled nut.

Renn laughed and offered the bird to Ard, who seemed terrified of it, but allowed the creature to perch on his forearm.

In thanks, Renn bought a parcel of sweets from the seller and gave it to Bay to carry.

He visited the next seller, then the next, crouching down for those on blankets only.

He did not entirely mask his bashfulness; he tended only to speak if spoken to, but his words remained kind and genuine.

When asked where he was from, he said, “Fount.” The lie brought me some pleasure, even if most did not know the town.

The road stretched long. A few merchants called out to me with jade combs for my hair, or corsets for my waist, or beaded cinctures.

I held up a polite but stalling hand to each of them, though when Renn approached the large table of a Sestan mineral dealer, I paused at its nearest corner at an array of necklaces.

Leather corded, with flat, oval pendants, as though the god Salm had made a sweet roll from the gems of the earth and sliced it as thin as a feast ham.

My hand strayed to one that looked like the depths of the night sky—that halfway point between dusk and dawn when the moon slumbers on the other side of the world, and heaven’s secrets shine in a band between endless clusters of stars.

“Do you fancy it?” the man asked, his Sestan accent light. I wondered if he’d lived in Cansere a long time, or if he tried to mask it, due to the conflict.

I ran my thumb over its long, smooth surface. “What is it?”

“Agate, miss. Tundra agate. Mined from the arctic hills of Sesta. Would be hard to acquire, now. It suits you.”

I offered a polite smile at the compliment and pulled my hand away. Then a new one looped around the leather cord and lifted it from its hook.

“We’ll take it.” Renn motioned for me to turn around.

I frowned. “That is not necessary.”

“I knew you’d say something like that.” He kept his voice low, so only I could hear. “Consider it the first contribution to your lost wages. And an apology.” He circled his finger, a gesture for me to turn.

It was a lovely necklace. And the Noblewights did owe me quite a bit for my services. It felt wrong, a peasant woman like me wearing an eccentric necklace like that, but was it sinful to have one nice thing?

Ursa would tell me I’d insult Salm to turn down a gift from his earth, even if it came from Sestan soil.

I bit down on a smile and turned, allowing Renn to clasp the necklace.

He brushed my thick mass of curls over my shoulder, sending a shiver down my spine, and carefully looped the clasp beneath so it would not catch.

The stone hung just between my breasts. The length of it startled me—it measured exactly where a wedding pendant would fall—right over my heart.

I covered the agate with my hand as a flush crept up my neck.

It’s just happenstance. I’d never seen an agate wedding pendant, besides.

No one would possibly mistake it. Perhaps I could put it on a longer cord, later.

Turning back, I said, “Thank you.”

His cerulean eyes warmed to the color of summer skies, more beautiful than any necklace. He paid the merchant. A paltry sum for a prince, I was sure, but enough to make a beekeeper writhe.

We did not see all of Nations Row, not when Renn explored each and every booth, but he did not forget my request, so early in the afternoon, we departed, the events of the morning truly forgotten, and we trekked toward the woods.

We did not need to show our papers to leave the city, though I imagined the city guard would get a surprise when we returned, for they, too, did not recognize the king’s third child.

The natural world opened up past those walls, the blanket of aspens so much grander close up, with a view through their branches toward the sun instead of across them from a keep window.

I grabbed two handfuls of my skirt and jogged ahead, trekking up a shallow hill to where the forest started, sparsely at first, but the trunks grew closer together farther in.

Bay lingered near the tree line, watching the hills for threats.

I found a flat, grassy space beneath the golden boughs and stood in its center, staring up at the coinlike leaves, absorbing birdsong and the smell of loam.

“You look like a fairy.” Renn entered the clearing, Sten and Ard right behind him. I could just make out Sall deeper in the forest, walking a circle, doing his duty.

I grinned at him. “There aren’t forests like this in Fount.”

“Are there forests at all?”

“Not really. Not close.” I spun slowly, taking in the beauty of it all. “Will Bay and Sall not eat?”

“They will.” Renn took a blanket from a pack on his back and laid it out.

I handed a sandwich to Ard and one to Sten, and they dropped the canteens, minus four, on the center of the blanket.

Sten trekked out to give water to the other guards.

Where the two who were trailing us in the city had gone, I wasn’t sure. My attention had not been on them.

I used my mother’s knife to cut my sandwich in two and ate it lying down, staring up into the canopy.

The sun twinkled gently between the leaves, which danced in the occasional breeze, looking more fairylike than I ever could.

I lay there even after eating, feeling the autumn air on my skin, enjoying the sounds of the forest.

“There’s a story I read”—Renn leaned back on his elbows—“about fairies in the woods. It was about a little boy who ventured away from his mother and got lost in the trees, only to be discovered by young fairies his age, who convinced him to play in the brambles with them. But the thorns stuck to his clothes and trapped him there. He called out to his parents, but they never found him, and he lived only by the mercy of the fairy children, who brought him a meal once a day. Eventually, well into his adulthood, a drought struck, and the bramble grew brittle. He broke from his prison and ran back home, only to find the farmhouse abandoned, and the graves of his parents and a sibling he never knew he had in the garden.”

I frowned. “That’s the end?”

“It is.”

“You read such sad stories.” I sat up. “All the books you give me are sad.”

“Their themes are realistic.” He picked a leaf from my hair. I watched him turn it over between his fingers before setting it on the blanket.

“Even real people have happy stories.”

He considered this a moment. “I suppose I always strayed from the happy ones. I never related to them.”

My heart sank. His was a sad story. I supposed mine was, too. Did that guarantee a sad ending for us?

What would happen when I finally finished healing him? I would go home to Fount and ... that would be the end, wouldn’t it? It would be a happy ending, his healing. His restoration. But then why did it feel so ... heavy?

“I should read them.” He met my eyes. “Now I think I’d like to read the happily-ever-afters.”

His contented gaze filled me with warmth.

I wanted to explore a little more, so I offered to dowse into him, which he accepted, and I delicately secured all the vibrant baubles of his lumis before we packed up the picnic and set off into the trees.

It seemed no one else, minus a few rabbits, crickets, and songbirds, occupied this part of the forest. It felt like a world all our own, and in truth, I hadn’t felt freer since before my parents and sister died.

I followed a little footpath, studying wildflowers and mushrooms I didn’t recognize, brushing my hands through the leaves on low-hanging branches. They’d fall soon, leaving the trees barren and scraggly, ugly until snow highlighted their angles.

“Does it snow here?” I asked.

Renn walked beside me. He so seldomly walked right beside me; I always fell a step or two behind him, where a shadow belonged. “It does; all of Cansere is well above a snow-free boundary. You wouldn’t break the snow line until you reached Lao. Or, technically, a few miles above it.”

I gawked at him. I’d never even heard of Lao. “I wonder what that must be like. A place where it never snows.”

He sighed longingly. “I want to go there. See a winter without snow. Sail on the ocean. Tour Cansere, and even Sesta, once Adoel stops his pointless attacks on our ports.” He frowned. “Do you think it’s possible? To travel so far?”

I nodded. “Of course. Though ... until I figure out how to hold you together, I’d have to come with you.”

A soft smile touched his mouth. “I wouldn’t want to go without you, Nym.”

His hand brushed mine, fingers intertwining.

My heart seized, footsteps slowing, skin prickling. I pulled my hand away. Cradled it against my chest.

“I can find my way without a guide,” I whispered.

Renn hesitated. “I wasn’t—”

“No.” I struggled to find my voice. I met his eyes, piercing like the sun, and stepped away from him. “No, Renn.”

Empty and lightheaded, I turned back for the city.

We did not speak again.