Page 4 of The Shattered King

I stayed where I was. While I had no love for the royal family, neither did I wish to cross them, and however much I hated to admit it, my heart palpitated at the sight of them, like they were storybook characters made flesh. My palms grew clammy.

This proved to be the correct thing to do, because after the queen eyed me head to toe, her assessment quiet and condescending, she said, “You may approach. Dowse his lumis and tell me what you see. Heal him.”

The words sounded rote, and I wondered how many times she’d repeated them since starting the draft. She seemed weary. They both did, which made three of us.

I approached carefully, cautiously, taking my bag off my shoulders and setting it beside the single low table in the space.

Only when I’d nearly reached him did Prince Renn look my way, and I hesitated a moment, struck by the utter blueness of his eyes.

Blue as sapphire, as the deepest point of the sky, as the heart of a frozen lake.

While his expression was schooled into that of boredom, the tightness around his eyes whispered that he did not want to be here any more than I did. I wondered if he argued with his mother over the fact, or if she noticed at all. There was a rattle in his chest, a sunkenness about his eyes.

The prince began coughing. He lifted a hand from beneath his blanket, clutching a bloodstained handkerchief, and covered his mouth, further staining the fabric.

The cough sounded wet and painful, and despite my hatred for the draft and this place, sympathy softened my heart.

I could not imagine living life, day after day, in such a helpless state, surrounded by cold stone walls and patronized by family and servants alike.

He did not sit up, and I knew he could not stand, so I knelt before the sofa. Determined to be polite, I said, “Your Highness,” by way of asking permission.

His vivid cerulean gaze shifted away from me once more, and the slightest nod tilted his chin.

I reached forward and touched him just as I had the man on the ship, right under his jawbone, four fingertips on either side.

Letting my body relax, I unfocused my eyes and shifted into the ethereal space of his lumis.

I expected something unremarkable—while the royal family could throw gold on the walls and gems at their feet, there was no hierarchy to lumie.

It took all my willpower not to gasp aloud at what I saw.

Broken, all of it. Piles and piles of shattered glass—that was the best I could come to describing it. As though some great gaffer had spent a lifetime constructing a marvelous chandelier, only to have the chain give out at hanging, sending the entire masterpiece crashing to the floor.

I stared at it, mouth agape. I ... I did not understand how this man was alive.

I had never seen anything like it, and I had dowsed into mortally wounded men and ill women three breaths away from their last. I had not sensed death about him, and death’s shadow did not darken the indeterminate edges of his lumis.

Even his death lines were faint and not nearly as numerous as they should be, given his condition.

I knew now, with perfect clarity, why doctor after doctor, and healer after healer, had failed to make well the second prince of Cansere.

He was not curable. And yet ... there was something distinctly other happening here.

Mesmerized by the mess, I slowly stepped around it, seeing it from all angles, the fragile bits of blue, red, green, orange .

.. thinking that surely it was not so bad as that, but the more I looked, the more hopeless it became.

There would be pieces of him so shattered they’d be fine as dust. Thousands, even millions of shards .

.. how could one person ever hope to glue them back together?

I pity you, Prince, I thought, days of anger dissipating like steam off a kettle. Were you well, you would surely have the most beautiful lumis I’ve ever beheld, but that is a destiny the gods did not intend for you to have.

I noticed a fractured bauble near the edge of the debris and knelt beside it, picking it up carefully in my hands, turning it this way and that, examining the fissures across its navy face.

Like a glass fruit a large dog had taken a bite from.

I’d intended to claim I could not heal him so I could go home, but such had turned out to be absolute truth.

Still, the little bauble, almost like a glass window ornament, reminded me of ones my mother used to make with us.

We could hardly afford glass, so we’d blow up sheep bladders and carefully tie threads dipped in honey water around them.

When the threads dried, we deflated and removed the bladders, then painted the threads.

Always with homemade paint, made from foraged plants, because someone was always sneaking a lick or two.

On occasion, one of the ornaments would drop from its place, usually due to young, clumsy hands.

We would repair them by rewetting the threads and hanging the ornament from the opposite side of the break, allowing it to redry.

I turned the glasslike bauble in my hands so its sharp mouth faced downward.

Searched the rubble around it and found one piece of matching glass, about the size of my thumb, but it did not line up with any of the broken edges.

So I held it toward the center of the hole and imagined threads sticky with honey, conjuring them from magic, weaving them over the break like a spiderweb, securing the missing piece in the center of it.

Felt, distantly, the familiar pulse of added magic that wasn’t mine.

It was such a dainty repair, insignificant, but I felt so sorry for the man that I thought I might as well try something to make him feel better, even if only for a minute or two.

Standing, I looked over the mess once more, shook my head, and lifted myself from the lumis.

The parlor returned to me, stone and drapery, and I pulled my hands away from the prince’s jaw. Stood and bowed. “I’m sorry,” I offered the queen. “I’ve never seen such a shattered lumis before. I fear I can’t help him.”

The queen resisted a frown, wholly unsurprised. “You may go.”

I stifled the cool rain of relief, not wanting it to show on my face and offend the monarch. I bowed once more and started for the door, stopping a pace away when the prince gasped. I spun around, my heart dropping. Had I hurt him? If I had, they might not let me leave—

“My foot,” he whispered, hand clenching the back of the sofa, the bloody kerchief still woven through his fingers. His chest rattled like a cat purring. “Mother, my foot.”

The queen lifted the edge of the blanket. The prince wiggled his big toe. He didn’t wear shoes.

Stiffly, the queen stepped away, hand flying to her mouth.

I reached for the door.

“Stop!” she shouted, freezing me in place. “Stop at once. You will not leave this room, by order of the crown!”

I pulled my hand away as the footman from before opened the door, nearly running it into me, likely alarmed by the queen’s yelling. I dropped my head, my thick braid falling over my shoulder. “I-I’m so sorry, Your Majesty. I thought only to try—”

“What is her name?”

I raised my head to answer, but the footman announced, “Nym Tallowax of Fount, Your Majesty.”

The queen’s gaze shifted to me. I felt the prince’s sapphire stare as well. “You thought only to try ?”

Fear, cold and slick, wound down my spine. “I-I’m an experienced healer, ma’am ... Your Majesty. I saw a small thing I could heal ... he seemed so miserable ...”

The prince’s gaze shifted away.

“Miss Tallowax.” Queen Winvrin seemed eight feet tall, and I readied myself for the awful blow, some punishment for my intervention, some scolding for the attempt.

Saw in my darkest thoughts news of my demise reaching my siblings, cementing their fate.

“You have done more for my son than any healer these past twenty years.”

Air filled my chest, but my lungs seemed unsure what to do with it.

The queen tipped her head to the footman before pursing her mouth once more. “You will remain at the castle, Miss Tallowax,” she announced with the weight of an executioner’s axe. “I am appointing you as my son’s exclusive healer.”