Page 43 of The Shattered King

His eyes narrowed. “Why were you spying on the queen?”

“What?”

“In my father’s quarters.”

I gaped at him. “I wasn’t spying. I was there to heal him, and no one met me to guide me to his room. Or do you not recall him being very ill and then suddenly not ill? He sent me a fruit basket.”

His stony expression didn’t lift. “Do you work for Sesta?”

“Sesta?” I repeated too loudly, and the dagger pressed right against my skin in retribution. I hissed, “I’ve never even been to Sesta. My brother is in Cansere’s army.”

“You sent a letter in secret.”

I opened and closed my mouth like a fish out of water. “ Ages ago, because I wasn’t allowed out of the castle! I have a family!”

“You abandoned your post to sneak into the Sesta delegation.”

A dry sound, halfway between a cough and a chuckle, tore up my throat. “I was there with your brother . Shadowing him as always. He was behind a pillar. He was there , ask him yourself!” This was ridiculous. “I have Canseren paperwork. I was drafted from the Canseren census. Are you mad?”

“Paperwork can be falsified.”

I rolled my eyes but took a moment to contemplate.

If Prince Adrinn was so forwardly questioning my loyalty, then he must be involved in spywork, or at least the locating of spies, in some manner.

He cared about the war. He attended the war meetings.

He certainly seemed emotionally invested, what with this knife pointed at me.

Had his work gotten him in trouble, thus creating the wound he’d needed me to heal?

I hedged my bets. “Why would I have healed you if I were your enemy? Wouldn’t the death of the heir be to my benefit if I were a Sestan spy?”

“You tell me.”

I searched his cold eyes. “Did a spy do that to you?”

The dagger inched away. At least I was getting through to him. I wondered if the recent transferring of soldiers to guard the northern coast had put him on edge.

Pressing my advantage, I said, “Do you really think I have somehow miraculously sabotaged every healer in this country, since the age of four , mind you, so that I could succeed in healing your brother and gain access to the castle? It’d be easier to dress as a harlot and offer you a discount, wouldn’t it? ”

Prince Adrinn frowned.

He allowed me to shove his knife hand away. “You are an ass, Adrinn Noblewight. And you are breaking your promise.”

He stepped back and sheathed the dagger. “You reason better than a peasant should.”

I scoffed. “Heaven forbid the truth aid me! Being born common does not bar me from reason , Your Highness. And you are still speaking to me. Leave now, or I will tell the queen the exact date and time I healed you. You seemed rather angry with her before; I wonder if she’d appreciate the information. ”

You’ve chosen to hide it, he’d said to the queen. Did he suspect her as a spy?

I quickly dismissed the idea. She was so protective of her son. She’d been genuinely afraid of Adoel Nicosia. I suspected her less than my own siblings.

Prince Adrinn scowled at me but did as I asked, sweeping from my room as quietly as a shade.

I immediately went to Renn’s suite, needing company until my racing heart could calm, but found it empty.

Of course it was; Prince Adrinn wouldn’t accost me where one of his brother’s guards could witness it.

Searching for Renn, I found him in the Great Hall, sitting down to dinner with the other nobles staying at the castle. Prince Adrinn had not yet arrived.

Finding Sten, I crossed to him and shared his portion of the wall, close enough that our elbows touched. He glanced curiously at me. “He’s been well so far,” he offered.

I nodded and stayed where I was, letting the large man’s presence calm my spirit. After several minutes, I simply stated, “I got bored.”

It seemed an ironic thing to say, considering moments later Renn began coughing up blood.

All the dinner guests near him gasped and stood, knocking over wineglasses, dropping silverware.

I ran toward the scene, and when I noticed blood over the bodice of the woman who’d been sitting beside him, I ran all the faster.

Renn’s knees buckled as I got to him, still coughing.

He couldn’t catch his breath. So much blood—on the table, on the floor, on himself. Everywhere.

Another relapse.

“Lay him down!” I begged the nearest nobleman, who grabbed Renn’s shoulders. I grasped his neck, the first skin I saw, and dowsed before he’d even reached the floor.

His lumis was quaking again, harder than I’d ever seen it do before. It had been more whole than ever that morning. Why? Why did this keep happening to him?

What was I missing?

I rushed to the standing baubles, soothing and stitching them first, then to the fallen ones, smoothing broken pieces back into place, gluing together new fractures.

I placed them in the air as usual, but they resisted it, and I had to force magic into them and order their obedience.

Again and again I picked up fallen glass and remelted it, restrung it, rehung it.

Still Renn shook. My heart might as well have disintegrated within me.

I pressed my hands into the floor and summoned my magic, demanded it.

Drew all the extra Ursa had gifted me and pushed it into the invisible walls of the lumis, commanding it to be still , to spare him, to settle.

This is not what you are! my thoughts screamed.

You are whole. You are well. You are strong.

The quaking ceased. Exhausted, I slipped back into reality; the queen knelt nearby, squeezing Renn’s hand. He was stable but unconscious.

“Take him to his bed,” I pleaded. “I can work on him more there.”

And I did.

The moment Sten and Ard laid the prince down, I cradled his bloody face and dowsed again, returning to his lumis, finding other breaks in my work and repairing them, then sifting through the rubble and trying to find pieces to fit together.

I strung up bits of glass everywhere, encouraging them to be more, hoping it would help him hold a little longer.

My own exhaustion kicked me out after an hour, my eyelids heavy and head pounding.

Someone had cleaned up most of the blood while I healed, but some lingered where I had touched him to dowse.

Steadying myself, I wet a handkerchief and carefully cleaned the blood from his jaw.

Smoothed hair from his face. “You are whole,” I whispered to him.

Pleaded. “You are well. You are strong. Be strong, Renn.”

I had only just tossed the handkerchief into the wastebasket when Queen Winvrin stormed in with long, merciless strides.

She’d followed us up to the suite, but the guards had managed to calm her down in the salon.

Her eyes shot to the bloodstained cloth I’d discarded.

Panic rippled from her like heat from a stove, and it took only a moment for her to pinpoint a target for her hysteria.

She backhanded me hard enough to send me into the side table, its corner bruising my ribs.

“What have you done to him?” she screamed. Candlelight blazed across her exposed wedding pendant. “Do you not realize what he is?!”

Refusing a wince, I stood up, heat throbbing in my cheek. “I know very well, Your Majesty. Do you?”

She lifted her hand as though to strike me again. “ Fix him , healer. Fix him!”

“I am trying to!” I barked back, hackles rising. “Mind that he first broke in your care, not mine.”

Fire blazed in her eyes. “You selfish, impudent little—”

“Get out,” Renn rasped from the bed. “Now.”

The queen lowered her hand, expression relaxing into smugness. “You heard him.”

“Not her.” He pushed himself up on one elbow. Hair stuck to his temples with perspiration, and the skin around his eyes looked bruised. “You. Out.”

The queen gasped. “Why would you—”

“Touch her again and I will cut you off,” he half groaned, but his eyes blazed bright. “You will leave, or I will, and you will be dead to me.”

Her entire body seemed to shrivel.

“I love you, Mother, but this is unacceptable. Please understand.” He collapsed back to his pillows. “Out.”

Tears glimmered in the queen’s eyes. She did not look at me, nor offer another jab or apology. She merely dragged herself out, leaving the bedroom door open in her wake. I listened for her departure. Heard the suite door open and close.

I moved to Renn’s side. Felt his forehead. Too warm, but I was not worried yet. His mother’s words itched at me. What he is, she’d said. Do you not realize what he is. Not who he is.

“I thought,” he said between labored breaths, “I told you to take the rest of the day off.”

“Thank goodness I didn’t.” I retrieved another handkerchief, wet it, and dabbed his brow. Hoped he thought the trembling in the touch came from him and not me. “You are always so dramatic.”

The ghost of a smile touched his lips, but it faded quickly. “I will always be this way, won’t I?”

I felt the question slice the marrow of my bones. Searing into my very spirit. “No,” I answered, unsure if I lied or not. “No, not always. And you do so well most of the time. That’s something, isn’t it?”

“I suppose.” Inhale, exhale. “Do you think ... have you wondered, why you’ve been able to help me where others have failed? Do you think it’s because of Ursa? That you are, in some way, two healers in one?”

“It helps. Some of her magic lingers with me. Some of it is merely experience. Not only with healing ... I’m able to liken your lumis and my own life and find new ways to build it up. Some of it might simply be luck, or the timing of the gods.”

He looked at me, his eyes so painfully bright against his pallor. “Is this the reason ... you always turn me away? Because of my—”

“No.” It came out more forceful than I meant it. “No, not that. I swear it.”

He closed his eyes. “Even if I am never cured, if it keeps you here ... it’s not so terrible.”

My eyes stung. “No, you will do this for yourself.”

“You are what I do for myself.”