Page 45 of The Shattered King

When I came to Renn’s suite the next morning, he was disheveled with dark undereyes, blearily pouring himself a cup of water. I didn’t even need to dowse into him. “Go back to bed.”

He drank, set the cup down, and rubbed his eyes. “I don’t think I could if I wanted to.”

“Then I’ll ask one of the physicians to make a draught for you.”

He attempted and failed to mask a yawn, and guilt swirled in me, knowing I was the likely reason he rested so poorly. He’d seemed so at peace when I’d left ... which only fueled the guilt.

My heart ached, and I ignored it.

Sten’s presence in the room felt like a beacon. A threat.

Sure Physician Whitestone would not be up this early, I went to the infirmary myself, and sure enough, one of the attendants was there.

The beds were empty. I asked after a draught for the prince, and he concocted one quickly from dried herbs and some oils in delicate glass bottles.

I thanked him, returned, and mixed the draught with water.

“I’m fine,” Renn murmured when I handed it to him.

“Please,” I whispered.

His blue eyes searched mine, and I wondered what he saw there. Wondered how much of myself my eyes betrayed. Then he drank the draught and returned to bed.

I dowsed into him while he slept that afternoon, strengthening the more brittle parts of him. Smoothed his hair from his forehead, traced the shape of his nose, and left.

I did not want bad blood between us, so I sought the queen out myself the following day.

Her rooms were, indeed, separate from the king’s, and she met me in her salon, prim and erect and doll-like.

I made no comment regarding our last interaction—I’d already healed the bruises—only updated her on her son’s well-being.

That he was well again, that relapses were to be expected, and that I would watch him closely.

“I have not yet dealt with a relapse I could not fix,” I offered.

“Given their pattern, I do not expect one for at least a few weeks.”

She accepted this as a stone would, and I excused myself.

I ran into Princess Eden and Prince Adrinn in the hallway, and per his word, the prince continued on without so much as looking at me, while the princess stopped, eyeing her brother for what she perceived to be rudeness. “How is Renn?” she asked.

“Much better. Rest has done him good.”

She smiled and squeezed my shoulder. “He is in good hands. Thank you, for watching over him.”

Her gratitude made it hard to breathe, so I merely nodded, wondering what she would think if I told her the truth—that I was very near to giving up everything to ensure Renn’s health, even any hope of returning to Fount.

But I kept that truth deep in my heart and returned to the prince’s side, his ever-diligent shadow.

He treated me much the same as before, but there was a change in his voice, his movements, that I would not have noticed had I not dedicated so much time to him.

A heaviness, a sadness, a longing. I would be a fool to disregard the way he looked at me, sometimes from across the salon, or from the table at dinner, or even on the training grounds when the winter sun shined on the frozen earth.

I only hoped I hid my own heaviness well enough, reminding myself that this, too, would pass.

It passed with Vin, and it passed with Ford.

Another four years, maybe, and Renn would not haunt my thoughts so terribly.

Surely I could hold out another four years.

One of those rare sunnier days came a fortnight before the winter solstice.

Sten, Ard, and I tailed Renn down one of the open loggias of the castle after a short private meeting with his father and the other male nobles at the castle, regarding plans for spring—taxes and launching an offensive strike against Sesta, or so Renn had mentioned.

Renn paused in one of the arcades, looking westward at the setting sun, which highlighted nearby wispy clouds with shades of orange and pink.

Moving past the next column, he stepped onto a narrow balcony.

As though they’d practiced it, Sten and Ard immediately took their posts on either side of the arch, facing the hallway, folding their arms in unison.

I waited a moment, pulling a shawl closer around me for the cold, but Renn stayed on the balcony, watching as the sun slowly sank, its cloud-reflected colors gradually deepening.

I stepped out onto the balcony with him, craning to see his face: still, impassive, masked. “Are you all right?”

He didn’t reply right away. “I’m not sure.”

Knotting the shawl so it would stay in place, I reached out to him. “Do you need me to—”

He clasped one of my hands and brought it to his chest, holding it there, never taking his eyes from the sunset.

Heat trickled down my arm, driving back the chill. My body tightened with too many emotions. “Ard and Sten are right here.”

“I hardly worry about them.” Still, he released me, and I cradled my hand to my chest as though it were something precious, mourning as his heat slipped away from my skin.

The fact that he’d held it spoke of feelings better left unsaid.

The fact that he released it comforted me even as I ached, for it meant Renn was safe.

Trustworthy. That he had listened to me and taken my past to heart.

We stood like that, watching the sunset a long moment.

Rove lay about one hundred miles from the coast of the sea, but I thought I caught the faintest scent of seawater on the December wind.

The aspen trees were bare, save for a few white boughs that held on to a few dead coin-shaped leaves.

The cold slowly enveloped us. I could see how travelers caught in a winter storm succumbed to it, so slowly it crept.

Painful, yet comforting, until it sucked life free of its shell.

I listened for Ursa, but she did not speak.

Renn sighed. “It’s cold. We should retire.”

We turned away from the view at the same time, our eyes meeting.

His dropped to my lips for only a heartbeat before shooting to the lengthening shadows of the loggia.

He took the lead, and I let Ard and Sten fall into line before taking up the rear, pressing my cold fingers to my lips, wondering if I allowed the loggia’s chill to embrace me just a little longer, if all this might hurt just a little less.

I sat reading by my fire that night, on a cushion on the floor.

Before the hearth was my favorite reading spot at home, close enough that I’d burn myself without a skirt to protect my legs.

The book was worn, its spine broken—one I’d brought from home.

A collection of fairy tales. I had gifted it to Ursa on our sixteenth birthday, not long before she’d gifted me her life.

I read there until the fire died out, leaving only red-cracked embers.

Then I set the book aside and crept toward my bedroom, shivering at the sudden chill in the air.

Death whispered against my skin.

Fear overtook me. I was close to Renn’s rooms. What if he—

One of the sashes was open. How long had ...?

“ Nym! ” Ursa shouted.

I jerked at the strength of her voice, just as a shadow leapt before me. Silver flashed, knocking the air out of me as it struck my chest. Stone cracked, and the agate pendant beneath my bodice shattered.

I stumbled back, feeling for my own knife, but I’d taken it off for the night, and my hands came up empty.

A man in all black, his face covered, pursued me.

He was short but lithe, silent as falling snow.

Quick, so quick—I couldn’t even get out the air for a scream before he shoved two gloved fingers into my mouth and thrust again, his knife sliding cleanly, smoothly, into my middle, deep and cold and raw.

Pain laced the shock of it as he twisted the blade, then withdrew from me all at once. Choking, flailing, I fell to my knees. Saw his silhouette shift against the darkness as he fled out the window, gone.

Assassin.

He got the wrong room, I thought, my center warm and wet as my limbs grew cold.

“ Nym! ” Ursa screamed. “ Nym! Heal yourself! Now! ”

I blinked, feeling disconnected from my body. Curled stiff fingers in. Flashes of my lumis appeared behind my eyes, limned with black. I recognized death only distantly. I hadn’t seen it like this, so alive in my own lumis, for eight years ...

“ Dowse, Nym !”

My eyelids grew heavy. I closed them and tried again, fingers curling in as though someone else moved them.

I slipped into my lumis, hardly able to tell up from down.

My arms weighed too much to work. The crenellated puzzle of me had fallen on one side, pieces scattered.

That was bad. I dragged my feet forward.

My hand felt like little more than a club as I picked up one and put it back.

Reached for another. Exhaled. I was so tired.

I’d never been this tired, even when the rat sickness claimed me.

Even after the soldier at the portcullis, and Renn with that relapse—

Someone was shouting at me. Ursa?

It took both hands for me to grip the next piece of the puzzle and lift it into place. I dropped to a knee getting the third. But there were so many pieces left. So many pieces ...