Page 48 of The Shattered King

At the end of spring, it had taken me ten days to travel—by foot, wagon, and ship—to Rove.

In a steady carriage with constantly refreshed horses, it took me two and a half days to travel back.

The road to my home was too narrow for the carriage to ride, so it pulled up a short ways away, and while the driver and the footman saw to Renn’s provisions, I ran through two inches of snowfall to the house.

Terrence’s face vanished from the window, and before I reached the door, he and Pren burst through it, throwing themselves into me so hard they nearly knocked me into the mud.

“You’re home!” Pren screeched.

Terrence buried his face into my skirts, sobbing.

Heath came out next, in his bare feet, and just stood there, staring at me like he might an apparition, and Colt, looking recovered from his illness, shoved past him and joined the embrace, grabbing my arm, hugging me, and then asking, “Where did you get this cloak?”

“Who left the door open?” Lissel cried from within, running to it with a bowl on her hip.

She half closed it before wrenching it back open and staring at me much the way Heath did.

Then, like a break in a storm, waterfalls ran from her eyes.

She put the bowl on the floor and ran out to embrace me, sending the whole lot of us into the mud.

I washed away the worst of the grime and hung the cloak, Terrence’s trousers, and Pren’s apron near our tiny hearth to dry.

Dan was at his apprenticeship, and Brien was with the army, so for now it was just us six.

My driver and footman kindly brought in the crates of goods gifted us, and Lissel sobbed as the others dug through them with wide eyes.

I quietly pulled Lissel aside and explained I’d been paid for my work, and that we would fix the roof and the hives, and invest what we could, and she sobbed until she couldn’t stand.

I held her and told her she’d done marvelously and that I was so proud of her.

And, since she was already crying, told her I would not be staying long, and that had tears streaming down both our faces.

My first order of business was to send Colt into the market to buy dry firewood and eggs.

Heath and Pren put the food gifts away, and I started a stew over the fireplace for dinner.

Lissel had a small loaf of bread rising on the mantel, just enough for all of us to have a slice.

Then I went out back to look at the apiary.

“I did everything I was supposed to,” Lissel promised, breath fogging in the air as I inspected the dead hive. There were a few fallen bees outside it, lying motionless on the winter-paled grass.

“It looks like it.” She’d secured it against mice and the cold, and when I pulled out two frames of honeycomb, it appeared that the bees should have had enough food.

Dead bodies fell free, and I put a few in my palm, crushing them with my finger, avoiding the stinger, and sighed.

“Looks like a fungus got them. There was little you could have done.”

Lissel pressed her fists together and nodded.

I did not want to disturb the bees’ winter cluster, but I heard an abnormal amount of buzzing from the last hive, given the season.

Pulling on long gloves, I carefully opened the hive and inspected the bees within.

They had the semblance of a huddle, but seemed frantic, dancing erratically, overworking.

I popped open a few honeycombs, noticing multiple larvae inside some.

“No queen.” I clicked my tongue. Without a queen, a hive would eventually die out.

The queen bee was essential for hive life; from her all new bees were born, and by her all were led.

She was the sole foundation for their society.

“Let’s work quickly so the cold doesn’t kill them.

We need to pull out a few of these shelves, force the bees to cluster. And we need to find the dead queen.”

Lissel came to my aid. We removed the shelves near the center first, on the second finding the dead body of a long honeybee, still being prodded at by her attendants.

I did not have time for smoke, so I plucked the queen free with my glove, sure the attendants stung me as I did so, then replaced the shelf.

We removed two shelves from the outside, forcing the bees to overcrowd and notice the absence of their queen.

With luck, they would make a new one on their own.

Hopefully the cold would not distract them.

I brought the shelves inside; we could make a few candles from the wax.

I tidied the house, got the younger children on their schoolwork, and was just pulling dinner from the fire when Dan got home.

He approached me from behind. “Lissel, it didn’t help.

He won’t listen to me. He says it’s another six months or I might as well quit. ”

I turned around. “Then I will let him know my mind first thing tomorrow.”

Dan started, gawked at me, then began to cry. This affected me more than the others—Dan was fifteen years of age, and I had not seen him weep since he was twelve. I crossed the room to him and held him tightly, wondering when he’d gotten taller, and silently thanked Renn for letting me come home.

I did as I said; in the morning I bundled up and accompanied Dan to the small tannery where he’d been apprenticing for four years.

A few pelts were strung up on frames in various phases of preservation, and Pern Fursmade, the tanner, hovered near one of them, a green cincture around his gut and a flask in his hand.

I marched up to him and snatched the flask from his grip, smelling it and wrinkling my nose. “It’s a little early for drink, isn’t it?”

He blinked stupidly at me. “Nym? When the hell did you get back?”

“Yesterday, only to hear you are reneging on your contract.”

He rolled his eyes and dismissed me with a flap of his hand. “Contract states he’s gotta be competent in the work, proficient before taking pay. He’s not there.”

I turned, taking in the hanging hides. “And which of these are his?”

Pern frowned. “Can’t sell his.”

“That’s a lie,” Dan spat. “Three-quarters of the furs in this shop are mine, and they sell. You can inspect any one of them.” He marched over to the furs on hooks, recently finished. “This is mine, this is mine, this one, too”—he skipped a beaver pelt—“and all of these.”

“I say when you’re finished, Tallowax.” The tanner jutted a finger in Dan’s direction.

“You do not, by law,” I retorted. “You are making money off of him. He serves his designated time and that is it. Then he can either work for you or open his own tannery.” I stepped right up to his face, until his gut hit my ribs.

I had rehearsed this, so it came out just as scathing as I wanted it to.

“You noticed my absence, did you not? I am the royal healer to prince Renn Reshua Noblewight. I have healed the king himself. Do you think I won’t have his ear?

Do you think the royal family will overlook this because Fount is beneath them?

It is not beneath me, Fursmade. You will hold to your contract and treat my family fairly, or we will cancel it now and open an opposing tannery across the street. ”

He laughed at me, then paused, taking in the cut of my dress and the fur of my cloak, far richer things than I could have ever hoped to afford on my own.

Things that spoke of money. I had not donned them for that reason, but suddenly I was very glad Renn had outfitted me so thoroughly for this journey.

Fursmade cursed, snatched back his flask, and mumbled his assent before going back into his adjoining house.

Dan touched me lightly on my wrist. “ What a relief, ” he said. Not to my ears, but to my mind.

Every joint in my body seized. I gawked at him, and he offered me a small smile and a half-hearted shrug.

I loosened my body through sheer will alone. Launched at him, grabbed him by the ear, and hauled him outside the tannery.

“Ow! Gods, Nym!” He jerked away from me in the cold, rubbing the side of his head. “I’m not ten!”

I got right in his face, my finger pointed at his nose. “Promise me you will never do that again.”

His brow crinkled. “I thought you’d be surprised. I’m like you now.”

“No, you are not .” I shoved him, though with his back to the wall, he had nowhere to go.

I spoke in low, hard tones, each word formed as winter hail.

“My craft is legal. It is the only one that is legal. If anyone finds out you’re a mindreader, the best-case scenario is that you will be fined.

The worst sees you hanged, and your siblings forever watched for signs of the craft, ostracized by all who know us. Is that what you want?”

He sucked in on his cheeks. “But you’re the royal healer—”

“And I was treated lower than a scullery maid for much of my time there, which you will not tell Lissel nor Fursmade. I am legal because I am a necessity, and it would not surprise me in the least if healers became unlawful again overnight, with me the only exception, because that is how the nobility works. They take what they want and bar the rest. Or have you forgotten?”

He pushed my hand away. “Fine, then I’ll go to Sesta. No laws against us there.”

“Then you will be used instead of killed,” I hissed. “Brien is at the strait as we speak, fighting Sesta on our behalf. Do you really plan to turn traitor just so you can spare your vocal cords with craftlock? If Brien dies, is that how you’ll honor his memory?”

Dan looked away, eyes shining. “No. Of course not.”

I softened. “I want you to be excited for this. I want you to love every part of yourself, magic included. But we do not yet live in a realm where that is possible.” I gripped his upper arms. “Promise me, Dan. Promise me you won’t use it. That you won’t tell anyone else.”

He nodded.

“Does Lissel know?”

“No,” he whispered. “No ... I’ve only told you.”

I hugged him. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“It is what it is.” He let me finish, waiting until I released him to return inside.

My chest sank, thinking of how marvelous such a gift might be in another world, another time.

But men feared what they could not control.

I wondered what they feared more—the nature of their thoughts revealed by mindreaders, or their freedom revoked by soulbinders?

In my mind, healers were the mildest of the crafters—our magic was meant to help, not hurt.

But how we helped was difficult for many to understand, and from that gap in knowledge flowed fear, even now.

I remained in town the rest of the day, repaying neighbors who had lent a hand to my family, visiting the Millstones and discussing marriage between Lissel and Art without making any promises, and going to the bank to discuss possible investments, for Renn had been generous with my payments, and I intended to put them to good use.

Word of my return spread, and before nightfall I had healed a neighbor’s ox and a woman’s broken ankle, as well as hired a man to repair our roof before the next snowfall.

That night Pren awoke with a sore throat, so I healed her and quietly checked everyone else so the ailment would not spread while I was gone.

After, I dreamed of Renn, of our first meeting, although now it happened in my home instead of the castle, and my mother was there, and for whatever reason that was not strange to me at all.

Renn tried to walk to me, but his broken legs could not hold his weight, and he fell, snapping his neck as his head hit the stone floor.

So disturbed was I by the dream that I woke early and made too large a breakfast, needing something to occupy myself. I drafted a quick letter to the nearest inn, where my driver and footman were staying, and gave it to Colt to deliver on my behalf.

The third day I determined to spend with my family.

I made a pie for us to share, and Lissel got out the danerin board for us to play, and we made a few holiday crafts despite the solstice having passed.

They asked how Ursa was, and I relayed that she was the same as always, that time didn’t move for her as it did for us, but they wanted to hear her voice through me besides, so I relented.

In later hours, by candlelight, I wrote a letter to each of my siblings, Brien included, tucked them with each of their coats, a little bit of me to leave behind with them, for I had promised Renn I would be swift, and that dream had drilled fear into my heart that he might not be well despite all our precautions.

And if he was, all the better; I would likely be able to return home for the summer solstice, too.

My carriage came in the morning, and I embraced each of my siblings individually, promising I would write and visit again, kissing the heads of the little ones. When Dan embraced me, his voice leaked into my head. “ I know you love him, Nym. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have looked, but I did. ”

I broke apart from him, feeling exposed. Dan looked at me apologetically, too young to understand the painful nuances of the situation. Shaken, I embraced Lissel last, offering her words of encouragement. Then I stepped into the carriage and journeyed back to Rove.