Page 5 of The Shattered King

I stood in the narrow stone archway of my new room and stared, trying to connect my mind with my body, trying to understand what had transpired.

I would not be leaving.

The queen’s swift debriefing made that much clear, as did the castle attendant who’d led me here. Exclusive healer. I had foolishly made a single minor repair in the broken prince’s lumis, and in return, he had made me his prisoner. Or his mother had. He’d yet to speak a word to—or about—me.

The attendant turned, heading down the skinny hall bare of carpet, décor, and sconce alike.

“Wait.” I numbly turned from the tiny room, cold yet overlit with sunlight due to the hour. “I cannot. My family needs me. In Fount. I’ve seven siblings and no parents. My brother has been conscripted, and I—”

“I can do nothing for you.” The attendant’s eyes glanced over me, dull and uncaring. “Her Majesty has directed it. You’d best settle in. Another will be by shortly to escort you to the prince’s chambers.”

And with that he left me, gaping and choking and wishing to pull my mother’s knife from my meager pack and launch it into his back.

Swallowing against a tight throat, I turned back toward the room. Hesitated to step into it, as though doing so would solidify my presence here, forbidding me from waking up from this nightmare. But I squared my shoulders and stepped inside.

There was nothing but a narrow bed that looked older than the castle itself.

Were I to lie down on the floor, my head against the far wall with its solitary window, I would have perhaps a foot of space between my heels and the door.

I could not lie down fully widthwise. There was no table, no chest, no wardrobe or trunk for my meager, travel-worn things.

I set my bag on the bed and stared out the window, shielding my eyes from the sun, looking down into the aspen forest. Its beauty did not captivate me now.

You will survive this, I told myself. You’ve survived worse.

Just a little while longer, and then I would go home. Surely.

The footman from before—the one who’d introduced me to the queen and prince—arrived at my door not five minutes later, denying me even a quarter hour to mourn.

Before he spoke, I said, “At the very least, give me pen and parchment. I need to write to my sister. She is expecting my return and will not understand I’ve been delayed. ”

The footman raised an eyebrow. “What you have is before you, Miss Tallowax. The royal family cannot allocate their resources for sentiment.”

“Allocate their resources?” I repeated, barely keeping the disbelief from my voice.

“They’ve ordered me from my home and subjugated me to work for their ailing son.

What trouble could a single page of parchment and a quill cause?

” I shook my head, searching the narrow walls. “Take it from my wages, then.”

The footman frowned. “You are a conscripted healer, Miss Tallowax.”

It took a beat for me to understand him. My muscles turned to honey. “I won’t be paid ?”

He said nothing.

The room began to spin. I rooted my heels into the stone floor, unwilling to let him see how hard the blow hit. “Am I to be given attire?”

“Livery is not required,” the footman answered. “If you will come with me.”

So they would not clothe me, either. I was aware my simple country garb did not fit in with Rovian fashion, but if I were being ordered into service, the least I would expect was the decency to blend in. “Am I to be fed?” I countered.

The footman snorted. “Do not be obtuse. Come, or I will have to send someone to fetch you more bodily.” He set off down the hallway and I, hands balled into tight fists at my sides, followed him.

I tried to memorize the passages through my anger, for this castle proved a maze to me.

When we arrived in a much larger corridor, this one with foreign rugs and plenty of sconces, I was not sure I could make my way back to my room without help.

The footman knocked, waited, then cracked open the door. “The healer Nym Tallowax for His Highness Prince Renn.” He hesitated a moment before pushing the door open, allowing me to enter.

The room within was more of a suite: rooms , one larger salon carpeted red, with plush and polished furniture, two fireplaces, and windows on the far wall.

Not only did these windows have thick glass panes, but they had iron bars crossing over them—a stark contrast to my own.

Three other rooms branched off from it, the doors to all of which were closed.

A guard wearing a blue cincture stood just inside the entrance, another on the right side of the salon wearing yellow.

Random stacks of books occupied nearly every flat surface.

Prince Renn was again draped on a wide sofa, though his blanket had been taken away, allowing me to see the crookedness of his legs.

Were I not brimming with rage at the injustice of the situation, I might have gawked, for I had never seen legs so broken and yet still, somehow, whole.

His person was more gaunt than I had realized, his clothing fitted too well, revealing his thinness.

He did not look at me, but rather out a window, ignoring my presence and the sacrifice being ripped from my person without my consent.

It was exactly how I expected nobility to act: uncaring toward the effects their actions had on their lessers. Unwilling to compensate for what they could just as easily take, as it had been with my parents.

Fifteen pieces of silver. That had been the pittance for their stolen lives.

The queen perched stiff-spined on a chair beside the prince, an ever-watchful hawk. I approached her first.

“I need to send word back to Fount,” I pleaded.

Her nose wrinkled as her eyebrows drew together. “You will not speak to me so casually, Miss Tallowax. You are here to heal my son.”

“He is unhealable.”

The prince didn’t even flinch.

The queen pursed her lips; it seemed a favorite expression of hers. “You have already done so. And if you refuse, there will be dire consequences, both for you and for Fount. Am I clear?”

I held back the urge to scream, and the anger of it pushed tears into my eyes. I did not answer, only turned to the prince. Sat on the edge of his sofa.

“You will not occupy his space so boldly,” the queen snapped.

I turned toward her. “Then how would you like me to heal him, Your Majesty?” I knew the bitterness in my tone could only get me into trouble, but I could not reel it back. I wanted to tear apart the draperies and dig my nails into the wallpaper.

To one of the guards, the queen said, “Fetch her a stool.” The closest of the burly men, the paler, crosser-looking one with the blue cincture, dipped into an attached room and returned with a wooden three-legged stool, still of finer make than any piece of furniture I had ever owned. He set it beside the prince.

The thought of digging my nails into the prince instead of the wallpaper crossed my mind, until he glanced at me.

Only briefly, like he did not wish to truly look at me, which would have offended me had there not been a glimmer of hope in his eyes, so quick and subtle I would not have seen it were I not so close.

Guarded, like he dared not give in to it.

Like he dared not let his mother or his guards see.

It cooled my rage to embers. Hot embers, but embers all the same. Steadying myself with a breath, I took in his bloodshot eyes and pale lips, sat down, and touched him gently, dowsing back into his lumis, staring at the broken shards of his being with a renewed helplessness.

“ Perhaps if you— ”

“Hush,” I said beneath my breath. Let me think.

I would never be able to cure him. Somehow the mess looked worse than it had before, like a six-horse carriage had ridden through in my absence.

He was so terribly sick; I wondered if he wore cosmetics or had other high-living assistance to keep him from looking like a corpse.

Crouching, I started carefully picking through the mess, trying to learn it, trying to find a pattern of some sort.

Were this real glass, I’d have sliced my fingers to ribbons.

But it was not. None of this was real, including me.

Not in tangible existence. This was self and the portrayal of self through the lens of magic.

And, though the lumis occupied the whole of my vision, I swore I could feel the queen’s eyes boring into my back.

She, too, perhaps, was afraid to hope.

I hesitated to start sorting pieces by color, avoiding death lines.

I assumed that like went with like; perhaps Prince Renn’s completed lumis morphed in color, like a soap film or dye pit.

Not only that, but there were multiple shades of various colors—not just green, but emerald, chartreuse, seafoam.

Not just violet, but plum, mauve, and puce.

I felt overwhelmed by it all, so much so that for a moment I leaned back on my heels, staring, whispering, Ursa, what would you do?

She did not answer.

Finding it pointless to waste my energy just sitting there and fearing the queen’s wrath should I emerge from dowsing with nothing accomplished, I rolled up my metaphorical sleeves and started sorting through the mess, careful with everything I touched.

I examined each piece closely, pieces as large as my head and others as small as half my pinky nail.

After an hour, I found two pieces that appeared to go together, so I aligned their chipped sides and willed them to be one.

The magic accepted it, giving me a new piece the length of my thumb.

I worked until my arms began to feel heavy, my head achy, my back stiff.

I’d picked out a few larger baubles and convinced them to hang in the air so I might better look at them, but found no pieces to fit within them.

I mended them, temporarily, with the same string trick I’d used before, and then grew so weary I snapped from dowsing almost against my will.