Page 6 of The Shattered King

I shivered, the salon coming to me, dimmer than it had been.

A sconce and several candles had been lit; pink sunset crossed one of the windows, streaking the bars’ shadows across the room.

I blinked dry eyes, my throat burning with thirst, my stomach growling loudly. I’d never dowsed so long in my life.

The queen, who appeared to have been pacing behind me, rushed forward, ignoring me and addressing her son. “How are you, my dear? How do you feel?”

Prince Renn, who had a book in his hand—I almost pardoned myself for boring him—shifted on the sofa. “Much the same, I’m afraid,” he said, then coughed so violently he startled me from the stool. Blood spattered over his pants before he could get a handkerchief over his lips.

“Water, now,” the queen demanded, and one of the guards filled a cup from a tin pitcher and brought it over. The queen retrieved her own clean handkerchief and dipped it in the water, dabbing at the prince’s forehead and temples.

“But,” he managed once he’d settled and wiped his mouth, “perhaps not as terrible as I could be.”

I waited for the queen to look at me before speaking. “His lumis is very broken, Your Majesty. There is a lot for me to sort through. I did what I could given the constraints.” I wavered on my feet; the magic had taken its toll on me.

Perhaps she would have reprimanded me, had twenty years of healers not confirmed to her what a mess her son was before my arrival. “Then you will return at dawn. Dawn until dusk, until the work is complete.”

My bones threatened to buckle. “Your Majesty, I—”

“Escort her to her room,” she said to the guard who’d fetched the water, the darker one with the yellow cincture.

I rubbed my eyes. “If I can talk to the castle doctors, perhaps I could understand more of what ails him.”

Prince Renn sniffed. “I’ve read everything he has; he won’t be helpful.”

But the queen considered this a moment, then nodded to the guard. He led the way from the chambers, then took me down a set of stairs. The infirmary was surprisingly close.

“Has it always been in this tower?” I asked, half expecting the guard to ignore me.

“They moved it thirteen years ago,” the guard responded, stopping at a door and taking up a post right beside it. “To be closer to the prince. The lead physician is Wald Whitestone.”

Thank goodness someone in this gods-forsaken fortress spoke to me like a normal human being. “Thank you.” I stifled a yawn and stepped inside.

There was only one doctor present in the chamber, a middle-aged man with both a balding crown and a sharp widow’s peak.

A waste bin sat near the door, full of bloodied bandages and other rubbish.

Three of the four beds were unoccupied; the last had a bronze-skinned young woman upon it holding a wet rag over her eye.

She wore servants’ livery and glanced up with one good brown eye as I entered.

“Hello.” I approached the doctor. His livery was not quite like the other servants’; his shirt was white linen, his slacks the same gray as the servants’.

Instead of a cincture around his waist, he wore a red silk ribbon around his right arm.

Red for Alm, the god of music, culture, and healing.

Had I not feared social retribution, I might have worn red, instead of Zia’s discarded violet.

“Physician Whitestone?” I asked, and he looked at me, scrutinizing me much as the queen first had. “My name is Nym Tallowax—”

“The healer from Fount,” he said for me, turning to a mortar and pestle on a nearby table. “What do you want?”

I tried to mask my fatigue. “I wanted to inquire what you know of Prince Renn and his health. His symptoms and how they’ve morphed, even who he is, fundamentally, as a person. It may help me understand his lumis better.”

The physician frowned, ground up something red in the mortar, and side-eyed me. “If I understood it, I would have healed him myself, not stood by while riffraff from all over the continent scurried in and put their hands on him.”

My lips parted. “I would not call—”

“I have nothing for you, Miss Tallowax,” he said over me. “And you have nothing for me. You are not a real doctor. You are not trained in medicine.”

I ground my molars. “I am a healer—”

“Am I mistaken?” he again interrupted.

I was too tired not to glower. “No, I know only traditional herbalism. I have not studied because the magic does not require me to. If I were presented—”

“Whatever I could share with you would be beyond your understanding, then.” He sniffed. “Use your magic , Nym. I pray to the gods it works, and yet I will not be surprised when it doesn’t. But note this; I am not your comrade.”

He turned his back to me, so he did not see the crude gesture I flashed him as I left. The moment I stepped into the darkening hallway, the guard began leading me back to my room.

“Is he always so charming?” I asked.

“Don’t know,” the man answered. “I never talk to him.”

He led me to my room without further conversation. Cool air floated in from the stone-framed window. I sat stiffly on the bed, the mattress sinking, and lay down, boring holes in the ceiling with my eyes.

I fell asleep quickly, and dreamed only of an endless field littered with broken glass.

A new guard woke me at dawn the next day, so close to its crack the light had yet to reach my window. I startled awake, not only because I had been sleeping deeply, but because I was alone in a dark room with a strange man—

Guard. Employee. You’re safe.

“You are to attend His Highness. Queen’s orders.” He handed me a wooden bowl of porridge. If he had noticed the flash of terror, he did not comment on it. “Straightaway.”

Straightaway, indeed—I had to eat the porridge while walking to the prince’s suite. It was still warm, at least, though overstirred and gluey. Still, I was ravenous, and I finished the entire helping before arriving at the door.

The guard let me inside. The prince was not there.

I hesitated. “Is he not even awake yet? Why bring me here if he’s sleeping?”

“Queen’s orders,” the man repeated.

“And does the king also have any paradoxical demands of me?” I asked.

He ignored the comment and walked to the far right door.

He wore his hair closely cropped, had umber skin with deep gold undertones, and had the shoulders of an ox.

I categorized him by the cincture he wore—yellow—I wondered if he slept as little as I did.

“The prince sleeps late often, due to his health. You are to dowse while he’s abed. ”

A shiver zinged up my spine. “That seems intrusive.”

The guard offered me a single-shouldered shrug and opened the door.

No light illuminated the space, save for a sliver coming through curtains not quite fully drawn.

Prince Renn lay across an enormous bed in a room that made my own look like the lodgings of a cockroach.

Thanks to another pile of ill-treated books, he slept close to one side, so I wouldn’t have to crawl onto the mattress to reach him, and then surely be berated by his mother for doing so.

The soft rattling of his breath, like there were wood chips in his lungs, filled the chamber.

There was a chair, thankfully. It looked much more comfortable than the stool. I dragged it over, causing the prince to stir, and set it by the edge of the bed. I rubbed sleep from my eyes before placing one hand on the back of his and letting myself relax into his lumis.

Just as I had left it, though the floating bits had fallen.

I worked until my back hurt—a couple of hours. Then I returned to reality and leaned back, stretching the aching muscles.

“May I leave my room, now?” the prince asked, a frown curving his lips. He seemed rather annoyed that I had kept him. Someone had opened the curtains, letting morning light into the room. The furnishings were simple, mostly a variety of chairs and a few bookshelves.

“Did not mean to keep you, Your Highness,” I offered, fighting to sound polite.

His vivid eyes shifted from me to the door. The guard must have been listening in, for he entered straightaway—the same who’d escorted me to Physician Whitestone last night. As he approached the bed, the prince said, “Privacy, please.”

I gratefully rose from my chair and exited to the salon, walking its perimeter and stretching. It felt strange to do so with the eyes of another guard watching me, but I ignored him.

After a quarter hour, the guard carried Prince Renn out of the room—now fully dressed—and moved toward the wide sofa.

He wore simple clothing, black and red, with a wide white cincture around his hips.

He looked like a doll in the man’s arms. The prince winced as the guard set him down; it must have been painful for him to be carried that way.

He coughed, reaching for a handkerchief—there was a pile of them on the sofa next to him. The same guard offered him water, which he took. A third entered then with a breakfast tray.

“Should I wait?” I asked.

The guard from last night said, “If you can do your work while he eats, then I advise you to do so.”

I held back a sigh. “What is your name?”

He regarded me for three beats of my heart. “Sten.”

“Thank you, Sten.” I waited for the prince to situate himself with his food tray before coming around the couch and gently touching the sides of his neck.

He tensed under my fingers, enjoying this about as much as I did, but if I could not go home until the shambles of his lumis was repaired, then we both had to suffer.

I only took a break twice, once to eat what was left on the prince’s breakfast tray and once to relieve myself.

The queen had returned by then and seemed put out that my body must perform its natural functions.

When the prince had to do the same, Sten or another guard carried him into one of the other chambers so he could do so.

The prince seemed stiffer than usual each time he returned.

I worked until dusk and was escorted back to my chambers, only to be awoken the next day to repeat the exercise.

Again I started with Renn abed, and then we moved to the sofa.

After four days, I managed to piece together the majority of two baubles, and when I rose from Prince Renn’s lumis, he let out a small gasp.

His mother, ever watching, approached and asked, “What is it?”

“My ankle.” He looked wondrously at me for half a second before focusing on the queen. “It ... it doesn’t hurt anymore.”

I wondered how much pain, how many symptoms, he bore that could not be discerned with the eyes.

For the first time since I’d met her, I witnessed the queen smile. “Miraculous. Miraculous. Healer, you must continue.”

Something about her excitement made me uneasy. “It’s nearly dusk, Your Majesty. I was hoping to eat and go to bed.” I had not had lunch that day.

But she shook her head. “Not when there is so much progress. Again, healer.”

Nearly on the fringe of weeping, I dowsed into Prince Renn for another hour.

It helped that he said it affected his ankle; I was starting to learn what pieces of him were the ailments of his legs, and what must have been the underlying sickness consistently weakening him.

It gave me direction, but however much the queen wanted me to work, the magic exhausted me until my joints could not move, even under her edict.

I dowsed until the magic would not obey me anymore, and then the queen sent me to my room with another guard.

I shut the door behind me, grateful for my privacy, and slumped onto my bed, eyes closed, a headache pounding behind them. “They will kill me, Ursa,” I whispered. “They will work me until I’m dead.”

“ No, they won’t, ” she responded. “ Take heart, Nym. They need you. Do not forget it. ”