Sin Eater's Daughter 2 - The Sleeping Prince

by Melinda Salisbury

  “Are you an alchemist?”

  “No.”

  “Then why do you need to find her?”

  “I was hoping she could help me. That we could help each other.” Dimia looks puzzled. “I’m in some trouble,” I add.

  “What kind?”

  I take another drink of wine, enjoying its warmth. Then I explain, as best I can, about the threat of evacuation, and Mama’s illness, though I don’t mention the beast. Then I tell her how Silas gave me a potion that seemed to heal her, but when he wouldn’t give me more I withheld the girl’s whereabouts until he agreed to help.

  She raises her eyebrows, leaning against the mantel. “You blackmailed him?”

  “No. It wasn’t like that. He said he’d help, and that he didn’t blame me for trying it. I believed him, and … and I told him she was here.” I pause. “He betrayed me. He waited until I went home to get my mother and our things, and he left without me.”

  She holds her hand out for the goblet and I pass it to her. “So, he’s on his way here too, I take it. To find a girl who isn’t.”

  “I expect so. I don’t know which of us will be more disappointed. No offence meant.”

  She shrugs. “Where is your mother now?”

  “She’s in an asylum,” I say quietly. “While I was with Silas, soldiers came and took her away. And they found… Someone died in our cottage. I didn’t kill him,” I hasten to reassure her when her eyes widen. “A man was attacked in the woods near the cottage and Silas brought him to me. I was an apothecary apprentice, so he hoped I could save him. I tried, but he died, just after he told me the girl was here. I had to run. So I decided if I could find the girl alone, I could tell her she needed to go to the Conclave and escort her there. I hoped the alchemists would be grateful enough to help me in return.”

  Dimia offers the goblet to me again and I drink. “Except she’s not here. What will you do now?”

  I lick the wine from my lips. “I need to get my mother back. They think she’s depressed, and grieving, but it’s not that, it’s bigger than that, and if I don’t get her out… She’s all I have,” I say, my voice breaking. “I’ve lost my father, our home, my apprenticeship, and my brother this year. I can’t lose her too.”

  Dimia’s jaw drops, her mouth hanging open. I can see the pulse fluttering in her throat as she tries to contain herself. “You lost your brother? Lief?”

  I look up at her, stunned. “Did you know him too?” I stare at her. “Did you meet him at the castle?”

  “Yes,” she says, her voice sounding far away, her forehead drawn into a frown. “Is he…”

  I nod, and her hands rise to cover her face, her back bent as though the weight of the world presses on her.

  Mama, Lirys, Carys, Dimia. All these people who grieve for my brother.

  I’m surprised I have any tears left after last night, but it seems I do.

  “I’m sorry,” I say when they’ve stopped, my breath still coming in shuddery gasps.

  She has already composed herself and stands stiffly by the fireplace, her expression strained. “Don’t be.”

  “That’s why I have to get my mother back. We’re all the other has now.”

  “And he wouldn’t have left you,” Dimia says softly. “Not if he could help it.” When I look up at her, she smiles briefly. “What little I knew of your brother, I know he loved you. And your mother.”

  I can’t look at her. “Thank you.” The goblet appears before me and I take it gratefully.

  “What if I could help you instead?” she says suddenly. “What will you give me in return?”

  The words fall from her mouth so quickly it’s as if they’ve escaped, rather than been spoken. “What?”

  “You said you were training to be an apothecary?”

  “I was. I’m not licensed, but I’m good. I can make cures. I can make poisons.” Her eyebrows shoot up at this and I shrug. “I had to,” I say.

  “Good. I can use that.”

  “Use it how?”

  “When I fight the Sleeping Prince.”

  I look her up and down. She looks like a baby deer, all thin limbs and wide eyes. She looks as though she’d snap in a high wind. “You plan to fight him?”

  She pauses, apparently giving the question real thought. “Yes,” she says. “I do. Someone has to. Your people won’t, unless he brings the war to you. Merek is dead. If not me, then who? Besides, he won’t be the first monster I’ve faced.”

  “What do you mean? What monsters have you fought?”

  She ignores my questions, looking instead to the window. “We won’t get out of here tonight. The track will be too dangerous.”

  “We?” I ask hesitantly.

  She nods. “I told you, I’ll help you if you return the favour. Be my apothecary. Make cures that will heal the soldiers I muster. Make poisons we can use on his people – on this Silver Knight and the traitors that follow him.”

  I stare at her. Who is she? How could she muster people? How could she save the Lormerians? How can she help me? “Your people? How are they your people?”

  “The people of Lormere.” She waves her hand. “My countrymen. Seeing as yours won’t do anything to aid them, I will. For Merek. And your brother. I’ll rally whoever I can in Lormere, and anyone else who’s willing, and I’ll find a way to fight him.” In the glow of the fire there is something regal about her, something in her eyes like iron. She means it.

  “Do you know how to fight a war?”

  “No,” she says, flushing in the firelight. “No. I don’t. But I’ll find people who do. And I’ll have you. Maybe all it will take will be poison in his wine goblet, like in the story. Isn’t that how he became the Sleeping Prince, in your stories – your histories?”

  I nod, frowning.

  “Good. It’s a start. So, what would you need from me, to complete my end of the bargain?

  I take a deep breath. “I need to get my mother out of the asylum in Tressalyn, and I need to get her somewhere safe. And isolated. I need to get the potion for her.” I pause. “And I need to stay away from the Tregellian army for a while.”

  She blinks rapidly. “I can’t help you with the potion. But I think I can help you get her back.” She walks over to the mantelpiece and reaches into the chimney. I hear the chinking of coins before she draws the bag into view. It’s fat with coins, bulging. A king’s ransom. “I’m assuming I’ll be able to persuade someone to release her into the care of her dear long-lost cousin?” I nod, dumbstruck. “Good,” she continues. “As for isolated, this cottage is quite apart. And it’s by the sea. I imagine that’s useful for healing.”

  My eyes widen. “You’d let us live here? In your cottage?”

  “I doubt I’ll be using it while I’m at war. We’re quite far from Lormere here.” She smiles wryly. “You could use the kitchen as a workroom to create the poisons and healing potions I’ll need, whilst you care for your mother. Of course, once the battles begin I’ll need you a lot closer to our base camp. But that’s some time away yet. I’ll need time to find and organize my people. If she’s not better by the time we need to fight, you can engage a nurse for her while you’re gone. You won’t be out on the field, so you needn’t worry about that.”

  “She won’t be better. She won’t ever get better. Her illness is very unusual. If anyone found out what it was…”

  Dimia hefts the bag so it clinks again. “I’m sure we could find someone discreet enough for the task. You’d be surprised, I think, what people will do for money.” She looks at me, her eyes searching mine. “Or perhaps not. What do you say? Do we have an agreement?”

  “Why?” I ask. “Why would you do this? I’m a stranger to you; why would you do this for me?”

  She opens her mouth, staring beyond me to the rain lashing against the window. “Because you remind me a little of myself.�
�

  Then I turn to the rain too, watching it slide down the windowpane. “What did you do, at the castle?” I ask.

  Her eyes slide to the side. “I served. I was a servant.”

  I’m about to ask for specifics when I stop myself, the pieces slotting into place in my mind. A servant who calls the king by his given name. A servant with a bulging bag of coin. A servant confident she has sway over men, enough to call them to muster. To inspire them to fight. I think I understand now. I remember the knowing look on the soldiers’ faces when Kirin said I was a camp follower. I deliberately don’t think about her knowing my brother.

  “Errin,” she says softly, and I look at her. Her face is solemn. “It won’t stop. The Sleeping Prince won’t stop at Lormere. Your Council knows that. He’ll come here next. And he’ll do to the people of Tregellan what he’s done to mine. Your people slaughtered. Your people’s heads mounted atop poles. Your people running.” She puts her goblet down and crosses the room, pausing before she reaches for my hands.

  “I’m not saying I can beat him. I know the odds, and as you said, he has golems, as well as his human forces. But I have to try. If I can get word to Lormere that they have reason to hope, and fight… You know, in the last war, they were losing against your people. And then … they rallied. They were given cause to hope and it made them fight harder. I would give them that. Help me do it. And I’ll help you.”

  Kirin said Lormere’s greatest weakness was that they didn’t try to fight back. And now here is this girl, this Lormerian servant who wants to make it happen. Who believes that she can.

  I pull my hands from hers and stand, moving past her to the window. I press my forehead against the cool glass, watching as new drops of rain merge with older ones until they become tiny rivers that run down the pane. Flashes of lightning illuminate the horizon; I can see where the cliffs must begin. Where the land ends.

  The philtresmith isn’t here, and without her, I have no chance of finding the Conclave or getting the Elixir. Perhaps she was never here at all; maybe Ely was wrong, delirious with pain. How could I be sure he knew what he was saying? The only way I’ll know for certain is if Silas shows up, looking for her – and then what? Do I try to follow him, reason with him, beg him again? I huff quietly, my breath fogging the pane as I imagine it. No. That bridge is well and truly burned. The one thing I’m certain of is that I have to get Mama back; she’s all I have. She’s my responsibility.

  I try and sort through it all, taking quiet, deep breaths as the minutes pass, each one like a decade. What choice do I have?

  “Well?” Dimia says behind me. “Will you join me?”

  I turn to face her. “You’ll help me keep my mother safe? No matter what you hear about her?”

  Her eyes narrow briefly, but she nods. “I swear.”

  “Yes, then. I’ll be your apothecary.”

  A dark look crosses her face. “I need you to swear it too, Errin Vastel. No blackmail, no double-crossing, no betrayal.”

  I blush and hold out my hand. “I swear it. I won’t betray you. I just want to keep my mother safe.”

  Her eyes bore into mine for what feels like an age. Then she nods, clasping my hand between both of hers. “And so it is done.” Her words send a thrill through me, as though someone has walked over my grave. “Thank you. Tomorrow, we’ll leave, go to Tressalyn straight away. I’ll buy your mother’s freedom and then we’ll bring her back here. But for now we should get some rest,” she says. “There is another room that could be used for sleeping, though it’s presently unfurnished. I’m afraid I’m not used to living with so much space. Before we leave tomorrow I’ll engage a carpenter to see to it for when we return with your mother. But tonight you’re welcome to take my bed.”

  I shake my head. She doesn’t insist; instead she gathers blankets and cushions, trying to make a kind of bed.

  “Goodnight, then,” she says, pausing in the doorway to what I assume is her bedroom. She looks as if she might speak, then closes the door firmly. I shed my cloak and bed down in the pile of blankets she’s created for me. In my new home. And I think that out of all of the absolutely impossible things to have happened to me in the past week, this is the strangest.

  In the dream I’m dressed in armour, and part of me knows that it’s because of the promise I made to Dimia. I look down at myself, at the cuirass covering my chest, the vambraces on my arms. I know it should be heavy, but it’s not, and I swing my arms, raising them as though I’m holding a sword.

  “What’s this?”

  The man is standing behind me in the doorway, his mouth a pout, his eyes covered by his hood.

  “I beat you here,” I say. “I’m with Dimia.”

  “Dimia?” He smiles.

  “She’s not the philtresmith. The girl you want isn’t here.”

  “Really?” His tone is careful.

  “Well, if she is, she’s hiding from us.”

  “Clever girl. And now what will you do, with this Dimia?”

  “Rescue my mother. Then we’re going to war.”

  “With me?”

  “With the Sleeping Prince. I’m going to help her.”

  The smile falls from his face. “Are you?”

  I nod.

  “That changes things,” he says slowly. “That changes things a lot.”

  It feels as though I’ve barely closed my eyes when she shakes me awake the next morning. She’s already dressed, her hair loose around her shoulders. I sit up blearily, moaning at the sharp pains in my thighs and lower back, and reach for the cup she holds out to me.

  “What time is it?” I ask.

  “An hour before dawn, by the light,” she says, picking up a bag and reaching for her cloak. “I have to go into the village before we leave.”

  I watch her as I rise and tidy myself. She walks around the room, touching everything, stroking the back of the chair, tapping the tabletop lightly and running a finger over the spines of her few books. There’s a ritual to it. It’s as though she’s saying farewell, and it makes me shudder. We’ll be coming back here, she said so.

  Unless she thinks she might not.

  Finally she turns to me. “Let’s go.”

  We make our way along the boggy cliff path towards the town using the old man’s lantern. As I scramble to keep up with her I feel ungainly and childlike. She’s smaller than me, but she carries herself as though she were much taller, her head held straight, her shoulders back, hair flowing over her shoulders, black as a raven’s wing.

  When we get to town, every house is ablaze with light, the shop too, even though dawn is still an hour away. The fishermen are long gone and their women are up and about, fetching water, gossiping with neighbours, swapping food and stories in the tiny square. They all stop and turn when they see Dimia’s light, smiling and waving to her.

  The small crowd parts as she approaches, as though she’s a ship on the ocean and they are the waves. Everyone greets her and she speaks to the carpenter, a seamstress, and the grocer, all of whom defer to her as though she’s a queen. I trail in her wake back to the blacksmith’s cottage to collect my horse, not surprised at all when he gives her a funny little bow. A few swift words and he’s soon leading a fat-bellied pony around for her, saddled and bridled.

  “Not as fine as the horse,” he says, linking his hands to help her mount. She gives a delicate shrug, and, in a motion more graceful than I’d expected, puts a foot in the stirrup and swings into the saddle. She looks surprised, then pleased, arranging her skirts around her.

  “You take care of her, miss,” he says to me. “She’s one of us now.”

  “I can take care of myself, Javik.” She smiles, and he beams back, showing gappy teeth and red gums, bowing as he backs away.

  “So, how far to Tressalyn?” Dimia says, adjusting her stirrups before turning to me.

  “We hav
e to follow the river road towards Tremayne, though we don’t have to go through it. If we go around it, we can take the King’s Road south.”

  “How long will it take?”

  “A day or two.”

  “And where will we sleep? I can hardly arrive in Tressalyn and plead for your mother’s release if I look as though I can’t care for myself.”

  “Do you have papers?” I ask.

  She taps her pocket. “And coin for food and lodging.”

  I don’t want to stay in Tremayne. “We’ll see how far we get and then make a plan. There are villages and roadside inns on the way. I have a map.”

  For some reason, she almost smiles. “You’d better lead on, then.”

  After eight solid hours of moving, swapping between riding and walking, my back aches, my thighs ache and my arms ache. My head aches. Dimia’s face is white and pinched and her knuckles are bloodless where she grips the reins, but as long as she doesn’t complain I won’t either. Instead we plough on, passing mile after mile of purple and brown heathland, skirting around small woodlands and the odd isolated cottage and farm. The sky at the horizon is orange, the wind is behind us, driving us forward, there’s a fog rolling in fast, and my heart lifts because we cannot be too far from Tremayne now, perhaps three miles at most.

  I’m dozing in the saddle, rocked back and forth by the rolling gait of the horse, when Dimia’s voice cuts through my reverie.

  “What’s that?” she asks, a bite to her voice that has me whipping around in the saddle. Then I see what she’s looking at and my stomach swoops. I grip the reins tightly.

  “It’s a graveyard,” I say finally.

  “Where the dead are buried? Can we stop a little?”

  “We don’t have time,” I say swiftly.

  “Just a few moments. I’ve never seen one before.”

  “Do you not have memorials for your dead?”