by Cat Bruno
“It should not be long,” she told the others.
As she held the King’s chin in her hands, she felt his jaw tighten. When his lips twitched, she hurriedly sat him up with Sharron’s help. With several pillows behind him, the King leaned back, his body trembling and his legs shaking. When his eyes flared open, Caryss smiled gently.
“King Herrin, my name is Caryss and I am healer-trained. Can you hear me?”
Her words were spoken in Common, and, after a moment, the King shook his head.
“Good. I have given you something to keep you awake for a bit, and I need to ask you a few questions. Do your best to answer.”
Much to her surprise, the King smiled, his skin, nearly translucent, wrinkling at his eyes and lips.
“You are often asleep, my lord. Do you ask your healers for it to be so?”
When the King answered, his words were strained and hoarse, spoken slowly and with difficulty, as if his lips had turned to stone. “I ask them to ease the pain.”
Before she could ask another question, Crispin called out, “Father, this is the first time in a half-moon that you have spoken!”
Herrin’s golden eyes were dull and yellow, but he turned to where Crispin stood and said to him, “I am not yet dead.”
Silence followed his words, a rebuke, Caryss thought, with interest. As she reached for Herrin’s wrist to again feel for his life pulse, he turned toward her, grabbing her fingers with his own. He had little strength and she could have pulled away had she wanted to, but Caryss waited, letting him embrace her.
After a moment, he grunted, “You look too young to be a healer.”
With her free hand, she reached for his neck, and told him, “I have trained for twelve moon years at the Academy, King Herrin.”
His life pulse was stronger now, beating with some regularity.
“So you were but a child when you arrived,” he mumbled.
As she was folding down the blanket that covered him, he asked, “Are you from Eirrannia?”
Caryss nodded, gently pulling her hand from his and moving it to his stomach, where she pressed and rolled her fingers, feeling for displacement or swelling.
He struggled to speak as she did so, but managed to squawk, “You are kin to Derry then.”
Laying her ear next to his chest, she listened to his breathing, and answered, “I know not whom I am kin to and was an orphan when I arrived at the Academy.”
He continued to talk as she examined him, and Caryss let him, hoping to keep him awake for as long as possible.
“Eirrannia is a strange land and her people stranger yet. Many fear them, especially here in Rexterra,” he explained, his words still edged and course. “I blame the mages, you see, for they have long told tale of how the North breeds monsters and rebels.”
Before she could stop herself, Caryss laughed, “Am I a monster, then, King Herrin?”
His smile was bright, lighting up a face covered in rash and scars.
Still smiling, she called to Sharron, “Have a listen here.”
To the King, she instructed, “Lie silent for a moment and breathe as deeply as you can.”
After a few moments, Caryss said to him, holding out her hand, “Reach for my hand, King Herrin, and grab my fingers as strongly as you can.”
He did as she asked, although his grip was weak and his fingers chilled.
“Are you always so cold?”
“You know little, child!” he cried, squeezing her hand harder.
When he did not release her hand, Crispin jumped forward, exclaiming, “Father, you need not hurt the girl! She knows little of our ways.”
Looking up at the prince, she watched as he glanced at her, noticing the confusion on her face.
“Do they teach you nothing of Rexterra at the Academy?” he asked her, the clouds separating in his eyes.
With a shrug, she gazed back at the King, noticing his eyes were less cloudy now and brimming with specks of gold and orange.
“They teach us of your plants and healing practices. Little more than that do we need.”
After the King released her hand, she pushed the long sleeve on his tunic up, examining the red rash that laced up and down his arm. Pressing her fingers into his mottled skin, she grimaced, unsure what would cause the reaction.
“Does your skin itch?” she asked.
“Nearly enough to drive me mad,” he answered, his words half-whispered now as he began to fade.
“Is that why you ask for the poppy milk so often?”
Wanly nodding, he answered, “The poppy milk dulls it all.”
“And makes you sleep overmuch!” she chided him.
With a sudden burst of energy, he told her, “I am still your king, girl!”
Caryss bit at the inside of her lip to prevent herself from laughing, but she knew that Crispin watched her, and knew, too, that he had seen her smile. She cared little.
Pulling his sleeve back down over his icy skin, she asked, “Sir, can you walk?”
“I have not been able to do so in many moons.”
“Yes, but have you tried much? If your body grows accustomed to being carried about, your legs will lose their strength and ability to hold your weight. Regardless of how weak that you feel, you should not stop trying to manage on your own. Who has advised you to stay abed?”
“I cannot recall who first suggested it, but most likely it was one of the Masters,” he said, looking to where Crispin stood.
Waving off the prince before he could reply, she told him, “My lord, they are wrong. It will take a few moons for your legs to regain the strength that they have lost, but it can be done.”
Then she looked back at the prince and said, “Lord Crispin, why was your father told to stay abed? Why was he not permitted to attempt to walk about the palace on his own?”
Crispin cleared his throat with a slight cough. “He is King here, Caryss, and for those of our kind, weakness is not accepted. If he would have fallen, and there were others around to witness such, well, nothing good would have come from the incident. Mayhap it is difficult for one like you to understand, but there can be no hint of any loss of power. Or the vultures would strike.”
“But surely word has spread of his sickness? How do you explain his lack of public appearances and such?”
Firmly and quickly, he answered, “The King can be ill, but he cannot be weak. He can suffer an injury, from which he must recover, but he cannot be permanently damaged. For now, the word is that he has been sick, but recovering.”
“I see,” was all that she replied, although her tone suggested she did not fully agree.
Standing up, she walked to the edge of the bed, placing the bottle back in her pouch as she did so. When she was near the King’s feet, she pushed the blanket from him again, reaching for his pale and scaly legs.
“There are some movements that your father will have to practice many times a day, ones that will serve to strengthen his legs,” she told Crispin, showing him as she did so. “I will visit several times a day to make sure he is doing so.”
Sharron neared her, taking the King’s legs and moving them as if the King were a babe.
Backing away from the bed, Caryss told Crispin, “There is much that I cannot explain here, but there is much I can yet try. I will need access to the King at all times.”
“Yes, of course,” he stated, “I shall spread word that a niece of my Uncle Derry has arrived, and we will find rooms for you near the King.”
“How will you explain my visits? For they will be often.”
“You are kin, and I have asked you to read to the King while he sleeps.”
Crispin’s face had not revealed the lie, nor had his voice changed. In truth, she had nearly believed him.
Beside the King’s bed again, she leaned down to him and whispered, “Soon, the tonic that I gave you will wear off and you will grow tired once more. My lord, we must get you off the poppy milk, but I fear it will be a long process, moons even. You mu
st not allow the Masters to give you so much, and even then, only when you can bear no more.”
Herrin nodded at her, his eyes heavy with sleep.
From across the room, Crispin called, “Can you not give him the tonic every few hours to counteract the poppy milk?”
Pulling the blankets up to the King’s chin, Caryss answered, “It is not meant to be given so often. Once a day would even be too much, and, soon, it would lose it effectiveness, as did the poppy milk. We must have patience, Prince Crispin, for this will be no easy task.”
When the King’s eyes began to close, Caryss pressed her lips to his forehead.
To Sharron, she said, “His hands and feet are as cold as ice, yet his head burns.”
“I noticed that as well,” Sharron agreed, her words still edged with a Northern lilt.
The soft sounds of the King’s breathing filled the room as Caryss gathered her things. Behind her, Aldric stood, still quiet, much to her surprise.
When she was finished, Crispin said to her, “I will need some time to find you rooms. Until I do, let me show you to our dining areas. Caryss, you will be noticed, but, if I know my cousin at all, then I know he has warned you of the ways of the King’s City. Remember the story we have agreed on: you are kin to Derry, Willem’s father. Nothing more.”
He looked away from her then, and toward Aldric. To the mage, he said, “Keep yourself well-guarded. You will not be met with any welcome, from what I recall.”
“I am a hired mercenary. Nothing more,” Aldric replied, staring back at the prince.
Sighing, Crispin turned to leave, adding, “If you heal my father, Caryss, I will owe you a great debt. If you are not the healer who you claim to be, then you will not ever leave the King’s City. None of you will. Nor will any of you survive. Do not give me cause to regret, for there is more to me than I have shown.”
Her forest-dyed eyes met his sun-kissed ones, and, for a moment, her gaze was his gaze, and he saw through her eyes. He saw the boy.
*****
Caryss remained at the side of the King until a man dressed in the colors of the King’s Heir arrived, wearing a silver vest over a soft tunic of a deep blue. They followed him, past the guards, who, Caryss now noticed, were wearing gold vests over black tunics. The man led them down the same hallway they had traveled earlier, but then he turned and took several steps toward a dimly lit area. Around them were several doors, and the unnamed guard pointed at them.
With a heavy accent, he said, “My Lord Prince has had readied a few rooms for you.”
As he was talking, a woman dressed in the same colors, with the same plush vest over a fitted dress, exited one of the rooms. Seeing the group staring at her, she nearly dropped the pile of towels that lay folded neatly in her hands.
Caryss noticed the serving girl staring at her; she was young, just entering womanhood. Her hair, dark and wavy, was tied at the side, hanging nearly to her waist. The girl reminded Caryss of the Academy and of the clinic where girls just as this one carried nearly identical linens. With a sign, Caryss forced her thoughts away from that past and looked from girl to guard.
Nodding toward the woman, the guard told her, “Leesa will see to your needs. The small door there on the right leads to her room, and she will serve you well. Leesa,” he called, “Show them to their rooms, and have the kitchen send some food.”
“Yes, sir,” she mumbled, the blue scarf covering the top of her hair bobbing up and down in reply.
Once they were all settled, each in their own rooms, with Caryss in between Niko and Kurtis, and Aldric and Sharron across from her, Caryss lay on the bed, relieved to find it soft and full, unlike the beds at the inn. Closing her eyes and sinking deeper into the silky blanket that covered the bed, Caryss turned on her side, thinking of little else, and, soon, she was sleeping, the fatigue of carrying the babe taking its toll on her body.
*****
5
“Explain to me again how you let them escape.”
The words were spoken with a quiet calm, yet were as deadly as a viper’s hiss.
“My Lord, I did not let them escape. They just disappeared. And when we discovered that they were gone, no trail remained. We looked all day and found nothing. Not even a feather.”
“Not even a feather!”
He was laughing now, although both knew there was no humor in it.
“Conall, you disappoint me. Are you not a Wolf? Does your blood not run hot for a taste of Crow?”
“Of course it does Conri!” Conall fumed, nearing his brother, “Just as hot at yours. My eyes redden and my teeth sharpen! But I am telling you, there were other forces at work here, ones that we could not see or hear. We had the men shackled, and they should never have been able to fly free. Yet, it seems that is what happened. You tell me what that means!”
“Their wrists were bound. Is that what you are telling me?”
“Yes,” Conall told him.
“Crows cannot fly without use of their hands. How many men were with you?” the High Lord asked.
“Twelve,” Conall answered, just steps from his brother.
“And did you pick all twelve?”
“I did not. Lazaro put together the hunting party, but I knew all of the men.”
Running pale fingers through dark hair, Conri barked, “Not well enough, it seems. One of your men, under your command but picked by the hand of another, must have unshackled the Crows. I will leave it to you to find me that man.”
Conri’s eyes were black when Conall looked up, and he stepped back, waiting to be dismissed.
“You will find me this man, Conall. Do not let me see you until you do.”
Conall nodded, knowing any other words would only further anger his brother. He watched as Conri walked away, fearing what would happen if he did not find the traitor among his men. For the last few moons, the High Lord had been distant and detached, more so than usual, quick to strike and quick to anger. There was much on his mind, more than just the difficulties with the Crows, Conall knew.
Something had changed in his brother. Something was missing.
*****
A gentle tapping at her door woke Caryss. Slowly, she sat up leaning against the wall, without rising. On the morrow they would retrieve their belongings from the inn, yet no one else knew that they were in the palace.
Again the knock came.
She knew that Niko and Kurtis were not outside her doors, although Aldric had placed a heavy ward at its entrance. For a long moment, she did nothing. But the knocking was persistent, and, finally, she rose.
When Caryss reached the door, the haze of sleep had lifted, and she hesitated, uncertain who would seek her at such an hour. Suddenly, she turned, rushing back to a small table beside the bed. There, she found her healer’s bags and reached for the largest one. With stiff, sleep-swollen fingers, she untied the laces of the pouch and pulled the dagger free. Walking back to the door, she tucked the blade into the sleeves of her long underdress.
Slowly, Caryss turned the handle of the door, squeezing the hilt of the dagger with her other hand. As the door opened toward her, she looked up and relaxed her grip.
“Has something happened to the King?”
“You really should not be answering your door in the middle of the night, Caryss.”
“Well, then, perhaps you should not be knocking on it in the middle of the night, my lord.”
Ignoring her retort, he added, “One of your men should be with you at all times. Despite how it might appear.”
Stepping back from the door, Caryss asked, “Is the palace so unsafe? My men are on either side of me.”
She did not mention the ward.
“I once believed my father to be the most well-guarded man in all of Cordisia, yet he is now half-dead.”
The prince’s words trailed, until they were but a whisper.
Caryss said nothing, but looked across the room at him as he entered, pushing the door closed behind him.
“You
do not object to my being here, do you?”
Still dressed as he had been earlier in the evening, but without the large robe he had been wearing when they first met, Crispin nervously looked around. Caryss was near to answer him, but realized he had not expected a refusal, so, again, she said nothing. A silence spread across the room like a cloud of smoke. Several times the prince opened his mouth as if to speak, yet each time he closed it again, as if uncertain. Caryss waited, until the quietness of the room became too much for her to bear.
“Why have you come?” she asked, the words harsher than she had intended.
Clasping his hands together to stop them from flittering about, Crispin said, “The king sleeps.”
As he spoke, Caryss realized that she wore nothing but a light underdress, one that had grown snug over the last moon. With a slight blush spreading over her cheeks, she stepped back from him.
The room was dark, although dull light from the orbs outside offered specks and streaks of gold. From where he stood near the window, Crispin appeared lined and dotted in silver, as if kissed by stars. As she stared, he never looked back; instead he glanced out the window, as if searching.
Finally, he dropped his head and half-pleading, called, “Tell me about the boy.”
So he knows, she thought, remembering the boy’s bright eyes, bluer than any that she had ever seen, as if he had been born of water.
“Truly, you could not see him?” she asked.
Without turning to face her, he said, “I saw nothing. How old did he appear? Why would you think him my son?”
Before he moved, Caryss reached for a small blanket, wrapping it around herself, the dagger tucked against her body.
“Perhaps ten or twelve moon years. He still had the look of a child about him, yet he was tall and thin.”
“And he told you he was my son?”
It was then that Crispin crossed the room, his eyes focused once again.
