Chapter 62
For a moment, one selfish, easy moment, I was grateful. Hadrian would die, but not by my hand.
He’d die, and I wouldn’t have to kill him.
One step closer to my own freedom, and I wouldn’t have to do a thing. My blood hummed at the thought of escaping my own entrapment, and I envisioned myself somewhere in the not-too-distant future, the Queen of Calder. I’d cast off my crown in the middle of the night, steal from the palace and enter the crashing sea, never looking back.
And then I met Kye’s eyes. Teeth clenched, he stared at me in mounting panic. The horror in his gaze drove me to my feet, and I crossed the mossy floor to kneel before Hadrian. I thrust my hand into his open shirt, where his chest had gone cool and clammy, calling to the water within him, mapping out the fluid in his organs and muscles, seeking an obstruction.
Faster than I’d guessed I would, I found it.
A thick plug of water at the base of his bronchial tube, obstructing his air flow like a cork in a bottle.
Hadrian leaned against Kye, mouth hanging softly open as he watched me, heart beating weakly under my hand.
Kye pulled his brother an inch away. “What are you—”
“Hold him up if you can,” I instructed, hoping a straight body would help me make sense of the puzzle of his internal body.
To my surprise, Kye obeyed, watching my hand on Hadrian’s skin. Ignoring him, I coaxed the moisture in Hadrian’s body to loosen. It ruffled against my call like breath across the top of a pillow, heavy and unwilling to move. I tried hooking it and lifting to no avail. Tried reforming it—stretching it up toward his trachea. I’d never called to water I couldn’t see before. It was like trying to mold clay with my hands tied behind my back, unable to see the shape I was forming. Intuition was all I had.
But slowly, I felt it loosen.
The crown prince’s eyes were closed, but his body gave a sudden lurch as he folded forward and coughed between his knees. I sank onto my heels, giving him a wide berth as bright, red splotches formed along his face and neck, oxygen returning. Head drooped, he lifted his head enough to gaze at me, his coughs turning to rattled breaths.
Beside him, Kye gazed at me in varying degrees of baffled amazement.
I dropped my eyes, pushing slowly to my feet, in no mood for whatever questions they’d likely have for me now. The fleeting chance at my freedom had blown out with the wind, and I’d been the one to open the door.
“You have bad lungs,” I said, determined to fend off their looks of incredulity with my own need to understand what had just occurred. Wrapping an arm around myself to grasp my own elbow, I waited.
Hadrian watched me, his expression unreadable. “I was born with the Salt Sickness,” he rasped, as if worrying the trees would overhear. “Are you familiar with it?”
A memory flickered in my head. A cabin boy, an island wide search, a pirate ship disappearing overnight after weeks at port. Irah’s blurred face surfaced in my cognition. “I’ve heard of it. But I don’t know what it is. I don’t know what it does.”
He and Kye shared furtive glances. Leveraging himself up enough to sit on the log, Kye pulled Hadrian up beside him. Hadrian cleared his throat softly. “You’ve heard the saying woe to the child?“
I shook my head.
“It”s a disease,” Kye said. “Of the pancreas and lungs. Hadrian’s mucus is thicker than it should be. It gets clogged, and he has difficulty breathing, performing tasks, absorbing nutrients from foods. He loses more salt than most people, so he tires quickly.”
“Woe to the child of salt, tasted from a kiss on the head, for he is cursed from birth, and soon he will be dead,” Hadrian muttered, still catching his breath. “I inherited it from my mother’s side.”
Kye swallowed. “Her brother died of Salt Sickness as a child. Though they say both sides require a carrier. My mother recognized the symptoms when Hadrian was young and hid it from my father and his advisors. Jonet and I don’t have it. Just Hadrian. She told no one except her personal doctor. He said Hadrian wouldn’t live past thirteen.”
“How old are you?” I asked, realizing I didn’t know.
Hadrian cleared his throat. “Twenty-eight.”
I opened my mouth and found I didn’t know what to say. So many questions, all of them intrusive. Strength returning, Hadrian blew out a heavy breath and smiled. “I haven’t been able to do that in two weeks,” he murmured to Kye.
Kye’s eyes flicked up to mine in response.
“My mother kept me at her side at all times,” Hadrian said, rubbing his fingers against his jaw. “She went to all my lessons and forbade me from playing rough with the other boys my age. I became quite academic. She hid damp cloths in her dresses to wipe the salt from my face and made me wash my hands constantly so no one could taste or smell salt off me. There were periods where I became ill, and she made me sleep with her in her room. In retrospect, I fear she obsessed over me a bit. I worry she neglected Jonet and Nikolaos.” His mouth quirked in quiet shame, and Kye frowned, his head giving an indiscernible shake as though he disagreed. “But I suppose everyone assumed she was overprotective of the future king and forgave her for it.
“After she passed, my grief took over and without her to stop me, I went through a reckless phase.” The corner of his mouth lifted, memories dancing behind his hard eyes. “I was twelve. I skipped an entire month of lessons and spent my days wrestling other boys and riding horses. Then the weather turned cold, and I grew sick. They thought I had pneumonia like my mother, but I knew it was my disease. It was the Salt. I knew I had to be more careful, to hide the symptoms as my mother had taught me, and not push myself too far. I became selective in how I spent my energy. I cut off most of my friendships and only rode horses in short sessions in the morning when I felt my best. I demanded my lessons be private, and I practiced sword fighting only with my instructor. And Nikolaos, eventually. I was just trying to survive. I never thought I would live this long.”
“Is it still a secret?” I asked.
“Kye knows,” Hadrian said with a touch of irony. Kye’s mouth twitched, though he didn’t appear amused. Hadrian gave a lengthy sigh, mulling over his thoughts. “Who else, I’m not sure. The observant palace aides know something”s wrong. As an adult, I’ve had enough episodes during public appearances that anyone with a background in medicine could likely guess. I think my father and his advisors know. They’ve switched out doctors so many times. I’ve been waiting for them to get rid of Elros, but he’s the best one yet. I think they’re avoiding the widespread rumors that would follow if the general population knew the truth. And I’m fairly certain they’re waiting for the right opportunity to be rid of me. I’ve lasted longer than anyone thought I would, and with Calder’s future in question, they want a reliable heir.”
I watched them. They watched me. My heart quickened as I sensed the conversation veering toward me again, and I steeled myself. “Why?”
Hadrian gazed at me calmly. “Why do I believe so, or why would they want to do away with me?”
“Both,” I breathed. Anything to keep him from further questioning my role at court.
Hadrian offered me a tight smile. “For the past couple years, they”ve forced more responsibilities onto Nikolaos. Forced him into lessons that should be studied by the future king. Forced him to sit in on council meetings and court determinations and formal complaints to the crown placed by landowners and peerage.” He paused to clear his throat, chuckling in relief at how easy it was, and continued. “They’ve given him a high-ranking position in the militia, a position which should have gone to the heir on the eve of war. They haven’t increased any of my obligations.”
He paused, twisting a ring around his finger before rubbing his knuckles.
Kye pushed himself to his feet, watching me as though he didn’t know what to make of me.
Hadrian suddenly lost his gentility, his mouth pinched with discomfort. He glanced to his brother, but Kye had hardened, unwilling to take his eyes off mine. I waited.
“Three years ago,” Hadrian said, frowning at the forest floor, “I began to notice a string of accidents. Near-misses. Oil spilled on the top step outside my bedroom door. The railing of my private balcony so loose it fell off as I leaned against it. An odd scent in my wine, which I poured into one of the palace plants, only to find that plant dead a week later.
“I didn’t think about it at first. It seemed every few months, I almost died. But then a man broke into my rooms while I was asleep—”
“He’s not alive anymore,” Kye cut in, flexing his shoulders as though working out a sore muscle.
Hadrian nodded to himself, sending his attention my way. “But since you’ve been in Calder, I haven’t had a single incident. When I was informed that my brother had brought a bride back from Leihani, I became…” he waved a hand, as though the right word hovered in the air. “Suspicious. I thought they would have chosen someone with bloodlines for Kye, a princess of a neighboring kingdom. An ally, a diplomatic choice. Rumors had been circulating these past months about a deal with Illuskia…”
“I remember,” I said dully.
“But you arrived, a girl from the islands, strange and…” He cleared his throat, eyes carving a path back to me. I stiffened, suddenly unable to look at either of them. “No bloodlines, no lineage. No one knew you. It’s like they made you up. And Kye behaved so oddly—”
Kye shot his brother a look, silencing him. Hadrian let out a huff of exhaustion. I watched them both, a strand of sympathy weaving in and out of me.
“And I thought, well, you were it. Some sort of spy or assassin. You’d been hired to poison or knife me in my sleep. Kill me somehow and make it look like an accident. The perfect person to be from nowhere and return to nowhere once it was over.”
No one said a word. The wind picked up, whistling through the trees. Not far from where we stood, one of the horses chuffed.
You’d been hired to poison or knife me in my sleep.
The thought congealed in the back of my throat, sticking to my tongue as I swallowed. I felt Kye’s gaze on me, but I couldn’t look at him.
He’d been right. I was there to kill Hadrian. Just not yet.
“Why tell me this?” I breathed.
Hadrian shrugged, sighing. “Because I’m tired of waiting to decide who I can trust. Because we’re here, alone, without anyone to overhear. Because I wanted to look you in the eyes and ask outright, so that when I did die, I’d know if you’d lied to me.”
It wasn’t a question, but it was a question. They waited.
Head whirling, I sighed. Thoughts flew like sparrows in my mind, too quick to catch and muse over.
“Thaan brought me here because I have a rare skill that he shares,” I said carefully. “I didn’t know I had it in Leihani. He sensed it on the beach when we met. When he came to get you.” I stared at Kye. He stared back. “On the ship, he claimed to possess my death warrant, and said the only way to save myself was to join him in an upcoming war.”
A muscle in Kye’s brow feathered. “What skill does Thaan have?”
Heart pounding, I looked at him, and Hadrian fell into the background. The wind stopped blowing, the trees suddenly quiet and still. Roots tangled around my riding boots. The colors of the forest blurred. Golden eyes watched and waited.
Guilt wrenched into my chest as I met his stare, and I heard the apology in my own voice.
“Seduction.”