Chapter 14
Ferris, the physician, stepped aside to allow her access to the bed. She stared down at the prince’s ghastly face, apprehension sweeping through her. Her hands tingled. She curled her fingers into a fist.
She couldn’t do this.
Her heart lodged in her throat.
“Well? Get on with it, girl,” the king boomed.
She jumped at the king’s insistent voice. Her gaze flew to him, his ruddy face, his pinched expression. If she did not do this, he might toss her in the dungeon never to be seen again.
Clutching her hands to her chest, she looked down at the prince once more.
“Sire, forgive me, but perhaps she needs a bit of space to work?” the Grand Duke said.
Serena cut him a glance. His eyes never left hers. Was he…helping her? He tried to motion the group toward the door.
But the king wasn’t having it. “If my son dies here and now, I intend to stand here and watch.”
Her gut clenched.
She stepped closer to the bed and leaned over him.
His breathing was shallow and raspy. His tunic was open a bit at the collar, his chest damp and pasty.
She had no reason to think the magic the stranger put in her hands would not work.
After all, her other wishes came true. The stranger had said a hand over the heart would heal him, but she thought that might be too easy for the onlookers to accept.
Instead, she made a show of it.
“I will…need to examine him.” Her voice was small and quiet in the room.
With a shaking hand, she reached out to him and placed her palm on his forehead. Gods, his skin was cold and clammy. The moment she touched him, his eyes flew open.
Blue eyes, the color of the ocean, peered back at her. Confusion edged away the surprise.
“Who…” he started, but his voice gave out.
“I’m here to help,” she whispered.
“I don’t know you.”
She granted him a smile. “No. My name is Serena.”
The prince closed his eyes again and expelled a breath. “Serena…Pretty name.”
Her heart fluttered. “May I try to help you, your highness?”
His dark head nodded against the pillow as his eyes remained closed.
In the lamplight of the room, her skin continued to shimmer. But it was no longer muted. Now, it had started to faintly glow.
A hand over the heart. That’s what the stranger had said.
And so, taking a deep breath, she flattened her right palm on his chest. Beneath her hand, his heart beat in an unnatural rhythm.
Fast—slow—fast—slow. As she held her hand there, though, nothing happened.
Her hand did not glow like it did when the stranger gave her the power.
Perhaps she needed both hands. She placed her left on top of her right. Still nothing happened. She bit the edge of her lip.
Movement in the room. The shuffle of feet. She sensed the Grand Duke edging closer to peer at her hands on the prince’s chest. She stole a glance and saw his face was pinched with a smug expression. One that said he was glad she was proving to him she was what he thought—a fraud.
She was not a fraud.
Well, she was. Truly. But—
You have the power now.
But perhaps there was more to it than simply having the power. Perhaps she had to make a wish. Like she had to the stranger. She closed her eyes to shut out the smug face of the Grand Duke and the deathly pale face of the prince. She thought only of healing, of banishing whatever ailment vexed him.
“I have the power,” she murmured. “I have the power to heal him. To take away his sickness. I wish for the prince to be well.”
Her hands burned. Her bones felt as though they were on fire, her blood molten gold. The power wasn’t hers—it was his, the stranger’s—and she feared she would shatter beneath it.
Sucking a sharp breath, she peeked through her eyelids.
Her hands were engulfed in gold, glowing so bright they lit up the entire room.
She squeezed her eyes closed again. Behind her, a scuffle.
Shouting. Voices. The queen’s. The king’s.
Angry. Frightened. The shing of a sword as it was ripped from a scabbard.
They thought she was killing him.
“Be at ease,” she said, her voice calmer than she felt. Though who she spoke to—herself, the prince, or the others—she did not know.
Inside, her nerves jangled, her gut clenched into a tight knot. Her heart raced. Her pulse pounded a roar in her ears.
When she opened her eyes again, the prince’s body was encased in the golden glow from head to toe.
Beneath her palm, his heart slowed to a normal pace.
One beat. Two. For one terrible heartbeat she thought she’d stolen his last breath.
And then his chest rose, his eyes flung open, and the world righted itself.
He sat up so violently, it knocked her hands away.
She stumbled back a step from the bed, curling her hands to her chest, clutching them into fists.
Immediately, color returned to the prince’s face. His breath see-sawed in and out of him. His wild eyes peered about the room.
Silence descended for a long moment.
And then it was broken with the queen crying out. She ran to the other side of the bed and flung herself at her son, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and pulling him into a tight embrace, her face streaked with tears.
Serena turned away, feeling as though it was an intimate moment she should not witness. When she did, she saw the pinched expression of the Grand Duke as he glared at her. Next to her, Ferris gaped. Then he snapped out of it to shove her aside and pick up his medical kit.
“I must examine him, my queen,” Ferris said.
He was already plugging the listening horn of polished silver into his ear to check the man’s heart. The queen released the crown prince and stepped aside as Ferris pressed it to his chest. He moved it up, down, side to side. Then he pressed two fingers against his wrist, checking his pulse.
“Well, Ferris? Is he healed? Will he live?” the king asked.
“His pulse is steady. His heart is strong.” He pulled the horn from his ear and dropped it into his medical kit. Steely eyes pinned her for the briefest of moments, then he turned to the king. “I believe he will live.”
A collective sigh escaped into the room. But Serena still felt the eyes of the Grand Duke on her shining with skepticism. Was he still plotting to expose her as a fraud behind those steely eyes?
The king dashed around the bed. Before she realized what was happening, he enveloped her in a bear hug and a jolly laugh in her ear that vibrated through his big body.
She let him, but inside she was hollow. This miracle was no gift. It was a debt, and the Well always came to collect.
When he pulled her away, he held her at arm’s length. “You truly are the miracle girl!”
“Well, sire, I—”
“Lachland,” he interrupted, turning to the Grand Duke, “make sure this darling thing has a room. The finest. And, by the gods, give her something decent to wear. And perhaps a bath.”
The Grand Duke bowed low. “As you say, your majesty.” Then he scurried out of the room to do his bidding.
The king turned back to her, his cheeks ruddy and his eyes twinkling with joy. “You’ll stay with us a few days, of course.”
It didn’t sound like she had a choice. She nodded, thinking of Papa and Maris and…the stranger.
And the bargain that bound her life to the Well of Wishes.
The king grinned, then snapped his fingers in quick succession. A moment later, a servant was curtsying low at his side.
“Clean her up, will you?” He handed her off as though she were nothing more than a soiled towel.
The woman gave a nod and motioned for her to follow.
Serena cast one more glance backward to the crown prince as his mother fawned over him and the others chattered away about what they’d witnessed.
Apprehension and dread clutched her.
“Come with me, milady,” the servant said in a soft tone.
With her heart in her throat, she had no choice but to follow. Straight into the lion’s den.