The King’s Man #3

Chapter 40

F og coils, smothering Akilah and me in damp, oppressive grey. The chill seeps through our clothes, gnawing at our bones. Akilah’s trembling hand clutches at my soldad, pulling me back into harsh reality.

I’ve become a pawn in the high duke’s game.

“Your dream,” she murmurs, her voice breaking. Her head droops onto my shoulder and I pull her close, fighting the raw lump in my throat.

“You’re my dream too,” I whisper against her hair.

Her teeth chatter uncontrollably; I force us to our feet, scanning the desolate landscape for shelter. The crumbling silhouette of a castle rises above the island like a spectre. We trudge toward it, our steps heavy as the pebbly shore gives way to coffinweed. The stench of decay thickens, curling in my throat.

My foot catches on something hidden in the weeds, sending us sprawling into the dirt. Akilah lands hard, her breath hitching with pain. “You alright?” I scramble to help her up.

A voice grumbles from the shadows, rough and irritated. “I’d be better if you hadn’t trod on me.”

A man rises from the ground, brushing off his cloak. He’s thin and grimy, the lines on his weathered face sharp in the dim light. Eerily familiar, though roughened. A book dangles loosely from his hand.

Akilah gasps, her grip tightening on my arm—not in fear, but in recognition. “Florentius...” she whispers.

The man snorts. “Wrong brother,” he says. His gaze flickers between us, guarded. “Do I know you?”

I shake my head, my throat dry. “Your brother’s... my friend.”

“Little Florentius made a friend?” His laugh is disbelieving but softens as his eyes land on Akilah. “You’re hurt.”

“The duke—” I begin, but the words catch in my throat.

His expression darkens; he pulls a pipe from his cloak, lighting it with practised ease. Smoke curls around him like a protective barrier. “Come on, then,” he says. “I’ll take you somewhere she can rest.”

Lucius leads us through a decaying courtyard, his pipe glowing faintly in the mist. “Water’s over there,” he says with a casual wave. “Rations are tight. Boil it first, skim the scum, try not to think too much about what you’re drinking.”

Grubby men shuffle past, their hollow eyes avoiding mine. The air is thick with the brittle sound of laughter edged with despair.

Inside the castle, it’s colder. The gallery is dimly lit by narrow windows casting pale light over rows of bedmats. Half are occupied. Lucius retrieves two threadbare blankets from a creaking cupboard and tosses them in our direction. “Spare mats are over there. Make yourselves comfortable.”

I lower Akilah onto a mat at the far end, away from the others. Her pulse is weak but steady. She needs real rest— healing sleep—but I don’t see how that’s possible in a place like this.

“Do you have any herbs? Anything for the pain?” I ask.

Lucius exhales a long plume of smoke, his expression unreadable. “I’ve got something,” he says finally. “Come with me.”

Down and down we descend, the air growing thick and heavy. The cellar is low vaulted and smoky, filled with grimy tables where people huddle, coughing between throws of the dice.

Lucius acknowledges a rather discordantly elegant woman rising from a card table; she eyes me with bright curiosity and leads me to a curtained alcove. He gestures to a small table cluttered with books and opens a drawer. Capsules glint faintly in the lantern light. “These will help with the pain.”

I take one, rolling it between my fingers. “What’s in them?”

Lucius leans back in his chair, his eyes half lidded as he puffs on his pipe. “Belief. Sometimes, that has to be enough.”

The capsule crumbles under the pressure of my grip, revealing an empty core. My chest tightens.

“The real herbs are gone,” he says, his tone flat. “What else is there to do?”

A wave of hot abhorrence slams over me. I crush the empty capsules in my hand, the glittering shells crumbling into dust.

The betrayal burns as I storm out of Lucius’s alcove, the smoky, oppressive air of the cellar giving way to the harsh, damp cold of the courtyard, then to the stifling air of the sleeping area.

At least a dozen people are coughing violently. The pervasive stench of sickness clings to the air. My stomach churns as I spot Akilah on her mat, her face pinched with pain.

I stop abruptly, drawing unwanted attention. Heads swing my way, then quickly turn back to their meagre meals.

One man leans over to Akilah and presses a capsule into her trembling hand. “This might help,” he says kindly. Akilah thanks him profusely, her voice broken with pain.

The lie has my chest seizing. These people need real care, not false hope. I fumble for my soldad, desperate to gain their trust, but what can I say? A newcomer like me has no authority here.

The air shifts behind me. I turn, startled—

A sharp jab at the back of my neck.

Darkness.

I stir slowly, my body sluggish and heavy. Blinking, I take in a blurred, cone-like ceiling. Where—? Memories rush back: Lucius’s fraud, the warmth of someone landing behind me.

That wind.

Manmade. Magical.

My heart skips. Nicostratus? No—he wouldn’t knock me out. I push myself upright, voice thick with chastisement and lingering relief. “Quin?”

But it isn’t.

Across the small circular room, seated at a table strewn with wood shavings, is the curious woman from the cellar. She carves methodically, her expression unreadable.

I bolt off the sleeping mat, but the sudden movement sends me to my knees. I rub the sore spot on my neck. “You knocked me out?”

Something about her face—the mouth, the jawline.

The realisation hits like a blow. “You’re the king’s mother.”

Her lips twitch, almost amused. “Casimiria will do,” she says simply, without looking up.

I swallow hard, remembering the weight of Quin’s pain when we met near the canals. He must have been coming from here.

“You must be the one my son talks about,” she says, setting down her work and the knife.

My throat tightens. “He . . . talks about me?”

She arches an eyebrow. “What were you thinking out there?”

I glance at the narrow, arched window overlooking the courtyard, the fog-laden island stretching beyond it. “There’s so much sickness. It can be cured if we act swiftly.”

“You’re earnest,” she says, meeting my gaze. “You’re wrong.”

Her bluntness stings.

She folds her arms. “The duke forbids medicinal herbs here. If redcloaks find anyone trying to bring some in, they kill one of us as a ‘lesson’. Most don’t even know what rule they broke. What do you think would happen if they found out the herbs were never here at all?”

The weight of her words presses down on me.

“Hope,” she murmurs, “is all we’ve got. No other cure can grow on this forsaken rock. Magic might be mighty, but it’s nothing with no plants to feed it.” Her voice softens, but her gaze holds steady. “At least they feel better, believing they’re healing. Lucius is right about that.”

The capsules, the gambling, the smoke, the laughter—this is the only medicine Lucius has to work with.

I slump back onto the mat, her words twisting uncomfortably in my chest.

She smirks faintly. “Your intention was good. Your execution...” She lets the thought hang.

I push to my feet, restless. “But is this not... giving in?”

Casimiria looks at me, and lets out a single laugh. “He said you don’t hold back.”

I push to my feet. “What if Quin brought seeds? We could grow our own herbs.”

Casimiria sighs and pulls a small box from a shelf, opening it to reveal neatly labelled sachets. “We tried once. Nothing grew.”

“Try again.”

Her gaze sharpens. “Try until we die?”

I grab the box and hold it just out of reach. “What do we have to lose?”

For a moment, she studies me, her expression softening into something close to respect. Finally, she laughs—a low, almost reluctant sound. “Fine. Take the seeds. But don’t expect magic.”

“Here you are.”

I whirl from my solitary work clearing, digging and pressing seeds into the rocky soil to find Nicostratus leaping down from a stone wall, his descent as smooth as a breeze. My heart lurches as he pulls me into a crushing embrace.

He captures my hand and moves it to his chest. His gaze rolls over me slowly, as if to make sure I haven’t been hurt. His eyes snag on my cloak, then lift to mine. “Constantinos demanded we continue south, but I... couldn’t. I had to come back for you.”

My stomach heaves and falls sharply.

I can picture them in their saddles, in light armour, the messenger on his own horse expressionlessly reciting the news. Nicostratus would’ve begged for more information while Quin’s knuckles would only whiten around his reins. Quin would have collected himself first, understanding the implications. Understanding the duke wants to use me against him.

Continuing south was smart. No doubt, Quin will even lengthen his visit. Maybe the duke will forget about me, if my unimportance is made clear.

I nod and nod.

I look away. He tugs me gently closer and cups my cheek.

“I’ll find a way to free you,” he whispers. “I promise.”

I swallow thickly.

He kneels and swings a satchel off his shoulder. “They confiscated your things, but they waved this through.” He grinds his teeth. “To rub in what you can’t do on the island.”

I kneel beside him as he unpacks it. My breath hitches when I see the worn spines of my grandfather’s healing journals.

I reach out slowly, fingers brushing the cover. “How did you find these?”

“Florentius guessed they’d be coming—he took some of your things first.”

Emotion rises thick in my throat. “Thank you,” I whisper. “Both of you.”

Nicostratus nods, and then, hesitantly, whispers. “This island is ancient, Cael.”

He looks around and I follow his gaze past the ruins, trying to imagine how this place once stood proud and whole. He lowers his voice even further. “Ask Casimiria.”

“Ask what?”

“About the only glimmer of light left here,” he whispers, as if should he speak any louder, even that light might extinguish. A chill licks up my spine. Yet his eyes hold mine, pleading me to find that light. To persevere here.

“I’ll keep coming, as much as I can. Until I have a way...”

To free you.

I rub his chest where he holds my hand to him, the wooden armband I gave him pressing against my wrist. “It’s too dangerous,” I croak. “If he knew how much you mean...”

His gaze sharpens on me, hand holding mine closer against him. Anguish floods his face.

I swallow tightly. “The duke wins this move if you give your weakness away.”

He closes his eyes and breathes deeply, in and out, and again. He drops my hand.

“You should remove yourself from this particular weakness entirely,” I murmur, “I can’t have anything happen to you because of me.”

Once the duke has been dealt with, when Nicostratus is a prince without troubles and my troubles are solely related to medicine... Perhaps then there could be a chance for us.

I breathe deeply on the dream. I’ll do everything to work towards it.

But I can’t promise him more until it’s reached.

“You’re ending things between us?”

I say nothing, but my silence is its own answer. His gaze holds mine, and for a moment, I think he might spill a tear.

“I just want to be your hope,” he whispers.

I briefly shut my eyes. “You coming here before anything else,” I murmur. “It’s already made me lighter.”

His breath hitches. He shakes his head over and over.

I tug the golden feather from my belt and hold it out to him, but he closes his hand around mine and pushes it back towards me.

“Nicostratus . . .”

“I’ll keep my distance. But . . . keep this.”

When he’s gone, I take water from the canal and pour it gently over the planting. It forms a smooth layer of pale mud. Murky. A stagnant pool in the darkness.

I glance through the mist toward the crumbling ruins.

What kind of light survives a place like this?

I find Casimiria meditating alone in the courtyard.

As if sensing me, she opens her eyes. “One thing to know about me.” She rises in a single, graceful motion and dusts off her robe. “I’m quite meddlesome. I listened in on you and Nicostratus.”

I blink at her. Then, unexpectedly, a short laugh escapes. “You are certainly his mother.”

She lifts her chin with quiet pride and a dry, unapologetic smile, and beckons me forward.

We descend into the ruins, deeper than I’ve gone before. A small orb of light flickers in her palm, casting long shadows that stretch along moss-eaten stone.

“Would you have shown me this,” I ask, “if Nicostratus hadn’t said something?”

“I’m still not sure I should.”

I glance at her sharply.

She stops at a wall overgrown with ivy and parts the veil with one hand to reveal a weathered door. “He called it light. Others call it hope.” Her voice turns cool. “I call it stagnation.”

The hinges creak as the door swings open; behind it, stacks of tomes on sagging shelves, every surface bulging with a forgotten time. A library, swallowed by dust and silence.

I step inside, heart lifting as I run my fingers along the spines. “This is history.”

Casimiria’s voice is flat. “History is written by victors. This is folklore.”

I flip through a book at random. Ancient scriptions, ones I’ve never seen before. “No,” I say, shaking my head. “This is a vault of wisdom.”

Her gaze sharpens. “It’s the past, Cael. Not the now. Not the future.”

She steps closer, her expression unreadable. “Be careful not to live for something that can’t be reclaimed.”

Casimiria isn’t wrong.

I start spending more time in the hidden library than I do in the garden—the very place that would help the most. But... how can I not?

I’ve found more than ancient scriptions. I’ve found writings from my forefathers. My great-great-grandfather, my great-grandfather. Their notes, their trials, their hopes. I feel part of a legacy written into these walls, and I want... I want to add to it, to keep it alive. I want healing methods to grow. I want to take what they’ve learned and push it further.

But how can that be done in this cold, forgotten tomb?

I drag myself back to the muddy patch of earth. I’d hoped for weeds at least, something stubborn and wild. But the patch remains bare. A sickly looking bed stares back at me like a dried-up puddle, mocking.

A bet starts: when will I give up? When will I start living like the rest of them, playing games to predict who will die next, scratching patterns on their skin to ward off fate, singing songs under the stars in memory of those long gone?

Lucius passes me with a sighed grimace. “You’re not growing herbs. You’re just digging a grave.”

I swallow. “Then I’ll be the one to lie in it.”

With Akilah’s quiet support, I tend the garden every morning.

By the tenth day, the laughter fades, replaced by pity.

On the fifteenth day, Akilah crouches beside me, her breath caught.

A sliver of green has broken the cracked surface. Frail. Curled, as if it’s afraid of this place. We stare at it, not moving, not breathing—afraid even that might crush it.

It does.

I stare at the bed, the withered remains, my fingers coated in soil. Maybe Lucius was right. Maybe false hope is all there can be.

Akilah leans into me, defeated. “Does this mean you’ll bury yourself in those books again?”

It’s tempting. I admit it—I even thought that exact thing. But as the sun dips low and the light sharpens along the ruined walls, something inside me flares. Something stubborn. Something alive.

“Let’s try somewhere else,” I say, suddenly inspired. “New location. Better light. Different soil.” I glance across the courtyard to Lucius, already snoring in his sunny corner.

She follows my gaze. “You wouldn’t.”

A few hours later, I’m digging in the sunniest patch of earth while Lucius bemoans his lost napping place.

By the fifth week, herbs have sprouted in neat little rows. Pale green, bright against all the grey. The whispers have ceased. In their place... something like a held breath. Like hope.

Casimiria appears beside me, humming in approval, though a shadow of pain lingers in her eyes.

“He is right about you.” Her voice falters, her breath hitching sharply. She stumbles, and I catch her before she falls. My fingers seek her pulse.

“You’ve been hiding this,” I whisper, horrified.

“It’ll pass,” she says, her teeth gritted.

Her condition is worse than I feared.

“When did you last get the antidote?”

Her silence answers for her.

I swallow, my resolve hardening. “Then we’ll find another way.”

Casimiria’s pain started weeks ago and has only worsened. That she hid it from me...

She laughs weakly when I bring it up, her breath catching mid-sentence. “Nothing you could’ve done.”

At least I could have needled some acupoints, curbed her suffering a little.

I spend the night poring over armfuls of books from the forgotten library, the flickering candlelight blurring the text. Spells for healing burns, staving off infection, even for regrowing limbs—but nothing for her.

She groans and I’m at her side instantly, holding her hand as another spasm racks her body. Her face is pale, drawn, but she still finds my efforts to distract her amusing. I tell her how Quin once pretended to be an aklo to meet my family and how my mother took one look at him and declared he should marry Akilah.

“You spend a lot of time together,” she muses.

“Mostly accidentally,” I reply. “And definitely to his chagrin.”

She chuckles, though it’s cut short by another wave of pain.

The duke must have known; Quin’s facade of indifference wouldn’t fool him. This is punishment—a demonstration of power. No doubt Quin already knows.

He’ll be on his way back. At the news of his mother’s delayed medication, he would’ve torn away from his entourage, riding day and night, stopping only to change horses. And when he arrives, when Casimiria gets the antidote, he’ll...

Casimiria’s hiss snaps me out of the thought. Her fingers are crushed in my grip.

I loosen my hold. “Your son is smart,” I murmur. “He knows what to do.”

She gives me a faint smile, on the brink of sleep. “He’s a good man. I want him to live.”

I sit with her through the night, the sticky air pressing down, my knees aching from the weight of it all.

The first pale light of morning filters into the tower. I drag myself upright, wiping at my gritty eyes.

Casimiria squirms on her mat, her discomfort evident. I take her outside, hoping the fresh air and some food will help. Akilah and I coax her toward the herb patch, where we sit on a woven mat and I receive a lesson on how to play Chaos of the Escape.

I stare at the unfamiliar symbols on my wooden cards, groaning theatrically. “Akilah, help me!”

She laughs, reaching over to tap the card I should play.

Her help doesn’t last. Soon, she’s leaving me to fend for myself. I throw down a card at random.

Casimiria shakes her head, amused. “Try again.”

“This game’s aptly named,” I mutter.

Air stirs behind me, and I feel Akilah’s return. “Finally,” I say. “Which card?”

A hand points, and I freeze.

Not Akilah’s hand.

Blunt nails, calloused fingers, familiar strength.

I grab the fingers and still for a heart-quickening moment. Then I slowly turn.

I launch myself up to grab his face and check every inch of it for signs of ill health. His cheeks are flushed, lips full and smooth, but his eyes are heavy with fatigue. His spirit is laden with worry, and he’s depleted his magical energies.

He must have come straight here. “You’ve exhausted yourself. Get Florentius to prepare you some pearl heart.”

Quin cocks his head, his expression unreadable. “Interesting.”

His voice and the darkening intensity of his eyes bring me to my senses. I drop my hands from his face and scramble back. “Instincts.”

“You’re supposed to be distancing yourself,” I snap. “Don’t make my sacrifice for nothing.”

Quin smirks faintly. “Sacrifice? Is that what we’re calling it?”

“What would you call it?”

His expression flickers, just for a moment, before he answers. “Bad strategy.” His voice is too light, but his eyes linger on mine.

“Go,” I say.

He doesn’t move. “I’m here for my mother.”

Heat floods my face. “That... makes sense. I’ll go.”

Casimiria grabs my arm, her gaze snapping toward the canal. “The duke.”

“Coming personally?” My stomach churns.

“A first,” she says tightly. “Hide. It’ll be worse if he sees us together.”

Quin groans softly as I tug his arm, the pain from his leg evident. He leans on me, and we stumble toward the castle.

We won’t make it.

I glance around, heart pounding, and shove us into a wild patch of coffinweed. The tall blades fence us in, cushioning our fall. His breath is against mine. I don’t dare breathe.