Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
MOVING PROVED EASIER SAID THAN DONE. THIA WAS FAIRLY SURE her wrist was fractured, and Oskaren was becoming more gray and clammy by the minute. It wasn’t long before the girl collapsed, shaking.
“Are you in pain?” Thia asked.
Oskaren shook her head. “Still numb.” Her teeth rattled.
“Can you stand?”
The girl tried. Her arms gave out, and she shut her eyes, mouth twisted in discomfort.
Thia turned to Dess. “Can you carry her?”
“Yes,” he said immediately, then hid his face with a wipe of his forehead on the back of his sleeve. When he emerged, his expression was carefully neutral. “Thran, help me.” Disdain riddled the way he said the older man’s name.
Thran didn’t comment but approached with his head ducked.
Together, the two men lifted Oskaren, exhaustion apparent in their twin grimaces.
Thran held Oskaren’s legs, his own shoulders shaking, while Dess struggled to walk backward with his hands under the girl’s arms. She hung as deadweight between them, eyes shut against a too bright sky.
Thia stumbled along behind them, cradling her wrist to her chest as it throbbed.
She needed a splint, but there was nothing in the grass that could help.
The city grew larger as they approached, the details of Cyning’s walls becoming visible.
Hewn from a gray-brown stone, they were jagged and rough, like they’d been built with a haphazard hand.
Below, a narrow gate marked the only break in the wall, tiny dots of what Thia assumed were people stretching in a line in front of it.
Oskaren let out a cry. Her legs flailed, one boot catching Thran across the jaw. He dropped her, stumbling back, and Dess curled forward as her full weight fell to him. Oskaren screamed, eyes rolling back in her head as something yellow and oozing dripped from her leg.
Thia cursed. She rushed forward, pinning Oskaren’s legs to the ground by sitting on the girl’s ankles while she thrashed underneath her. “Oskaren.” Thia grimaced. “What do you feel? What’s happening?”
The girl didn’t respond. Her arms yanked free of Dess, and he grunted, crouching to match Thia’s position over the girl’s shoulders, locking her down.
“What do we do? You’re a healer.”
“Not that kind. We need magic.” She chewed her lip. “Give me your cloak,” she said after a moment, and he frowned. “Come on.”
With an awkward twist to remove his pack while still pinning Oskaren, he shrugged off the requested item and tossed it toward her.
“Here, Thran,” she barked, indicating that he should take over her position on Oskaren’s legs. After a moment, he did so, rubbing his jaw.
Thia stood, grabbing her own cloak. Tying two corners together with Dess’s, a clumsy endeavor using her good hand and her teeth, she laid them flat.
“Put her on here.” They did. “Cover her.” They didn’t fully understand what she meant until she led the way, crossing each end over the other so that Oskaren was fully enclosed, unable to move.
“Okay, stand.” They did. “I think if we tie these ends over your shoulders, it should stay in place.” It was a bit awkward; the two men had to lift a thrashing Oskaren into place, and Thia only had the use of one hand.
After a few minutes, they managed it, and Oskaren was suspended between the two men, wrapped in a cloak hammock.
Dess bore the brunt of it, carrying both his pack and Oskaren’s on his front, but he didn’t complain, only pulled a determined face as they walked on.
They moved a little faster than before, but not fast enough. Thia had no idea what was happening to Oskaren, but she figured their best shot at finding someone who did lay within the city walls.
Then she froze abruptly, struck by an awful realization. “We can’t take Oskaren to the city.”
The others paused, confused. Dess said, “Why not?”
“The king cursed her.”
Dess tilted his head, confused. “He cursed me too.”
Thia nodded. “When you were a child. No one will recognize you. But Oskaren….” She trailed off. “Do either of you know what happened?”
“She worked at the Tower until she came back to Black Forest two years ago,” Dess said. “But I don’t think she ever told anyone why she was cursed. Not even Sorscha.”
“Then we can’t risk it. What if she’s wanted? We might not get help, and we’d destroy whatever shot we have of seeing the king.”
They stared at each other. They needed a plan, fast. Oskaren’s breathing was ragged, and when Thia peeled back the opening of their makeshift sling, the girl’s eyes rolled back in her head, twitching.
“We’ll find another place to hide,” Thia suggested.
“Just outside the city. Dess, you can wait with her. Thran and I will go into the city and find a healer.” She didn’t relish the thought of going with Thran alone, but she feared for Dess’s safety even more as another one of the cursed, even if he had been a boy at the time.
Dess expelled a resigned breath. “Fine. Let’s just hurry.”
They moved quickly, angling for a stretch of farmland east of the city gates. They were debating over an orchard or a barn that seemed one gust from crumbling when Oskaren groaned.
“Solanthe,” she whimpered. “Please.”
Thia exchanged a look with Dess. “Solanthe?”
He frowned. “That’s the queen’s name.”
Thia blinked. “The king is married?”
Dess shrugged. “She’s a bit of a recluse. I’d be too if I were married to that bastard.”
Oskaren moaned again. “Solanthe, listen. I—” Her face was steady as she spoke to Thia.
Unease pricked her spine. They picked the barn, purely because it was closer.
Oskaren stopped screaming altogether. Instead, she talked to the air, which was worse.
“Why?” was her constant refrain; as was, “Solanthe.” Then, as they approached the barn, she started crying, this time for Sorscha.
“It was my fault, Ma,” she said weakly. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. ” Then she screamed again.
“What’s happening to her?” Dess asked uneasily.
Thia pressed her mouth into a line. “Poison, I’d guess.
” Anxiety climbed into her throat, making her lightheaded.
They entered the barn, relieved to find it in unused disarray, and buried Oskaren in a pile of old hay.
“We’ll be back as quickly as we can,” she told Dess.
She tried to set Mavrel down next to the boy, but the bird was reluctant to let go.
He bounced up and down her arm, claws digging in without his usual care for her skin.
“It’s okay,” she said gently. “Please, Mavrel. Stay with them. You can warn us if anything happens to Oskaren.” It took a bit more coaxing, but the bird finally settled on Dess’s arm.
A few of his feathers were singed, but Thia couldn’t see any damage to his actual wing.
Then she set off for the city gates, Thran a step behind her. Without their packs or the weight of Oskaren, they moved quickly, breaking into a run when they were clear of the barn.
There was a line at the city gates, a zoo of wagons, livestock, and people on both foot and horseback awaiting entrance. Thia examined the unfamiliar faces, panic settling in as she worried about getting through in time to save Oskaren. She heaved deep breaths, pulse jumping erratically.
Thran opened his mouth. “Is there a healer?” he bellowed.
Thia longed to melt into the ground as dozens of eyes turned their way, but she was grateful he was the one yelling.
“Please,” he tried again. “Is anyone here a healer?”
There were a few head shakes, but most people ignored them outright.
Except one. An old woman near the front of the line beckoned them forward. They ran to her, Thia nearly crumpling with relief, until the woman spoke.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m not what you seek. But come in the line with me, and you’ll get in faster.”
Thran gave their thanks as two men with a wagon full of fruit muttered angrily.
Thia stifled the urge to scream at them.
The line crawled. The closer they got, the longer it seemed to stretch, until Thia began fretfully tugging on the ends of her hair. Then, finally, they were at the gates.
“Purpose of entry?” the guard demanded.
Thran answered for them. “Me ‘n’ my daughter have come to find a healer fer her sister.” Thia forced herself not to glance over in surprise at the easy lie. She could have sworn his accent shifted, losing its precise musical quality for something more rustic.
“Any goods for sale?”
Thran shook his head. “No.”
The guard handed them a slip of parchment marked with what appeared to be a date, though it was not a system Thia recognized. It read: 7th of Summerswane, 69th year of Caradoc Penhaligon, Mage King of Eldris and the Drakenmere Isles.
“You have three days,” he said in a bored voice, waving them past.
Then they were through the gate and into Cyning.