22 Maerryl
MAERRYL
What’s wrong with him?” Dove said softly.
I crossed my arms. “He’s under a spell. A magical coma, of sorts, to keep him… alive.” To keep him from dying.
“Was it—that sickness you told me about—was that what caused this?” Dove’s gaze moved over my brother’s small form, brow furrowing. I sighed again, not wanting to tell this story. But it was too late now.
“In a way. When I returned home, he was the only member of my family left. He’d gotten sick the day before.
I took him away and rode hard for days, looking for someone, anyone who could heal him.
The priory took us in. They quarantined us in a wing of the infirmary, provided medicine to ease his symptoms, and it worked a bit.
They did everything they could. But Balfie had been in its grip too long.
His body was too weak. I—I nearly lost him. ”
I swallowed, and Dove reached over to hold my hand.
“There was a mage in the infirmary too. A kind traveler from Orlavia, across the sea, who the priory had taken in when he’d been injured in a carriage crash nearby.
He knew of the sickness, had seen it before in his own country.
Dwarfdrop, they called it, since the dwarven race is particularly susceptible to it.
That’s why I and a few others in my clan hadn’t gotten it, apparently—I’m half-human.
He’d been assisting the acolytes with Balfie’s care, helping them to ease my brother’s pain.
Had even assured them that quarantine was unnecessary after the second day of illness because it would not spread; though we made sure to keep any dwarven acolytes well away from the infirmary, just to be safe.
“He said he knew of a cure. Expensive, though, and rare. A small fortune in gold, by all accounts he’d heard. I said that it didn’t matter—we had to try. And I would pay it, no matter the price.
“In the meantime, to keep Balfie alive, we did something the priory wouldn’t have approved of. So I didn’t tell them. We just waited until night, when everyone was asleep, with only one healer on watch, dozing in the infirmary’s office.”
Dove’s eyes were huge as she took in my story. She whispered, “What did you do, Maerryl?”
“The mage placed Balfie under this sleeping spell, and then—and then he bound my life to my brother’s. An old technique. Powerful. And not seen as… acceptable these days, apparently. Forbidden to Kurrielan mages.”
Dove reached a shaking hand to my brother’s head.
Gently, she pushed back his hair—the same russet brown as mine—and spotted it.
The runic tattoo, dark and distorted, that matched my own.
It looked much worse on his young neck. I moved close to him, fixing the soft hair back in place, then brushed a light kiss over his small forehead.
“But that means…” Dove murmured.
I nodded. “If I die, so does Balfie. And vice versa. My life is keeping him alive.” For now.
Horrified, Dove said, “But Maerryl, that’s terribly dangerous. What if—I mean, anything could happen! And why hasn’t he woken up yet? Wasn’t that goddess-damned mage able to bring back the cure like he promised?”
“That mage—Bastion is his name—is the only reason Balfie is still alive at all,” I shot back.
“He did return, just as he swore he would, after four months. He’s a trader and has a regular route through Kurriel.
But the outbreak of dwarfdrop that had reached the Willowisp Woods—and thankfully, at least, seemed to have not gone beyond my clan’s village—had decimated a large part of his own realm across the sea.
The cure, a rare crystal found in their cave systems, had been nearly wiped out in the months Bastion had been away.
“So now the high price is even higher. Impossibly high, for me. Bastion even demanded that Prioress the Younger use a truth charm on him, to prove that he wasn’t trying to take advantage of our situation.”
“How much does it cost? Perhaps I could help?” Dove moved to my side, concern etched in every corner of her beautiful face.
I let out a hollow laugh. “It’s too much, Dove.
At least four hundred gold, by all accounts the mage and the priory have been able to track down in the three years since this all started.
Even if the priory subsidized the cost, which the prioresses have generously offered to do, it’s—it’s just too much.
The black market doesn’t take payment plans. ”
I watched as Dove did the calculations, her expression going from dire concern to strategizing to, finally, overwhelmed distress. The same feelings I’d cycled through constantly for the past three years. My head pounded painfully.
But then her eyes rose to meet mine, fierce determination blazing. “Then we’ll send someone to find this crystal, hunt it down. There must be another cache somewhere across the sea. If we just—” But I was already shaking my head.
“We’ve tried. Don’t you think I’ve tried everything?
The mage has pulled on every one of his contacts, and the priory has searched within their network as well.
Prioress the Younger even went so far as to send two of their acolytes on a mission to search for it themselves.
This crystal is a fiercely guarded resource.
Everyone is terrified of another outbreak.
And we are not the only ones trying to keep a loved one alive.
There are dwarves and other folks in Orlavia, and a few within Kurriel, all vying for the same finite resource, dealing with the same overcharging swindlers. Because they can get away with it.”
“Then let’s steal it from them!” Dove said desperately, and now I laughed for real.
The irony of her suggesting to me, a thief, that we should pull off a grand heist to solve this problem, when I, in fact, was in the process of a grand heist of her home for the same purpose—it was more than my strained nerves could handle.
I plopped back in my chair, shaking with laughter. Dove looked aghast at me, and I couldn’t help it—I absolutely guffawed. She crouched down next to me, clearly thinking I’d undergone some kind of mental break. Maybe I had. But it certainly was a hilarious one.
“Maerryl, it’ll be alright,” she said, putting a tentative touch on my arm. “We’ll figure this out. I can help. I’ll—I’ll sell off some of our land. I’ve been thinking about it anyway lately. That should be enough for the cure. And if not, we’ll find the rest. Together.”
She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around me as I began to run out of steam, my laughter turning to chuckles, then to sporadic, heaving breaths. She held me close, her warmth and honeysuckle scent and thereness a comfort as I slowly calmed.
“I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Or your brother,” she murmured. “We’ll fix this.”
The return trip home proved to be, thankfully, as quiet as this morning’s ride. We only passed by a couple other folks on the way, just novices strolling back from the village. Dove looked deep in thought the whole time, sneaking regular glances over at me with a pinched, worried expression.
After we’d returned to the children’s area and tracked them down in the courtyard, she and I had apologized to Orinno for leaving him in the lurch.
He looked back and forth, clearly sensing what had happened between us, and waved our words away.
He’d handed us two apples from the depths of his draped pant pockets and led us to a shady bench under a magnolia tree that had begun shedding its leaves for the autumn.
Golden leaves scattered over the clover lawn under our feet.
The children had chattered over one another, occasionally shrieking or laughing, as they’d enjoyed their snacks in a circle on the lawn.
One of the smaller ones had sketched in a pad Dove had given him, and I saw her watching him with soft eyes.
As we sat together, I’d confessed to Dove that Orinno and I had known each other well for years.
That I knew many of the acolytes and novices around the priory, in fact, and they’d been kindly keeping my privacy.
But Orinno had been one of the priory’s helpers—a novice at the time—who assisted with Balfie’s care in the early days.
And after becoming an acolyte, he’d volunteered himself to travel across the sea in search of the crystal we needed to heal my brother.
One of the kindest and gentlest souls I knew, he also possessed a rare, brave heart.
As we’d munched on our apples, keeping half an eye on the children as they chatted and played, he’d thanked Dove for taking their “troublemaker” off the priory’s hands, which made her smile and me grumbly glower.
We’d talked about Balfie, her asking hesitant questions that Orinno answered in his calm, thorough way after waiting for my permission.
It had felt surprisingly good to discuss the situation with Dove—to have everything out in the open.
Not everything. Not even close, a reproving voice in my mind reminded, and I firmly ignored it. That was a problem for another day.
Now Dove and I dropped off our horses with the stable hand and made our way inside via the kitchen door around the side of the manor.
Choia and most of the household staff weren’t there.
Just Hanc, idly stirring a pot at the stove.
The hobgoblin saluted us, then yawned, returning his attention to the pot.
Petra had already told us that she had some household errands to run in Talon this afternoon, so she’d taken the carriage earlier.
We were fending for ourselves with lunch, which I preferred, anyway, to being served by someone else.
“Here, take that tray and gather what bits and bobs you can find,” Dove said. “I’ll hunt for dessert.”