Chapter 48
‘What are you … doing?’ Levi asks as I limp past him.
I untie Duke’s lead from the pommel of Sam’s saddle. ‘If we go by horseback, it’s three days to Kingsland from here. At least five if we take this rotting trailer. I don’t think I have five days.’
Sam lowers the tree branch he was using to dig the wheel out of the mud, then glowers at the dirty bandage on my torso. ‘Then let’s go.’
Hours later, the fatigue and cramping in my gut has me listing in my saddle. To stay awake, I think about Agatha. Her sacrifice. Did she think she owed me? Was this about penance? And how much exactly did she heal me?
I let my guilt overflow as I dwell on all the things I missed – like how I mistook Agatha for Marian.
How did I not notice that Agatha was healing me?
I took some of her injury first. I know it.
You don’t forget the pain of an extra bolt wound ripping open on your stomach.
But the world turned hazy after that. I vaguely remember my pain easing up and blaming it on blood loss.
The last seconds of a dying man. I’m such an idiot.
Just before dusk, Samuel casts a worried glance at me and says he needs to rest. It’s not until I’m lying down, staring up at the open sky under the same stars as Marian, that I let myself think of her.
Please make it home safe.
My new nightmare is the horrified look she had when she realised her sister was dead.
That and her hollowed-out expression when Samuel and Levi dragged me away. She looked so lost.
I scrub my fist over my forehead. Maybe I should have tried harder to convince her to come with me.
‘Take care of her,’ I called out to Rufus. ‘Guard her with your life.’
I can’t believe I’m trusting a crook to get her home. My father. The only comfort is that she’s not alone with him. Lucky and the others will protect her.
The second day, I slump even more in the saddle, and when I gaze at the stars that night, I have a fever.
The third day is nothing short of torture.
But in the heat and sweat, and possibly my swelling brain, my dreams are incredibly lucid and Agatha visits me.
Her long hair is down. Combed. Her clothes are clean and free of blood.
I don’t understand it, but she smiles as she sits cross-legged beside me.
I talk to her about my guilt over failing her.
She listens, seemingly happy to be with me. At times, she stares up at the clouds or hums a tune. I take advantage of it, telling her how much I wish I’d been able to save her. How awful I feel that I couldn’t. After hours of that, she turns and presses her finger against my lips.
‘Ryland, stop.’ Her dimples flash as she laughs.
She changes positions to recline beside me, leaning on her elbows.
It’s like she can’t be sad. It’s not a possibility in whatever realm she’s in now.
She stays long after I settle, but when she finally leaves, she mutters the words, ‘Don’t waste my gift. ’
Gift.
The rest of the night is spent tossing and turning in pain, but I also can’t stop thinking about her parting words. That’s the thing about the connection. When you take on someone’s pain, suffering, sickness, it’s always a choice.
Gifts are given, willingly. What Agatha did, she did on purpose.
I wake the next morning to Samuel violently shaking me, and although he scowls at how much I’m shivering, my spirit feels … lighter?
But I can’t say the same for my body, which is rapidly giving out.
Multiple times, I almost tumble off my horse.
I also throw up with every drink of water.
But the dream of Agatha, or whatever that was, lingers.
A reminder that I didn’t kill her. I never would have.
Her healing me was her choice. But also, I can’t really honour her sacrifice – this second chance at life, however short it might be – without letting go of the guilt.
When we ride through the gates of Kingsland, I’m rushed straight to the hospital, placed in a bed that must have been stolen from heaven, and started on medicine. Then I sleep like the dead.
I wake to cold fingers prodding my bare chest.
‘Hi,’ I say to Isadora, Tristan’s wife, who’s also Dr Henshaw’s apprentice. I think I slept a full twenty-four hours, and it didn’t fix a thing. I still feel like I got shot; still burning up and sweaty.
‘Hey, soldier.’ She smiles grimly, then places what looks to be rotting leaves over my still-open wounds – although I know I’m in good hands. ‘I see you’ve been out catching arrows with your chest.’
Tristan’s sitting on a chair behind her, elbows on his knees, and I give a sleepy smirk. ‘Occupational hazard. What can I say?’
Tristan snorts. But what I really see is relief on my cousin’s tired face. He stands and stretches. Something tells me he hasn’t left that chair in a while.
I glance down at Isadora’s plant handiwork, her healer specialty. ‘So are these leaves gonna make me better? Because I’ve got somewhere to be.’
Her soft smile falls. ‘The infection you have is very serious. We put you on antibacteriums – a few different kinds – but you’re going to need poultices and herbal teas every few hours, everything we have in our arsenal to get you better.’
‘Sure.’ I attempt to sit up in bed and grimace. ‘Just give me a day or so, then we can pack it up. I’ll take it with me on the road.’
She places a hand on my shoulder, hardly pressing me down, but I flop back to the mattress with a smack. ‘No, Ryland. I’ll need to monitor this. Adapt the formula of the poultices. Try different herbs.’ She bites her lip. ‘You’re not leaving here for a while, and treatment could take many weeks.’
Tristan clears his throat. They lock eyes, and it couldn’t be more obvious they’re using memories of their thoughts to have a discussion in their heads.
I never cared before, other than being playfully envious.
But now it stings. Being connected to someone, woven together by those invisible fibres, was one of the wildest experiences of my life – even though my version was only a fraction of what it could have been.
And now it’s just … gone. Every tie, linking us together. Any chance of it ever happening again.
‘Samuel mentioned there’s a girl – you planning to go back for her?’ Tristan asks.
‘Yes.’ As soon as possible. But then I wince, remembering how I left her. Her grief. The dead look in her eyes. ‘It might be for nothing, though. I don’t know if I’ll be able to convince her to come back with me to Kingsland.’
‘Why does she have to come back here?’
‘Because,’ I say, baffled. ‘I vowed to serve Kingsland.’
Tristan chuckles mirthlessly.
As an elite guard himself, he knows the creed we live by. ‘It’s not exactly honourable to walk away from a commitment I made.’
He gives his head a half shake. ‘You and your blasted honour.’
I scowl, too tired for this. ‘What’s wrong with my honour?’
‘Nothing. It’s just …’ His gaze drifts to Isadora. ‘What’s the point of it all? Honour? Integrity? Duty? The kind you die for, if not for love?’
The fight drains from me.
‘And you don’t have to choose between them, you know?’ he continues. ‘You can serve Kingsland from anywhere, especially with a trading partner.’
Isadora pats my shoulder after covering my wound. ‘I’ll come back in an hour to change the herbs under that dressing.’ Her head dips. ‘I’m glad you’re home.’
The days in the hospital are filled with sleep, pain and visitors.
And by visitors, I mean every person I know, but especially the unmarried women.
My room is overflowing with food, which Samuel happily devours, and I get offers to do everything from washing my clothes to washing me.
At one point, I beg Tristan to put a sign on the door that announces: he doesn’t have the connection any more. But Tristan only laughed at me.
‘It’s your winning personality,’ he said. ‘And besides, everyone already knows. Word travels fast.’
A week later, I’m well enough to sleep at home, but there isn’t much sleep being had. The not knowing is killing me. Did Marian make it back to Notting without any trouble? Is she safe now among the guards? Doing okay?
I can’t stop thinking about her, and it eats at me that she probably hates me.
Then there’s Notting itself – who’s running things? And what’s happening there now that Atlas is gone?
I try to be patient and let myself heal, but I’m terrible company to everyone, including Mum, who visits often.
‘Is that doctor-approved?’ she asks, wrapping her cardigan tighter around her as she strides into the horse barn. She looks small, shoulders rolled in. Her grey hair brushing the edges of her hollow cheeks.
I pause with my hand on Duke. Brushing my horse doesn’t hurt too much. However, the push-ups I did this morning – probably not advised. ‘I’m being good. Mostly.’ I wink. ‘And he still needs to be cared for.’
‘You need to be cared for.’
I grin. ‘I am.’
She hums, not so sure.
‘It’s been three weeks,’ I say. ‘I’m practically good as new.’
‘Right.’ She smirks. ‘That’s why Dr Henshaw and Isadora said another two weeks?’
My jaw ticks. Two more weeks of no answers about Marian and I’m going to lose my mind. ‘But you know what happens once I’m cleared, right?’
She took the news of my marriage to Agatha better than expected.
Probably because it proved her right: people – in this case, Atlas – took advantage of the connection the second he learned about it.
I didn’t tell her much after that, so she doesn’t know about Rufus.
That’s a conversation I’ve been building up to, and every day I chicken out.
‘You’re going back?’ Emotion chokes her voice.
I resume brushing Duke. ‘Yeah, I’m going back.’
She bites her lips. ‘Is there anything I can say to stop you?’
‘No.’
Her head bobs up and down. ‘And do I get to meet this Marian?’
My hand stops moving. I don’t even know if she’s alive.
Yes, I do. She has to be.
‘If she’ll have me, I’d love for you to meet her some time. She’s already …’ Just say it. I take a deep breath. ‘She’s already met my father.’ Shock registers on her face, and I shift my feet. ‘I … ah, I found my father, Rufus, in Notting. He told me the real reason he’s missing a hand.’
She sits down unsteadily on a bale of hay. Her shoulders have started trembling.
‘I understand why you did it,’ I say gently.
‘Why you lied while I was a kid and made up a story about what really happened. You were protecting me, because he’s …
a swindler. But you could have told me later.
’ Remnants of betrayal still cut through me.
‘I don’t know why you continued to shut down my questions, even when you knew I was having nightmares. ’
Her face has drained of colour.
‘Were you afraid of people finding out? That you’d get in tr–’
‘I was afraid you’d go and find him. I know you.’ She gives a hard laugh. ‘You would want answers and justice. That’s how you work. You can’t just let things go,’ she says bitterly.
I suck on my teeth, checking my anger. ‘Have you let what happened with him go?’ The words hang between us. ‘Or do you live in fear that someone might break your heart again?’
We both know the answer. To protect herself, she’s dug a hole and buried herself alive.
I walk over and pull her into a hug, hoping this conversation becomes her turning point to do what only she can – set herself free.