Chapter 8 #2
“No! You’ll stay here where it’s safe and where I can keep an eye on your insane behavior,” Reule commanded.
“City proper,” he grumbled irritably, “as though I’d set an outlander woman who has just been accused of threatening a Packmate out alone among Sánge?
Not to mention being touted as the reason for the city losing its apothecary in the first place. You wouldn’t survive the day.”
Mystique seemed to take affront to that and Darcio had to cover a laugh with a cough as she glared at his Prime from her diminutive height as though she wanted to bash him over the head.
“I’m quite capable of taking care of myself,” she argued indignantly. “Don’t think just because I needed rescuing that I’m some sort of fragile thing in need of care all the time.”
Darcio certainly hoped not. If she thought to run with Reule and his Pack, she’d have to be made of stern stuff.
However, she had proved herself to have endurance and a tolerance for hardship already.
It was Reule’s remark that was in the wrong, and the Prime of Jeth knew it on a logical level.
Darcio just didn’t think Reule was thinking very logically at the moment.
“I hardly think you could face down an angry mob of Sánge, Mystique,” Reule countered sharply.
“You’d be surprised at what I’ve had to face down!” she snapped furiously.
There was a beat as the remark made an impact on everyone in the room, including Mystique herself.
Her anger rushed away and so did all of the blood in her upper body.
Darcio and Reule both leapt for her, each catching her under an arm and holding her steady as she gasped for breath.
She recovered and tried to break away, but she certainly wasn’t strong enough to shake them off.
The temptation to read her thoughts was fierce, but Darcio respected her privacy even though her horror and fear were already overwhelming his senses.
“I’m all right. Please,” she said tightly, trying to loosen herself again from the hands circling her upper arms.
“To hell you are,” Reule said bluntly, using his grip to draw her away from Darcio and into his full captivity. “What is it? What did you remember?”
Darcio turned to the forgotten attendant, who was trying not to look interested in what was happening.
With a sharp mental command, the Shadow sent him on his way with instructions to feed the farmer while allowing him to wait in the kitchens, He turned back in time to see Mystique glancing at him with discomfort.
“If you’ll excuse me,” Darcio said graciously, not wishing to hinder what was clearly a need for her to talk about her trauma. But Reule halted him before he could move an inch.
“No. Stay, Shadow. kébé, Darcio is trusted every day with my life and has been since I was born,” he coaxed her gently. “I’ll only have to repeat this to him later. I need the help of all my Pack in order to assist you in remembering what happened to you. To bring to justice those who hurt you.”
“It’s nothing,” she said, shaking her head and burying her face against Reule’s broad chest. She was hiding from the truth now, rather than hiding it from them.
Darcio couldn’t imagine what could possibly encourage her to want to relive what she’d been through.
He’d relived much of it for her, and he was still having nightmares days later.
“Talk to us, kébé. Don’t trap it inside you. It will cause you to live in fear.”
Darcio had to hand it to his Prime. He seemed to know exactly what to say. She jerked her head up and wriggled away with sharp twists of her shoulders.
“I’m not afraid!” It was an untruth. Her heart was racing hard enough to give it a fit.
“I won’t be afraid,” she corrected herself in a meeker voice.
She wrapped her arms around herself and lifted her chin bravely in spite of the trembling of her body.
“I just remember people. A lot of people. Shouts. Laughter.” She shivered so hard, Darcio heard her teeth clicking together.
“Jeering,” she corrected again. “It was hostile and all around me.”
The Shadow felt his Prime’s eyes on him, but he didn’t need to look up to know his expression.
This was nothing they’d discovered together through Darcio’s ability.
She’d been alone during his tracing of her body memory.
Even when the Jakals had been in the same house with her.
They’d never once known she was there. Darcio theorized that she’d somehow managed to block them off from sensing her.
The strange thing was, none of the Pack had directly felt her sorrow that day either.
What they’d felt had traveled through the Prime first before reaching them. It was yet another mystery.
“A group?” Reule encouraged gently.
“A crowd. A … large crowd. That’s all I know,” she said abruptly, turning her back on them and pacing away.
“I should see this farmer and his boy,” she said, her fingers sweeping both of her cheeks quickly, a useless attempt to hide tears from them.
But they both understood she needed time to digest these memories and the feelings they evoked.
She would talk to Reule when she was ready.
“How did you know someone was here to see you?” Darcio asked casually, trying to change the subject.
“Well, I …” She turned around, surprise on her face as she looked from Darcio to Reule and back again. “I just … I felt their need. I feel the son’s sickness. I just knew they were here and that they needed me to heal them.”
“Them? I thought the son was the only one ill,” Reule said.
“Reuleshe chided softly. “What good father’s spirit wouldn’t be sick when his son is so ill?”
She turned and walked briskly away, as if that would explain everything.
Oddly enough, Darcio believed it did.
It took another argument and a great deal of coaxing to convince Reule and Darcio not to accompany her into the kitchen.
She tried to get them to go about their normal business, but that was apparently asking too much of either of them.
She suspected she was gaining the mercurial Shadow’s championship, though she knew not what she’d done to deserve it.
But it was his relaxed attitude and remarks that eventually kept Reule away from the kitchens.
Mystique was grateful for that. She wanted to face this on her own, without Reule’s handholding.
He was so imposing, and as the ruler of Jeth, he’d command awe, respect, and obedience.
She wanted none of that by proxy. She’d inadvertently made herself responsible for the health of this Sánge nation by chasing away their apothecaries.
Considering the way he’d cared for Chayne, it was no wonder he and his apprentices were all that had been needed to care for thousands of Sánge.
It must have been effortless to hand out his lackluster instructions.
She even suspected the monopoly was by design.
Why train others who might outpace him and one day come to realize his shortcomings?
Mystique was grateful she’d been able to heal Chayne, and she was even glad she’d called attention to the untrustworthy medicine the apothecary of Jeth had been practicing.
What she wasn’t so certain of was whether she could help the rest of the Sánge.
She didn’t even know how she knew what she knew, or even how far that knowledge truly went.
She was afraid of making a mistake that could cause harm to someone.
Just because she was one of those so-called naturopathics, that didn’t make her infallible.
However, she wouldn’t walk into the situation letting anyone else know her self-doubts.
She swept into the hot kitchen, feeling its great bustle of activity in clouds of steam and the noisy clatter of pots and cutlery.
There was an absence of talking, though, and the way the small hairs on her arms stirred to life, she realized that the entire staff was communicating telepathically rather than shouting over the din of their work.
As a result, there was an almost musical rhythm to the way they were doing everything.
Even when they wove around one another it was like a perfectly timed dance. It made her smile.
Mystique turned her attention to the man in rough clothing sitting at a table set out of the way.
She felt the boy instantly, or perhaps she’d never stopped feeling him and only became more aware when she laid eyes on him.
He was as roughly dressed as his father, and though he seemed lean and small, she suspected he was much older than he looked.
His clothes hung on his frame too loosely and it was clear that though they weren’t of fine material, they were clean and well-kept enough.
The garments had no doubt once fit him quite well, probably too well, with a mother racing to keep her growing boy properly clothed.
He was dying. Mystique blinked as she realized she could see a shade of gray all around him that had nothing to do with what anyone else would see if they were to look at him.
Just like no one else would have felt the boy’s illness with such clarity without even seeing him or knowing he was there.
Pain, yes. The father and son’s obvious sadness, of course.
The keep was full of strong empaths who would sense all of that.
But all she could feel was sickness. A pestilent virus that seemed to be everywhere within him.
Less intensely, she also felt the sick spirit of the father.
But this was purely a mental instability.
This man, she realized, might never recover from the loss of his son if something wasn’t done to help him.
She didn’t know what she could do for him, other than try to save his child.
They looked up at her with a combination of suspicion and hope.
She would have laughed at the contradiction if she hadn’t known how serious the situation was.