25. Balance
Fuck. He was a godsdamned idiot for not brushing her off after she had lain on the forest floor.
While not rare, the witch’s curse spider wasn’t common either. Usually, they stayed close to skinwalkers, feeding off whatever corpse they had skinned and left to rot.
Their bite wasn’t lethal to elves, but you would wish it was.
The pain was unbearable, and he had seen five-hundred-year-old warriors beg for death and cry for their mothers. It took days for the venom to work out of your system—without the antidote.
There was a balance to everything.
Including spider venom. But the woodlark flower didn’t bloom at this time of year.
There was only one place it would be—the castle.
Wilder watched as Lyra’s face turned from pale to ghastly. She tugged up her shirt, and the blackened venom of the spider was visible as it coursed through her veins.
“Am I going to die?”
Wilder stepped towards her, tugging her shirt down and out of her grip.
“No. But this will hurt. I need to get you to the castle.”
She wobbled on unsteady legs. The pain must be excruciating, but she didn’t cry. Her voice hadn’t even trembled when she asked after her fate.
“You will be alright. I’m going to touch you now to get you on that horse.”
Lyra weakly nodded.
Wilder gripped her, throwing her back up on the horse.
“If you can’t keep up—fall back,” he threw over his shoulder to the rest of the group.
“Wilder—” Otto yelled before they took off. “You will make it.”
Wilder breathed a small sigh of relief and took off.
She was on fire. Where her skin had grazed him, burned. He was astonished she wasn’t screaming.
“It will be alright,” he whispered to her when she whimpered louder.
Trees passed in a blur as he pushed them on. He needed that flower. Needed it right now.
With one hand on the reins, he held her to his chest. The heat coming off of her scorched his skin, but he didn’t let go, didn’t loosen his grip a fraction.
His skin sweat and then blistered where it touched her. Wilder ground his teeth against the pain. If it hurt him merely touching her skin, it was unfathomable what she must be feeling.
He chanced a look at her then. Her auburn hair clung to the sweat on her face, her cheeks scarlet, either from the heat or the wind burn, and her once lush and rosy lips were now ashen gray and dry as tree bark. Lashes fluttered against her cheeks as she squeezed her eyes shut.
“It’s alright. You will be alright,” Wilder repeated over the sound of clopping hooves and wind.
It was the only comfort he could offer.
The only thing he could think of to say, and he would make it so.
Lyra’s head bounced against his chest, and her body went boneless as she passed out. Good, that was probably for the best.
When he passed through the wards of his kingdom, his breath came steadier. The light buzzing across his skin was a relief. He was close—so close.
The wildness of the moors opened up before him as he slipped from the forest edge to the rolling hills outside the palace gates. Mounds of evergreen grasses rippled in the wind between tufts of heather, and a light mist rose from the ground.
It was a mosaic of purple, green, and gray. He followed the well-kept path switchbacking through the high hills to the city gates.
Large hand-cut silver stones sparkled in the early morning light. A horn sounded at his arrival, and even from a distance, he could hear the squeaking of the wheel turning to open the gates. The castle rose beyond the great stone wall.
Long ago, it was only a wall around a colossal hill. But some distant ancestor had carved the stone out of the hill to create the magnificent castle. Peaks, battlements, and towers, all intricately carved from the gleaming stone.
Lyra whimpered, and he prodded the horse faster. He didn’t slow as he passed through the gates or the cobblestone streets of the Lower District.
Thankfully, it was early enough that not too many people were out yet. He launched the horse over crates of food and barrels of ale, much to the chagrin of vendors setting up for the market.
Cries rang out through windows as children woke for the day, their mothers pulling closed the shutters as he passed. He would have felt guilty if not for the fading scent of the woman in his arms. Her pulse was slowing as the venom took root.
The wooden bridge that separated the Lower District from the Upper District came into view, and his grip on the reins tightened.
He was almost there. The wood thudded as they passed over the bridge and navigated through the tree-lined streets of the Upper District.
There were fewer elves on the streets here.
Flowers lined the windows instead of laundry. Shutters blocked out light and sound, leaving the occupants inside blissfully unaware of the prince streaking through the streets.
As he came upon the small courtyard that separated the castle from the people, he yanked the horse to a halt and slid off, taking Lyra with him. He carried her in both arms, racing up the steps and calling for a healer.
Healers were a rarity only the nobility could afford. The bloodline of the witches with the gift had faded. Fewer and fewer were learning the craft.
Wilder stomped through the towering archway and into the greeting hall. His muddy footprints were left behind on the polished black-and-white marble floor.
A flurry of servants rushed to help him. But no one could help him. He needed a healer. When a spindly elf with long limbs and the complexion of peat moss reached for Lyra, Wilder growled at him in warning.
“I need a healer—now!”
“I’m coming, I’m coming. Settle yourself,” a voice of many answered.
An elder witch. She was neither young nor old; she simply was. And her voice wasn’t hers alone, but all of her ancestors speaking through her at once.
“She was bitten by a witch’s curse,” Wilder replied, looking down at Lyra.
“Bring her to my workroom. I’ve got some woodlark brewing.”
Wilder had a difficult time looking at the witch. She was the same size as Lyra, but her presence had the hair on the back of his neck rising. She didn’t walk either. No, she hovered over the ground like a specter.
Her eyes were as golden as the sun, and they burned as such. Dressed in the finest lilac gown, she should have blended in with the rest of the nobility, but there was no hiding what she was.
“It’s good to have you back, Prince. Your father was worried.”
The witch attempted casual conversation. It was futile. He couldn’t formulate a coherent thought until Lyra was awake and healed.
Passing statues of distant ancestors and heroic elves, Wilder breathed through clenched teeth. But when he passed a mirror, his reflection almost gave him pause.
He was back to his true self now and not the humanesque facade that slipped on him the moment he stepped outside of the wards. Briars grew from his scalp around the crown of his head, his ears were sharply pointed, and the otherworldliness wrapped around him like a familiar cloak.
The glittering gold wouldn’t come off his skin, no matter how much he had scrubbed at it. His mother had once crooned that he was made of gold-flecked silver stone. He despised it. It made camouflaging himself at night difficult.
An ancient door made of ash wood creaked open as the witch approached, and torches flickered to life as they trudged down the smooth steps. It smelled of herbs and smoke down here.
The healer’s workrooms were one of the few places he avoided. A monstrous fireplace crackled with green flames as the fire consumed driftwood from the shores on the east side of the kingdom. Bubbling sounded from the cauldron, hovering over the flames as the witch waltzed up to it.
She ladled a teacup full of violet tea and handed it to the prince.
“She needs to ingest at least half of that cup. Maybe more.”
Wilder looked from Lyra to the cup. The witch nodded towards the worktable that was pushed into the corner.
“You can set her on that.”
He carried Lyra’s lifeless body to the table and set her down with a gentle reverence before taking the cup from the witch. She helped him angle Lyra’s head just right. He blew on the tea to cool it down before he pressed it to her lips.
“Legs, I need you to drink this. It’s the antidote.”
Lyra’s lips opened a fraction, and the skin cracked and bled. When she opened her mouth wide enough, he poured some of the tea in. The inside of her mouth was full of blisters from the heat. His chest ached.
Such pain, such excruciating pain she had endured.
Wilder stopped pouring, and Lyra heaved a breath before opening her mouth wider.
“More, Prince,” the witch ordered.
He lifted the teacup and poured more into her waiting mouth. Lyra gulped it down, keeping her mouth open for more.
She reminded him of the baby birds being fed by their mothers, but he didn’t think she would appreciate the joke. When he had poured the entire cup of tea into her mouth, her eyes opened.
Red-rimmed and glassy, she looked at him before turning her gaze to the witch.
“Thank you …” she trailed off, not knowing the witch’s name.
“Jordania,” the witch answered with a hesitant smile.
“Jordania,” Lyra replied before her eyes slid closed once more.
“She will probably sleep for the rest of the day, and then she will be hungry. Make sure she eats plenty of fruit. The acidity will purify her blood,” Jordania ordered him.
Wilder looked relieved, his shoulders relaxing, and his breathing came easier.
“Thank you, Jordania.”
It was the first time he had ever addressed a witch, and he felt the stirrings of guilt. She nodded before whirling away to a rack full of dried herbs.
Wilder eased Lyra off the table and back into his arms, the action familiar to him now. He walked out of the workroom and into the hallway. A servant was there and waiting for him. A young elf with white flowers in her light blue hair. She smiled exuberantly at him.
“We have a room ready for the princess, Your Highness. She is to be on the north wing—near you.”
Wilder clenched his teeth. Of course, she was. When the servant’s smile faded, he gave a dip of his chin.
“Lead the way.”
She beamed at him then and scooped up the hem of her ruffled cream uniform. Her footsteps pitter-pattered against the marble as if she walked on her toes.
Wilder looked down at Lyra and noted the subtle changes. The scarlet of her cheeks was fading to a rosy red, the cracks in her lips were smoothing away, and the ghastly color of her skin now resembled the alabaster of the statues instead.
He was so enraptured at taking in these changes, he almost ran into the servant who had led him to a blue door right across the hall from him.
“Shall I attend to her, Your Highness?”
“No. Let her sleep,” Wilder replied and nodded to the door.
The servant pushed the door open with a smile and stepped back, allowing him entry. He swept inside, heading for the large iron bed on the opposite wall. It was a grand room for a hostage, but that was the kind of king his father was.
Wilder placed Lyra on top of the downy comforter. He ripped a blanket off a nearby velvet chair and draped it over her.
“I’m going to bathe. Send for me the moment she wakes,” Wilder ordered the young elf. “And don’t touch her—she doesn’t like to be touched.”