28. Chapter 28
Lunette
A maid with blue-black hair, wearing a perfectly crisp black gown, its cuffs intricately woven with gold thread, stood at the foot of the servants’ stairs. Her hands were clasped before her, her body held with the rigid stillness of long practice. I hadn’t noticed her until she moved.
As Richart set my trunk down, she stepped forward, dropping into a deep curtsy.
For me. The curtsy was for me.
I didn’t know what to do with my hands. Didn’t know what to do with my face. I’m sure I looked like a bewildered fool with my mouth agape.
“I'm Anne. If it pleases you, I will see to your veska,” she said. “We have already prepared your chambers for Master Muffin.”
It does not please me, I thought.
But before I could protest, Richart passed Muffin’s cage into her careful grip.
Muffin made an indignant squeak in my direction, tiny claws scraping against the wooden slats.
The maid softly whispered in a low, steady murmur, her voice seasoned with the experience of soothing countless creatures as temperamental as an alpine veska.
I felt like I’d just surrendered the last piece of home I still controlled. I even took a step toward them, only to halt myself abruptly. This was right. Muffin would be safer wherever they were going to keep me than in a royal sickroom.
“My lady, I will take your trunk to your apartment,” Richart said, bidding me farewell and disappearing with the servant who’d taken Muffin.
Reina reappeared a heartbeat later, and we were off. Reality crashed in with every step. I hadn’t used my magic in days so I still didn’t know if it would even work right. Nisien had said they didn’t expect me to perform a miracle, but was that true?
Camrick led the way while Reina remained at my side.
In my entire life, I’d never even dreamed of a place so grand.
The warm, golden light poured through the arched windows lining one side of the corridor helped my heart slow from its anxious rhythm.
Tiny crystals caught in the tan stone underfoot shimmered, reflecting the autumn colors still clinging stubbornly to the trees outside.
I was so captivated by the view that I almost missed the sudden shift in the air.
My body tried to warn me that something was about to change, but I didn’t listen.
It started with a faint sensation, like a pinprick at the locus of my magic, near my heart.
The prickle washed outward like a wave until it reached the soles of my feet.
Then, with a jolt, my senses exploded. I became hyper-aware of my surroundings.
Every fiber of my being tingled with involuntary alertness.
I could smell him. Feel him in the way you know you’re approaching fire before ever getting burned.
It was recognition, some wordless part of me trying to tell me to pay attention.
It was probably a very good thing I didn’t see him at that moment.
I’d thought I was coming close to making peace with the situation I’d been thrust into, but something about the way the smallest traces of him lit up my senses made the wildness inside me want to bare its teeth. And not entirely at him.
More worryingly, the current beneath my skin, which had been sputtering and unreliable for weeks, suddenly ran straight and true like a river finding its proper course. These halls were saturated with him, and my magic had steadied.
But the explanation was undoubtedly simple. My magical reserves had been so depleted for so long that I’d simply forgotten what full felt like. Then they’d forced me to rest. It didn’t have to mean anything.
Didn’t have to be that my body and magic had decided that the man who’d dragged me across the kingdom was necessary.
My jaw clenched with each stride.
That arsehole!
I swallowed past the lump in my throat. Tried not to react to the sensation as we walked toward the king’s room, to show that nothing had happened, but I stumbled where I felt him strongest.
“Where is Prince Owain?” I asked in a whisper.
Camrick turned to raise one questioning eyebrow at Reina then immediately turned back.
Suspicious.
Reina’s response had a tinge of forced nonchalance to it. “He’s dealing with official matters. With Berian ill and the queen…absent, he is the Regent of Larethia.”
Regent? I’d known King Berian didn’t have an heir, but I hadn’t truly thought of Owain in that way before now. Guess I’d have time to get used to the idea.
I was tracing the lines in the stones beneath my feet with my eyes, lost in thoughts of him, until Camrick’s back was suddenly an inch from my nose, and the shock of his sturdy frame pulled me out of that hole.
We stood before an impossibly tall and wide arched door bound by iron.
Four guards wearing full sets of armor, swords in sheaths, surrounded it.
A quick flick of Camrick’s wrist and a stern look from Reina made the two men in the middle move as one to seize a giant handle to pull the doors open.
The thick, humid air spilling from the room was heavy with the overwhelming aroma of countless medicinal herbs.
In five steps, I found myself in the hushed, dimly lit private chamber of Larethia’s king.
Benevolent gods, this is really happening.
The halls I’d walked through to get to this space were resplendent with hung tapestries and banners, but the king’s room was luxury itself. What didn’t glitter looked outrageously lush or ancient.
There, at the center of a four-poster bed with a canopy, a solitary shape was curled into a ball. I barely held back a gasp as my feet started moving toward it of their own accord.
When I heard feet rapidly following, I flinched, fearing I’d done something to trigger the guards to restrain me. But it was only Camrick, moving to my side.
“What, do I need to curtsy or something before healing him?”
“No, just—”
“Quiet then,” I murmured, not focused on Camrick. My magic was already trying to reach out through the space between me and the king, distracting me beyond reason. I couldn’t take more input from conversation.
Camrick let out what I hoped was a surprised huff but kept walking alongside me.
Closer, I could sense the king. He was mageborn. So why did his aura feel as threadbare as a hedgewitch’s?
“King Berian is a mage, right? Why is his aura so weak?”
“He was stronger when he was younger. It seemed to fade over time.”
Auras did dim when a person was ill. Could Berian have been sick for a long time and no one—not even him—noticed it getting progressively worse?
But the deeper I searched, reaching through every nook and cranny of his damaged organs, the more convinced I became that that was only part of the truth.
The most significant injuries had occurred far more recently.
I pushed the suspicion aside. One crisis at a time. If my magic chose this moment to falter, a king would die.
Please don’t fail me now.
Reina stifled a gasp of surprise as I immediately climbed onto the mattress next to Owain’s brother. Even before my fingertips brushed his face, I knew his skin would be too cold, like his body was having trouble keeping life in it.
I took a moment to look at the man whose fate had brought me here. The similarities to Owain were obvious. Same nose, same hair, but a weaker jaw and less facial hair. He might’ve been handsome if he hadn’t been swollen from illness.
Magic unfurled from me in a controlled sweep, thin as silk. I hadn’t used magic in days—had specifically been forbidden from it—and it showed. Strong, searching threads slipped beneath skin and bone, moving through tissue and blood to map what mortal eyes couldn’t see.
What I found, I immediately didn’t like.
“Does he drink? Whiskey? Mead?” I asked flatly.
Camrick stiffened in a way that suggested he didn’t want to answer that question.
From across the room, Reina answered quietly, “As much as any noble.”
“Does that mean he passes out from it regularly?”
“No.” She didn’t move from her spot across the room. It was almost as if she was intentionally keeping her distance. With a small surge of magic, ribbons of shadow coalesced to shut the door in the faces of the guards standing watch outside.
I inhaled slowly, nerves frayed, but also slightly more confident with a smaller audience. Camrick walked a bit closer, taking off his leather gloves and putting his hands on his hips, looking at a loss for words.
The king’s liver was wrong. I’d seen something like it once before in Selmont in the village drunk, but his had been filled with pockets of fat as well. The damage to Berian’s body looked like a webwork of scar tissue strangling the healthy tissue around it.
They’d been incredibly tolerant of my lack of reverence so far, but would that extend to their king? I had to choose my words wisely. “His liver is damaged. Have his eyes turned yellow?”
Camrick’s head shook, his eyes wide with disbelief. “How could you possibly know that without cutting him open?”
I felt a surge of impatience, but the worried, owlish expression on Camrick’s face urged me to take pity on him.
“My magic paints a detailed picture of what’s going on inside.
” He started to open his mouth for another question, but I continued, cutting him off.
“His kidneys are failing as well. That’s why he’s so bloated. ”
Reina took her first steps toward the bed as if pulled there unwillingly by her curiosity and concern. “Please, keep going.”
Now came the real negotiation. The moment every alliance eventually arrived at: what is your limit, and how close can we push you to it? I already knew what the answer would be: until I had nothing left. “How much do you want me to give?”
“Whatever you deem appropriate, Lady Lunette,” Camrick said.
“How much?” I pressed, because in my experience, the first answer was always the polite one. The real one came when you pushed.
They looked at each other, and I recognized the silent calculation of how honest to be. Then Reina answered, “Do not risk yourself. None of us want that.”