Chapter ten #3
I shook my head. “No, that’s one of the reasons Aunt Ethel was so protective of me. I could heal everyone but myself.”
His lips pressed together and he took a deep breath before huffing it out in a frustrated sigh. “So your aunt said wanting anything else was selfish because you had the gift of healing others?”
I nodded.
“Lyri…how can a gift that can never be used for yourself possibly make you selfish?”
I knew all the answers to his questions, and yet I had the feeling that he wouldn’t be satisfied by them—probably because I’d never been fully satisfied by them. “My gift gave me power.” I shrugged.
“But did it? Did you feel powerful when you were locked in that tower?”
My eyes burned as all the helplessness and desperation for freedom that I’d held on to all those years suddenly filled my chest again. “No.”
His expression softened. “I know a little something about power. I’ve watched my father wield the power of a king, knowing that power would one day be mine.
I’ve seen the way people envy, fear, or respect him.
I’ve seen the way it burdens him. And I’ve felt a little of that burden recently.
” He swallowed with difficulty. “Power is a burden to those who wield it responsibly. And I’ll take it on.
I’ll take on that burden when I have to, but there is no part of me that wants that power. Did you ever want yours?”
I couldn’t bring myself to shake my head. Instead my gaze dropped to my lap and my mouth trembled. “No. And I don’t want to go back. I don’t.”
He let out a giant sigh at my firm pronouncement.
“But…” I closed my eyes and toyed with the ends of my hair, finding it impossible to silence the voice of my aunt that rang in my head. “Be grateful,” I murmured to myself.
“Pardon?”
“It’s what she always said to me. Anytime I complained about people pulling on my hair.
Any time I asked to go out, she would say ‘be grateful.’ And I tried.
” I spoke past the knot in my throat. “I tried for so long. But I almost always failed. I wasn’t grateful, except on a very few occasions.
” Tears dripped onto my hands that looked blurry as they fidgeted in my lap.
“Last year, a baby was brought to me. The mother came running to the tower, the limp infant clutched in her arms, screaming, wailing my name, begging for help. When my hair brought that baby back from the brink of death, I was grateful. When that mother sobbed with joy, clutching her pink-cheeked and crying child, I was grateful. When she looked up at me with so much gratitude and relief, I was more grateful than I’d ever been. ”
He curled a finger under my chin and nudged it up until I was looking at him. “It’s incredible that you could save that child. You are a wonder, Lyri. How did a soul as beautiful as yours come out of that place?”
Tears pushed at my eyes. “My soul isn’t beautiful.”
“It is,” he insisted, keeping a finger under my chin so I couldn’t look down. “One of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen.” His thumb moved back and forth over my jaw in a light caress.
Warmth shot from my stomach up into my lungs, and I had a sudden need for his arms to be around me so I could feel his strength and his warmth. I wanted to fall forward until my head rested on his shoulder. But I held back, too terrified to act.
Instead, I dashed the tears from my cheeks and gave him a forced smile. “Now you know my secret. Tell me one of yours.”
His eyes immediately pinched as if he was in pain and he took an unsteady breath. “My father is dying.” He breathed out the words as grief crashed over his features. “And there is nothing I can do about it.”
“Oh, Tavric.” Waves of compassion washed over me as the pieces slotted together. The reason he’d been so busy lately, the king’s lack of public appearances. I’d known he was ill, but I’d had no idea it was so dire.
“It’s why I’m suddenly expected to hold court. It’s why the council demands so much of my time. For a while, he was having good days and bad days, but now… He’s too sick to rule, Lyri.”
“Is there no hope?”
“Only Caelmir.”
“Your brother?”
He nodded. “My mother sent him off in search of a cure or a doctor or anything at all that might help.”
I bit my lips together, hating that I couldn’t go to the king right then and give him his life back. “Do you think he will find something?”
“I’ve tried not to hope, but I can’t help it. Because if I don’t hope…then all that’s left is that he’s dying, and I don’t know how to make that truth fit into my brain when everything about it is wrong.”
My heart shattered for him. Not only did I remember exactly what it felt like to be so helpless in the face of a parent dying, but there was also a wave of guilt that rose up to strangle me.
If I still had my gift, I would have the power to heal his father, and yet the moment that gift had been taken from me, the most prominent feeling I’d experienced had been relief.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, knowing the words were inadequate.
Knowing I meant them in more ways than one.