Chapter 12 #2
Then another wave of coughs tore through her throat, hoarse and wet and clearly painful. Mirielle braced her hands on the bed to keep herself from falling over.
Without stepping any closer, Reis poured a cup of water and set it on the stool beside the bed, close enough for her to reach on her own. He didn't offer it to her. He didn't touch her.
Mirielle noticed it all.
After several agonizing seconds, the coughing finally ended, leaving Mirielle breathless and tired. Reis stood behind the table but Mirielle still didn't take the cup. The fragile, aching quiet that passed between them was unbearable.
Then, mercifully saving Reis from the very awkward situation, Marta reappeared in her apron carrying a pot of steaming soup between thick pads and set it on the counter. Reis immediately went to help but Marta only shooed him away.
"I'll do that. You go help the boys. I need to change her shift and she still needs rest," she ordered. Then she went about ladling a spoonful of thick broth into a wooden bowl.
Reis did not move at first. He looked at Mirielle, conflict written plainly on his face.
She was sitting on the straw mattress, her feet tangled in the linen sheets, staring at the cup he had left her with something like confusion.
She looked so small, far smaller than he had ever seen her, as though the weight of what he had done had crushed her in upon herself. The sight tore a hole in him.
Every instinct told him to stay, to kneel beside her and pick up every broken piece he had destroyed. But him being near her would only make the weight upon her heavier now. So instead, he bowed his head and left the room, quietly shutting the door behind him against the chilling air outside.
*
Mirielle had another dream. It wasn't a complicated dream. It was very simple, very short.
She was walking through a castle at a sure pace. The halls seemed to stretch endlessly, swallowed by darkness save for the moonlight that stretched across the floors like pale rivers. Her footsteps seemed heavier, louder, echoing through the silence.
There were no servants or lit hearths, no braziers or candles lit. Tapestries with a crest she didn't recognize hung on the walls.
The cold air seemed to follow her, gnawing at the cracks of the walls around her, penetrating and embedding itself like something ancient.
She turned a corner.
*
Mirielle woke to an unfamiliar man next to her bed. It was becoming a regular occurrence lately—one she did not enjoy.
He was thinner than Reis but still broad in the shoulders, the kind of build that suggested agility over brute strength.
His sandy-blonde hair shorn short against the sides of his head.
Sharp hazel eyes watched her with amusement.
He kneeled next to her, his elbows on his knees, one hand resting ponderously on his jaw.
"When they told me you were beautiful," he drawled, "I'm afraid they dramatically undersold the situation."
Mirielle squeaked like a mouse and tried to jump out of bed but her legs were too weak to sustain her. They collapsed beneath her the moment she touched the floor, falling on her hands and scraping her knees.
The stranger blinked. "I'm not that ugly," he protested as the door of the cottage slammed open, nearly betraying its hinges. Reis stood in the doorway.
Fuming.
"KELLAN!"
His voice thundered through the tiny cottage.
"Hello, Reis! Good to see you too!"
"I pay you to sneak up on other people," Reis snarled.
He crossed the room and helped Mirielle into bed before she could attempt it herself. Then he pulled a heavy blanket over her.
"If I didn't sneak up on you from time to time, how would you know to pay me?" the strange man asked.
"Out!"
Kellan ignored the command entirely.
"I noticed marks on her neck," he mused, "I didn't know you were into that kind of thing, not that I'm in any position to judge a man's preferences."
Mirielle's brows knit in confusion.
"They are not from me," Reis bit out, anger and regret laced through every word.
Kellan's grin faded. Silence passed as a quiet exchange happened between them.
"How did you find me." It was more a command than a question.
"Tales of a massive black horse in a sleepy hamlet near the border. When you didn't arrive on time, we thought it might be you," he said while taking a seat in Gerald's chair like he owned it.
Mirielle doubled over in a fit of coughing—wet, raspy and painful before collapsing onto her side. Both men looked at her in concern.
"Damn it," he cursed. "The scare probably exhausted her. I'll have your hide for that."
"I'm sorry," Kellan said immediately, "I didn't realize..."
Reis felt her forehead and his shoulders slumped. Her fever was returning.
"You should eat something while you're awake."
Vegetable soup that Marta had prepared earlier that morning sat simmering in the house pot. He ladled some into a bowl and brought it to her.
Kellan had suddenly gone silent.
"How's the war?" Reis asked while helping Mirielle to a sitting position.
"Swimmingly," Kellan announced. "They intercepted that weapons shipment I found."
"And the pass?"
"Full," Kellan said grimly. "Snows came early."
Reis tucked a lock of hair behind Mirielle's ear. Over the last few days her body had stopped flinching at his touch, which was an enormous relief to Reis because it let him care for her when she was awake.
"Sorry," Mirielle spoke for the first time, her voice hoarse from sickness. She knew Reis had hoped to get through the pass before winter froze it shut.
"None of that," Reis murmured gentle and low. "It just means we can take our time now."
Kellan watched them silently for a long moment in curious thought. His thumb rolled back and forth against a ring on his finger.
A high voice cut through the silence.
"Who are you?"
Lettie strode through the door carrying a basket full of mushrooms. She set them on the counter and began cutting them and stringing them together with twine.
"A devastatingly handsome traveler." Kellan jumped to his feet with a grin. "It's my good fortune that I've met not one but two beautiful women in a single hour."
"I asked for yer name, not yer affliction," she sang back.
"His name is Kellan," Reis said flatly from across the room.
"Traitor," Kellan said under his breath. "And you are?"
"Busy," she said, not sparing him a glance.
"Wonderful name." Kellan strode across the room and leaned on the wall next to her. She didn't so much as flinch.
"You know, most women get flustered with me standing this close to them."
She glared up at him from behind splashed freckles, locking him in a dare. His smile deepened into a winning grin.
"You flirt like a man who's never been stabbed before," she warned as she chopped the head off another mushroom.
"Oh, I've been stabbed plenty."
"Not enough apparently."
"Are you this nice to all handsome men or am I just special?"
"We've been in the same room for less than a minute and I already want to hit you with a pan."
"Special it is then," he said through his smile.
Mirielle fell into another coughing fit and all three of them turned to her in concern.
"Kellan, you're too loud," Reis snapped. "Take your flirting somewhere it's wanted."
Kellan's expression faded as he took in Mirielle with genuine concern. Then, without another word, he strode out the door.
*
Kellan waited beneath a sprawling oak at the edge of the hamlet, lazily working his way through an apple. Sunlight spilled through the canopy in broken shafts, gilding the moss and fallen leaves.
A large man was feeding Hank hay nearby, stealing glances his way curiously. Kellan only smiled politely.
A few minutes later, Reis emerged from the cottage.
"Walk with me."
They left the road and followed a narrow deer trail that wound through the oak trees beyond the hamlet, far enough from the cottages that no one would overhear them.
"Well?"
Reis stared ahead. "She's hiding it."
Kellan snorted. "You're serious?"
"Yes."
"From you?"
"And Orbin."
Kellan's smile vanished and his feet stopped moving. "What?" There was a sharpness laced through his voice.
"Orbin didn't know."
"That's not possible."
"I'm telling you he didn't know."
Kellan just stared at him.
"Explain how."
"I can't."
"Reis—"
"I can't." The frustration in Reis's voice was evident. "I only know he didn't know."
"He's been king for ten years," Kellan said in quiet disbelief. "Ten years, Reis. She was twelve."
"Mm."
"And she hid it the entire time?"
"Looks that way."
Kellan rubbed a hand across his jaw. That wasn't luck or coincidence. That was years of vigilance, years of fear. And Mirielle had only been a child.
"That couldn't have been easy," he said quietly.
"No."
Kellan looked up through the bending trees at the firelight shining through the cottage windows and frowned. "She probably didn't want to be used," he said slowly.
A humorless laugh escaped Reis. "Can you blame her?"
Kellan thought of the Siraelean bloodline. The devastation. Somehow that didn't fit the girl inside.
"No," he said quietly.
"There's more."
Kellan looked at him grimly.
"She was never allowed outside Ambersaith."
Kellan blinked.
"What?"
"She told me."
"Outside the city?"
"Outside the estate."
Kellan looked like someone had just slapped him across the face.
"For how long?"
"I didn't ask."
"Why not?"
Reis looked at him, clearly irritated now.
"Because she looked embarrassed."
Kellan looked at Reis in utter disbelief. She hadn't been angry or resentful but embarrassed, as though she'd done something wrong.
"Why are you telling me?" Kellan finally asked.
"Because I don't know what it did to her."
"What?"
"Hiding it."
Kellan looked off into the trees.
"A decade, Kellan." His voice dropped. "What does that do to someone?"
"You want me to find out?"
"Not through her." The irritation in his voice was immediate.
Kellan raised both hands in surrender. "I wouldn't have done that even if you asked."