Fiersa
TEORIN
Darkway Palace, Morrath
"Well?" Teorin said.
The healer did not look up from Asharin's wrist. "She may yet awaken."
"That is what you said yesterday."
"It remains true today."
Three days in Morrath and this was what passed for progress. "What will heal her?"
The healer set Asharin's hand down carefully. "Time, perhaps. An antidote to whatever was used on her would help considerably. And feeder blood."
"I have been giving her blood."
"The strong sort. The type that can strengthen even your kind." She paused. “Marrow would help a small amount. And infant feeder blood could help a great deal.”
"Where am I supposed to find that?" He looked around the room. "Do the creatures in this place even reproduce?"
"It is rare. I know of none present in the kingdom at this time."
He closed his eyes. Counted. Opened them. "Try my blood again."
"You gave large amounts yesterday and the day before, Majesty—"
Shyall stepped forward, his horns burning red at the tips. His sentinel, the leader of his Morraks, spoke carefully. “If you give too much, Majesty, how do we hold the palace should Sevrin attempt to regain—”
Teorin laughed. It came out worse than he intended.
"Sevrin is barely alive. My sources are clear on that.
Axar may still live, but he has no interest in taking a Morrath throne.
I can assure you all he wants to do is escape this shithole.
There are no other Rathmors and no one else who can take the seat.
" He looked at the healer. "And even at my weakest, I am still stronger than most of what lives here. "
He held out his arm.
"Now take my blood," he said. "Now."
Hours later he was still in Asharin’s room.
He had not left it.
Her breathing was steady. Her cheeks had color that had not been there this morning, faint but real. He kept his eyes on her chest to watch it rise and fall because it was the only thing in this place that was not wrong.
A soft knock at the door.
A young woman entered, pale with dark hair pinned back, a basin under one arm. She curtsied without looking at him.
"Sire. I am here to prepare the young lady for bed."
"She is already in bed."
"She must be cleaned and her hair braided, Sire."
"Who makes these rules?"
"I cared for several of the royal daughters before coming here." She did not say how she had come to be here. She did not need to. "A royal woman must be washed and tended regularly. Asleep or otherwise."
He looked at Asharin. He thought about King Orsin's daughters.
The stories said that in his search for the key, some of his daughters were killed, others lost their minds, and still others fell into deep sleeps and never awakened.
This woman was Yorali. She likely knew how to tend to an unconscious royal woman. She had likely done it before.
"Fine," he said. "Wash her."
The woman turned to him. "Would you mind stepping out?"
"Why would I?"
She gave a small smile. "Because even here in Morrath they know she belongs to the Prince of Veynar. Who would dare upset him?"
Before he could answer another knock came at the door.
A woman stepped in. Silver hair against olive skin, younger than she first appeared, with a quietness to her that did not belong to someone who had reason to be calm. She curtsied.
"You are not Yorali," Teorin said.
Everyone up until now either seemed to be a creature or a Yorali human from Orsin’s pit.
"No, Majesty. I am from Veynar. My husband sold me to the Yorali court."
The dark-haired woman's expression cooled. "She was recently placed in King Sevrin's household. The head matron assigned her to laundry. She should be flogged for being in here."
"I only thought—"
"Only thought what?" Teorin said.
The silver-haired woman met his eyes. "I am from Veynar, where the Princess was raised.
If she awakens to a foreign accent and a stranger she may be frightened.
A familiar voice might help." A pause. "Discretion is my strength. And the other servants dislike me already, which means I have no one to gossip with.”
"What is your name?"
"Fiersa."
He looked at the dark-haired woman. "You can go. She will finish preparing the Princess for bed."
"But—"
"That was a command."
The dark-haired woman left. Something at the corner of Fiersa's mouth moved but he was too tired to read it.
"Perhaps His Majesty would turn his back while I undress her Highness," she said.
He nodded and turned.
He stood at the window and listened to the quiet sounds of water and cloth and Fiersa's hands moving as though she had done this many times. Asharin's breathing did not change.
She would wake. He would make sure of it.
He leaned against the frame and closed his eyes and did not admit, even to himself, how much the blood he had given had cost him.