Chapter 14 #3
I knew exhaustion drained her by how quickly she accepted the bargain.
She curled up on the bed, seeming only a youth, and burrowed into her blankets as though they might protect her from the world.
After she closed her eyes, I lightly ran my fingers through her hair, the way Pren liked me to do when she struggled to sleep.
For two hours, Eden slept peacefully. Piya kindly brought me one of Eden’s worn books and some bread and butter to eat, before departing again. But after two hours, Eden’s breath hitched. I gripped her shoulder and jostled her. “Eden.”
She woke quickly, without fanfare. Stared ahead for a long moment, and I said nothing, letting her regain her senses. It took longer than it should have. She sat up, stretched. “Thank you, Nym.”
“You can go back to sleep.” I held up the book. “I don’t mind.” I wasn’t sure if I’d sleep tonight, anyway.
Eden shook her head. “No, thank you, but I can’t waste the candles, and you need to rest, too.”
Yet an irrational fear of that room in the west tower clawed at me, so I sought another distraction. “Do you know if it’s possible to send a letter from here? My family—they don’t know what happened to me.”
Eden frowned but took a beat to consider. “Do I have the supplies to write a letter? Yes. Can we get it to your hometown? Unlikely. Our messenger would have to go so far inland—”
The truth of it hurt, but I was already so battered and bruised, I barely felt it. “I understand, of course.”
Reaching over, she touched my wrist. “Write it, though, Nym, just in case. I’ve found . . . sometimes just the writing helps.”
I nodded. “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?”
She straightened, a glimmer of the woman she’d once been shining through.
“I am quite all right. I’ve been writing, and I learned how to knit, see?
” She reached under a pillow and pulled out a remarkably straight square of yarn work.
“I think I’ll work on this.” She fingered the stitches. “Go. Rest. We have time yet together.”
But we didn’t. Renn didn’t need me anymore, and my craft was a fraction of what it used to be. That . . . and I didn’t know if I could bear watching the love of my life court and marry another woman.
Three for three. The gods had truly cursed my heart. Perhaps revenge for cheating death?
Lesson learned, I thought as I extricated myself from Eden’s bed and slipped into the hallway, bidding farewell to Piya with a nod.
A few lanterns hung on the walls, lighting my way.
As I neared the west tower, I overheard talking.
Spied Sten first, leaning against the wall at the base of the stairs with his arms folded over his big chest, head lowered in that bored way of his, though he looked up as I approached.
A few more steps, and I noticed Renn at the start of the stairs, still fully dressed, his presence another reminder, another punch to my gut.
But beside him, hair glimmering like fire, stood Princess Azra, all smiles and wide-eyed interest, her pale hands clasped neatly before her.
What time was it?
Renn either heard me or felt me, for he looked up as I approached, and I thought a whisper of guilt slid along that basalt wall. “Nym.” My name sounded instinctual.
Princess Azra’s gaze bounced between the two of us, unsure, but then she smiled. “You were there in the Great Hall today. And who are you?”
Renn answered for me. “This is Nym Tallowax, my—”
“Healer,” I finished for him. “I am, or was, his healer, Your Highness.”
Her delicate brows pinched together. “Is Physician Addsmuch not the healer here?” Her accent rang even more melodic than the emissary’s.
She must have referred to the man I’d seen leaving the infirmary earlier, with the red tie on his arm. “I am a craftlock healer, Your Highness.”
Her eyes widened, but she quickly smoothed her expression. Her attention swung back to Renn. “That’s right, your dear mother legalized them, didn’t she? And I’m so very glad. A true angel of fire.”
She reached forward and touched Renn’s elbow, and I suddenly felt terribly weary.
Renn pulled away.
“If you’ll excuse me.” I moved to pass them to the stairs.
But the princess didn’t budge. “And where is she off to?” She directed the question to Renn.
Renn’s mask schooled his features well, though a tightness limned his eyes. Had he wept? Guilt sucked me toward the floor. He said, “Nym’s room is in this tower.”
“This tower?” Azra repeated, studying me anew. I did not know where the delegation stayed, but it was not the west tower. “Do you think such a thing necessary, Your Majesty? You are obviously well and do not need a healer so close.”
She enunciated the word like it was vile. I suppose Antsan didn’t care for craftlock, either.
Without missing a beat, Renn stated, “It has behooved me in the past to have her close.”
A line bloomed between the princess’s eyebrows, so I interjected, “I can sleep with the staff.” I assumed they were in a barracks, somewhere.
“That will be unnecessary.” Renn looked at the princess when he spoke, but then his heated sapphire gaze flicked to me.
The princess twitched, but when she did not retort, I pushed past both of them and took the stairs up quickly, enough to wind myself by the time I got to my room. Enough that I could again focus on the burn of climbing more than my own rawness.
I didn’t light a candle. I sat on the old bed and stared out the window into darkness, save for two small fires in the bailey and a smattering of stars. I stared and wept until fatigue finally coaxed me to sleep.
Barren branches grabbed at my dress as I traveled the Sestan forest, the bite of winter night seeping into my limbs.
I heard him coming through the trees as a wolf.
Eden appeared nearby, sleeping between the roots of a tree, and no matter how hard I shook her, no matter how loudly I shouted to warn her, she would not wake.
“I’ve been looking for you,” the king crooned.
My heart drummed hard against my chest, like it might burst from my flesh.
I whirled around, Nicosia’s green eyes piercing the darkness, his smile too long, too wide, to be human.
I backed away from him, into a tree, only the tree had morphed into a great sculpture of ice towering over me.
The forest morphed into Nicosia’s lumis, cold and blue, swallowing Eden with it.
Adoel Nicosia laughed, then threw the maimed corpse of Ursa at my feet.
I woke to my own screaming.
Disoriented by the darkness, I clawed for the tree, thinking myself still bound to the Egroran, but my nails hit only stone wall and mattress. Blankets tangled between my legs. The door cracked against the wall behind it. I fell to the floor, my skull hitting stone.
Hands seized me. I screamed again, beating my fists into thick arms—
“Nym!”
Gold light pierced my eyes, driving back the shadows. I came to myself, gasping for air, my hair a noose around my neck. Everything looked wrong, but that’s because I lay on the floor, halfway under the bedframe.
Angel of fire. Renn knelt before me, his body glowing gold save where his nightclothes dampened it.
I tried to swallow against a dry throat. “Th-The wall . . . I shouldn’t have woken you—”
He cursed and scooped me into his arms. His voice came low and almost callous. “I was awake.”
He set me on the bed.
Gods help me, I tired of tears. “I-I’m sorry. I’ll build it thicker—”
“Stop, Nym, please,” he begged, then brushed hair from my face.
I drew in a deep breath, steeling myself as the vision of Nicosia slowly bled away. “You can’t be here,” I whispered.
“Antsan isn’t in this tower.”
“You can’t be here.” I reached for his hand, caught myself, and pulled mine back. Felt an ache pulse through the clogged link. “They can’t see you in my bedroom at night, no matter the reason. Anyone who knows the why can use it to kill you. Anyone else will cry foul.”
“They can cry all they want,” he bit out. “It’s a political marriage, Nym.”
I sat up. “Renn, she could say no.”
That gave him pause. His glow dimmed.
“I cannot do this with you every time . . .” My words choked out, and I had to brace myself, swallow, to get more out. “We can’t keep having this conversation.”
He looked away. Scoffed. “Is it so easy to say goodbye to me?”
An ember, finally. A stoking of something other than despair, even if it would drown as a wick in a pool of wax. Dowsing into myself, I dug ethereal fingers into the basalt wall around my heart and tore it free.
In reality, Renn winced as my hurt flooded him.
“To even question my devotion to you is the greatest slander,” I seethed. “You boast of wisdom and strategy, so don’t be obtuse, Renn Reshua Noblewight.”
Oh, but the guilt of him. The vines had grown one hundredfold, their thorns like daggers so sharp the magic itself bled. My heart had begun to fade; I needed to refuel it soon.
He looked . . . defeated. Slouched, he let his light wink out, recasting the room into darkness. “For me, there’s only ever been you, Nym.”
Salm take the water from me so that the tears might end.
“Women,” he went on, a shadow against the slitted window, “they used to treat me like a spectacle. A sideshow. I rarely interacted with them. I wasn’t able.
” He lifted his hand, his first two fingers grazing my collarbone.
“Did you know, I had my first kiss at fifteen? It was during the winter ball, and two girls my age snuck away and snooped through the castle, finding my room so they could see the broken prince for themselves.” He scoffed, but hurt from the memory panged me.
“I was some strange sort of marvel to them. The kiss was a dare, a joke. And I didn’t even care, because someone, anyone, had bothered to come up to see me.
” The apple of his throat bobbed. “They only saw the sickness, the misshapenness. Even my mother, that’s all she really saw in me.
” He drew his hand back; my skin pebbled in response.
“Nym, you were the first one who saw me. Before you ever fixed me, you saw me. Azra . . .” A dry, hard chuckle passed his lips.
“I think she very much sees a prophecy and little more.”
“Neither of us chose this,” I murmured. “But this is the weight that comes with the title. With the war. I’ve .
. . I’ve always known it. You’ve always known it.
I owe you my life and more, Renn. You’ve saved me in so many ways.
” Another breath, another swallow, to keep a sore lump from my throat.
“I can’t keep depending on you. I’m broken, Renn.
I’m so broken, and I can’t let you become the only glue that holds me together.
” I tilted my head back, trying to withdraw new tears.
Renn touched my hair. “Nym—”
“I think we have to give up what is good now for what is better later.” I hated the emotion in my voice, but if I were to wait for it to subside, we’d wait years.
His hand gripped mine, almost enough to be painful. I felt the strength of gods in that grip. His temper rose, breaking through the solemnity. “How can I possibly move on with someone else when I feel you inside of me, every day and every night?”
He might as well have been gripping my heart, crushing it beneath bent knuckles. “I-I’m sorry.” I winced. “I can try . . . I’ll find a way to break the bond. To fix this—”
“I don’t want you to fix it!” He released me and launched off the mattress, toward the window. “Are you listening to a thing I say? I want you! Stop fighting me at every gods-damned turn and just let me love you!”
I stepped away from him, though the darkness hid my tears. Shut my eyes and rebuilt that basalt wall, because the turmoil was killing me. Truly killing me. Anything to get relief. To give him relief. I built it hard and thick and dark, for the little good it did.
After a long minute, I asked, “What will you have me be? A mistress? A rendezvous?”
His silhouette crumpled. Another minute passed.
“I’ll find a way,” he promised, and strode toward the door. Stopped with his hand on it. “Nym?”
I was too miserable to speak.
“If Antsan weren’t part of this . . . if I find another way . . . would you marry me?”
Perhaps I’d been wrong. Perhaps doubting my love for him was not as great a crime as painting a beautiful future we could never have.
He gripped the door, sucking a piece of my soul away with him. He lingered there a moment. Didn’t look at me when he said, “Please don’t hate me for what I’ll have to do to make this work.”
I drew my knees to my chest and wept into the blanket, grateful and utterly destroyed when Renn finally departed.