Chapter 16
Renn and Commander Stonelay had the soldiers stationed at Derren Castle packed and in formation to start the trek to Hock, the small port town where we’d be departing to reach Serravia.
Even if the noise of preparing soldiers hadn’t filtered into my room, I would have woken plenty early.
Though I don’t know if one can call it waking when one barely slept.
I dowsed away what I could and let a splash of cold water across my face mend the rest.
I peered out the first tower window I crossed. Seeing the soldiers line up now, guilt flooded me. I held back the very thing we needed to save them. I feared my fatigue would hinder Renn, and yet to share his bed for much-needed rest, I drove a wedge between him and our greatest ally.
I had to do better. There had to be a way.
My present life fit into a single knapsack with room to spare.
I braided my hair around my crown and down to its tips to keep it from knotting in travel or getting in the way.
I packed up bedding for the casualties we’d be sure to have and inventoried resources with Beatty, who would not be coming with us.
We’d meet another battalion along the way that would, hopefully, have more food to keep the soldiers going.
While I had ridden into Derren on the king’s horse, I would be walking out behind the soldiers, with the other skeleton staff the army required.
A trumpet sounded as I finished my preparations; the first companies were marching.
I hurried toward the broken east tower to bid goodbye to Eden, and unfortunately came across Renn and Princess Azra once more, just in time to see him kiss the back of her hand in farewell before heading toward the exit, lightly armored and with two swords hanging at his hip.
I thought he faltered, but was it due to his lingering illness, or because he felt the unjust betrayal that wove between my ribs like some sick, shoddy tapestry?
I took another route to the east tower and found Eden in her room, working on additional correspondence to bring in crafters as quickly as possible to the fortress.
Setting aside quill and parchment, she embraced me tightly.
“Come back, Nym. Bring him back, too. I will not lose another brother, nor another friend.”
I promised her and left, winding through the narrow bailey and across the drawbridge, and—
My foot hovered at the end of the drawbridge, where weeds poked up around the wood.
Despite the warm morning sun, cold sweat broke out over my skin as I looked at the departing soldiers garbed in black and red, my eyes darting to their collars, seeing silver markings where there were none, and I knew there were none, yet my eyes played tricks on me, twice convincing me men with dark hair had four gold bars denoting their rank.
That the king of Sesta had infiltrated us.
That he’d slaughtered every denizen of the fortress in the night and replaced their souls with dragons.
I froze, as though soulbound to the weeds. Move, I pleaded. My heart sped. My mind turned to hot coals. Move, Nym.
I did. I stepped back, both feet firmly on the drawbridge. Two soldiers walked around me, carrying something between them. I didn’t see what—swirling shadows filled the periphery of my vision.
I needed air. Yet I stood outside, breathing clean air. Surrounded by clean, fresh air. But I couldn’t breathe. I heard the gasps filling my lungs and leaving too quickly, yet I couldn’t feel them.
I was being ridiculous. I chided myself for being ridiculous. “It’s nothing,” I murmured, and took a step forward.
Ursa didn’t reply.
The darkness at the edge of my vision coiled like spider legs. I felt the soulbond deep in my core, holding me there. The sword run through my middle, leaking the air from my lungs, because I still couldn’t breathe. No air. Suffocating—
A thump hit the bridge behind me. “Nym.” Someone called my name from far away, behind a glass wall. “Nym.”
A hand dropped onto my shoulder, and I jumped, inhaling sharply enough to choke on saliva. I bent over and coughed, shaking, beads of sweat dripping down the channel of my spine, forming on my temples. A whooshing like a hundred whispers filled my ears—
Light in my eyes. His body blocked the army as he knelt in front of me, one palm to either shoulder. “Breathe, Nym. It helps if you breathe.”
The words sounded a little closer now. Familiar. I sucked in a shaky breath. Let it all out at once.
“Slowly,” he commanded. The light snuffed out.
I tried again, taking a little longer, the air unable to stick to my lungs.
Again, focusing on the air. Just the air.
In, out. In, out. In, out. A steadiness sat in my chest—a muted concern, empathy—and it wasn’t until I felt this pushing against the basalt wall that I recognized Renn.
I leaned into him, focusing my thoughts on the movement of air as perspiration dried and my thoughts untangled into a semblance of reason. As I slowly came back to myself.
Dread pooled in my belly as tears burned in my eyes.
“I . . . I can’t,” I whispered. If this happened on the drawbridge of a remote Canseren fortress . . . how would I ever face a battlefield filled with real dragons? Where Adoel Nicosia himself might be leading them?
Renn smoothed hair from my face. “I know. I worried . . . and I felt it. I came as soon as I felt it.”
I swallowed. Shook my head. I needed to find a better solution than the basalt wall. I couldn’t keep holding him back. “I have to. You need—”
“I need you to survive, Nym.” He touched my chin, bringing my eyes to meet his. His forehead pressed to mine. “I need you to survive a little bit longer.”
My hands curled into fists. “But there are no other healers—”
“We have healers,” he promised. “Not crafters, but we have healers.”
No, I had to do this. I had to keep them alive. I needed purpose. And yet as I tried to stand, as I listened to the army’s departing footsteps, that stiffness returned to my limbs. Fear dribbled down my ribs like condensation.
Renn scooped me up in his arms like I weighed less than a toddler. His skin glowed—wings of light unfurled—and he leapt once, suddenly at the portcullis of the castle wall. We stepped beneath its shade. Light winking out, he set me down just inside, the hefty stone blocking my sight of the army.
I peeled my tongue off the roof of my mouth. “I-I can do this.”
He tapped his index finger on my breastbone. “I feel you, Nym, despite your efforts. I know this feeling well. You can’t.”
“But—”
He squeezed my knees. “You are not broken. But you . . . are not well. Not at this moment. You’re not ready.”
Guilt prodded at the wall.
Tears filled my eyes at his truths. As I recognized that, should I try again, panic would overwhelm me once more. I would be a liability, not a help, on the battlefield. Waking nightmares painted me back in Sesta, running from soldiers in blue.
Safe. Safe. You’re safe.
“I . . .” He struggled. “I can’t stay with you. I have to go with them.”
I nodded. Of course you do, I tried to say, but I couldn’t form the words. This . . . this was a good thing. A hard thing, but a good thing. I couldn’t depend on Renn anymore. Even without Antsan . . . I couldn’t make the king of Cansere my crutch. No matter how hard it became, or how much it hurt.
“Believe in me,” he murmured.
My throat felt like I’d swallowed a stone and it’d lodged just after clearing my tongue. I nodded again, blinking so I would not cry. Renn brushed his lips across my forehead, grounding me a little more. “Stay with Eden.”
I swallowed the stone, moving it about an inch. “Come back. You . . . You have to come back.”
Only Nicosia can kill him.
But Nicosia might be there.
A sad smile shaped Renn’s mouth; I felt its reflection in our bond. “I will. I will always come back to you, Nym Tallowax.”
Another trumpet sounded. Just one bleat, not four.
Still, I shrunk from it, the noise suddenly too loud.
I knew he had to go; his urgency knocked against the wall.
But he lingered a moment longer, clutching my hand so tightly in his that I still felt the imprint of his fingers even minutes after he departed.
I found no solace in the solitude of his wake.
The stone dropped into my chest, heavy and immovable. I sat on a patch of wild clover and stared at millennium-old rock, breathing in, breathing out. Breathing in, breathing out . . .
“Miss Tallowax.”
My name, spoken with that melodic accent, pulled me from my trance.
I looked up to see Princess Azra three paces from me, fully dressed, hair ironed to Canseren perfection, a hat with a long train pinned to her crown.
The shade blended with her freckles, and she held her hands together over her navel.
I scrambled for an apology for my state, but she spoke again before I could piece together the words.
“I’m aware you’re the king’s pet,” she said, and my stomach sank to the clover, “but the chosen one will not say no to me. He needs my men and my resources too direly.”
My tongue dried in my mouth. Had I been so obvious? Had she been watching me, or one of her men? “I-I’m not—”
“I’m not stupid, healer.” She sniffed. “Just as you are not as quick as you should be. I shouldn’t have to explain this to a servant, much less a crafter, but I will be clear: Stay out of my way, and I will stay out of yours. Do not make me repeat myself.”
She pulled a fan from her sleeve, unfurled it, and went on her way, back toward the keep. I watched every step she took, trying to retime my breathing, trying to bring myself back down to earth before the princess’s tidal wave could knock me over.
And yet I feared I was already drowning.
By the time I peeled myself out of the bailey and headed back into the keep, I spied the princess at the base of the west tower’s stairs, and an Antsan maid and Jonras coming down with my few meager things between them, including my pitcher and basin.