Chapter 17 #3
The faintest press from the basalt wall. Reaching into myself, I cracked it open. Cool concern and the warmth of affection spread through my center like dandelion seeds. Renn. I mouthed his name, not daring to whisper it aloud. Did I wake you? I’m sorry. I’m fine, now. I’m fine.
I hugged myself, hugged that warmth, until it dissipated. Then I replaced the basalt, picked myself up, and softly climbed into Eden’s bed, pulling the blankets up to my chin.
Tal had departed by the time I served breakfast that morning.
Shortly after breakfast, I took Seln, one of our female healers, to one of two shallow culverts in the bailey that directed water from the natural stream through a junction in the wall.
It was a safe means of providing water for those in the fortress, and an easy way to fill barrels in case of future siege.
We carried the laundry of the craftlock troops.
I’d established a rotation for daily chores among the soldiers, and today was ours.
When we arrived at the washing spot, Piya and Phin—the soulbinder—were working there as well.
We filled a second basin and sorted out the uniforms from the undergarments and got to work.
It was nostalgic for me, scrubbing through a massive pile of clothing that wasn’t mine.
It reminded me of Fount, of my seven living siblings’ clothes heaped up for washing or mending, often both.
If I closed my eyes, I could almost hear Terrence working through his letters while Pren and Heath played and argued in turns.
I was scraping a pair of trousers down a washboard when I caught sight of Princess Azra on one of her daily walks, Jonras escorting her.
The nostalgia soured—at first, I thought, because of the arrival of the princess.
However, the melancholy notes deepened to such an extreme my breath caught in my throat.
I dropped the trousers into the basin and peeled away from the washboard, breathing hard against the sorrowful ache devouring me.
Not mine, his. Despite the basalt wall.
“Nym?” Seln shifted toward me.
I shut my eyes. Renn. So much grief, so much heartbreak.
Seln abandoned her laundry. Touched my shoulder. “Here, let me—”
Instinctively, I swatted her away like a bee. Stumbled to my feet. “I—no, no thank you. I need a moment.”
Seln and Piya both stood. The former said, “I can heal you—”
“Please don’t touch me,” I whispered. Were I not so drawn into the anguish flooding me, I would have felt guilty at her confused expression. I teetered back, trying to hold myself together—
“One of these things is not like the other.” Princess Azra continued to approach, and only then, between pained breaths, did I realize the others had bowed down their heads to her. Distracted, I quickly nodded and began to limp away, holding my chest.
“Miss Tallowax,” the princess pressed, and admittedly I did not hear the rest of her words. I needed to be somewhere else. Anywhere else. My knees threatened to buckle beneath me.
I didn’t get far, just around the next curve of the castle wall. Leaning into its shade, I dowsed into myself and peeled back the basalt wall around the gold-threaded merlon.
The pain waterfalled in. I fell to my knees, hugging myself, trying to hold the both of us together. Tears stung my eyes and burned my throat. Fear and worry pushed my head down, down, down, weighing down my neck brick by brick by brick.
Are you hurt? I winced, nose starting to run. Did you lose? How badly, Renn? What are the casualties . . . ?
The pain came in unrelenting waves, the next starting before the previous settled.
Regret and unhappiness, suffering. I tried to push back against it, tried to swim against the current even as it drowned me.
I’m here, I cried out, even as he knocked me down.
I’m here, Renn. I’m always here. I’m so sorry.
Please, help me help you. What should I do? What do you need?
I sank into the earth, sorrow like thick vines wrapping around my limbs, sucking the energy from them.
He was alive. He was safe. I felt no physical injury from him—if there was, the anguish overpowered it.
So I held myself, held him, and whispered, “I love you, I love you, I love you,” over and over again like a mantra.
His ache throbbed in my heart. His tears fell from my eyes. His shudders shook my shoulders.
“What are you doing?”
That sickly lilt followed me. I couldn’t even look up at her. I was drowning.
“I asked you a question,” the princess pressed.
Quieter, Jonras tried, “I think she—” And the princess must have made some gesture that cut him off.
I could not get away, and neither did I rebuild the basalt wall.
Praying Princess Azra would lose her interest, I stayed with Renn, endured with him, held him.
I allowed the pain to ravage me, to tear me apart even as I accepted it, until my knuckles grew white and stiff and my breathing ragged.
Until my bones ached and I pressed my forehead to trampled grass.
The passing of time became moot. The world outside, nothing.
By the time the sadness ebbed, the sun had drifted, taking away most of my shade.
I opened my eyes, realizing the only reason my exposed skin had not burned phoenix red was because Jonras had taken station near me, his body blocking the sun. The princess had left.
I wiped my eyes and nose, body creaking as I pushed myself into sitting. An orb of warmth, muted by the wall, formed in my core, and I knew Renn felt me, too, and that little piece of recognition, of togetherness, filled me with hope.
I tried to speak, but my throat squeezed around the words.
“Are you . . . hurt?” he asked.
Leaning against the wall, I got my feet under me, utterly famished. “Not physically,” I croaked. “But I think . . . I have a terrible feeling we lost Serravia. I think we lost very badly.”
I pushed off the wall and stumbled; Jonras grasped my elbow to steady me. Sorting myself, I stated, “I don’t think she’ll like you helping me.”
He frowned. “She told me to watch you.”
I shook my head. “I pose no threat to her.”
Softly, so much so that I could barely discern it, he said, “She will win, Nym. In the end, she gets what she wants.”
Ignoring the jab in my heart, I coolly replied, “I don’t need reassurances. Again, I pose no threat to her.”
He studied me for several seconds. “Even so, I’m happy to keep you company.”
I did not think he meant it in a friendly manner. I could only imagine what sort of rumors and filth Azra had relayed to him.
I did not reply, and Jonras did not solicit me further, but he did help me back to Eden’s room, where I rested until the bulk of the feelings passed, until I could rebuild the wall and make my apologies to Seln and the others, worry imprinting my every step.
More troops arrived at Derren Castle, crafters and nonmagic folk alike, including the same healers I’d once met with in Rove—Sarra, Fil, Denwick, and Brekk, who had personally healed me twice, once after the rat plague, and again after Whitestone’s assassin ran a knife through me.
Between assisting them with living arrangements and their assignments, I also spent days and nights healing fatigue and minor injuries among them, as well as a rash that broke out in one of the barracks and spread faster than madness among bees before a bad storm.
But the other healers and I stayed on top of it, and no one became too ill.
It was during the bustle of the lunch hour, a week after Renn’s anguish-ridden collapse, that another newcomer rode to the castle.
He wore the red and black uniform of a soldier, badly travel worn.
His horse frothed at the mouth and fell to its knees as he arrived.
He limped ahead, waving an arm to the castle guard to let him in, but before the drawbridge lowered, he shouted above the din, “The gods-touched king has led us to victory! Serravia has been sacked!”
And then he, too, succumbed to exhaustion.