Chapter 19 #2
Renn’s anger seared my insides. My heart pulsed too rapidly, reminding me that I hadn’t yet nourished it with magic today. I stepped around the pot. “Re—Your Majesty, perhaps here is not—”
Jonras, nearby, started forward, ready to help but unsure of protocol.
Princess Azra’s hands formed fists. “Do not patronize me. I am your betrothed.”
“Not yet you aren’t,” Renn countered darkly, “and you forget you have eligible sisters.”
The absolute vehemence in his voice, let alone the words, floored me. My shock and his enmity clashed and brewed through the link, building a deep, visceral ache in my chest.
The princess turned porcelain, lips parted and breath still.
Others had noticed. Others were listening.
Eden’s voice rang in my ears. You might try to be subtle, but he is not.
“She means more to me than the gods themselves,” he hissed. “That makes your words blasphemy.”
“Renn,” I pressed. I wavered and grabbed the lip of the cauldron.
Tears welled in the princess’s eyes, making her look especially young. She whipped around and darted for the keep, pushing Jonras out of her way. Lingering bystanders quickly averted their eyes and continued on their way.
My left arm began to tingle. Renn’s sickness . . . but he appeared so hale. And I couldn’t feel his symptoms through the link. I couldn’t bring myself to be embarrassed by the exchange. I felt . . . ill. The vision of him wavered.
“Renn,” I whispered.
He finally turned toward me, and the anger in his countenance receded instantly. He rushed to me, gripping my upper arm.
I dowsed into myself. The magicked blocks of my heart’s merlon flickered. Shrunken, like ice in the sun. Had I missed refueling them? Yesterday, too? I’d been so busy with Brien, the infirmary . . .
How very stupid of me.
I started to pull magic in to feed them, but using craftlock fatigued me, and I was already so tired—
Renn called my name from far away. An ocean away.
I fell, and I fell, and I fell, swallowed in darkness. Sounds of people—calling over, worrying, moving, grew weaker even as Renn shouted for a healer.
A weak pulse of a half-formed heart. A second, a third. In between each pulse, a glimmer of consciousness, a stick of pain in my chest. A quick realization of coldness before it flickered out.
“Nym.”
Then nothing. Not even darkness. Nothing to see, nothing to feel.
“Nym, how do we help you?”
Ursa?
But Ursa was dead.
“Nym, tell me what you need.”
My heart, I tried to say, but I had no mouth. I need magic.
The next beat hurt. Someone was shouting. Renn?
“Hold on. She’s coming.”
The pain withdrew. The nothing shifted into darkness, into distant sounds. Into the sensation of grass beneath me, the wisps of setting sun on my skin. A strong heartbeat in my chest.
I opened my eyes to the bailey. Renn leaned over me, clutching my hand. He shrunk back in relief. Beside him knelt Seln, her eyes unfocused, dowsing on me. Seeing my lumis.
I jerked upright, pulling from her grasp. “D-Don’t—” I started.
But then someone behind me said, “Sorry, Nym. She had to. I told her how to.”
Twisting, I looked behind me to a familiar face. My father’s brown eyes. Dark-blond hair. A face that had shed its youth since the last time I saw him.
Tears pooled in my eyes. It couldn’t be. “Dan?”
“Broke my promise,” he confessed with an easy, relieved smile.
It took me a beat to understand what he meant. His promise. Not to tell a soul he was a mindreader . . .
He’d arrived for the conscription. He’d been here. He’d read my mind.
He knew exactly what I’d done to save Renn.
And now it seemed Seln did, too.
In the infirmary, away from prying eyes, I took a moment to absorb the situation. Renn, Dan, and Seln had followed me, along with Sten, who had been nearby. Seln reached for me, but I put my hands up, walling her off. “I’m fine now. I can do the rest myself.”
Turning away, I did. Seln had strengthened the faulty pieces of my heart, and I fed them a little more, enough to make me feel more myself again, though I could not keep the apprehension from pulsing through my veins.
Two people, fallible people, knew the secret I had given my heart and body to protect. The weight of failure pressed into me on all sides, and it took great fortitude not to let it crush me right there in the infirmary.
When I came back to myself, Seln said, “You don’t need to be ashamed of it, Nym.
Your lumis is a bit strange. I thought you were far worse off at first, because of the color.
And I’ve never seen one so eccentric, either, but that’s kind of special, isn’t it?
” She set an assuring hand on my forearm.
“Mine’s just a painting. Feels like every other person here has a lumis like a painting. ”
I swallowed, nodded. Eccentric. Of course she couldn’t possibly piece together what the gold threading meant.
“You’re on another level, really,” she went on, by way of comforting. “Pure magic for your heart—that’s what the mindreader claimed, I mean. That level of craft is beyond me. How did you hurt it so?”
I swallowed. “Accident as an adolescent.” I ignored the way Dan’s eyes narrowed at me.
Renn’s concern made our link heavy in my chest. Resting my hands on Seln’s shoulders, I said, “Thank you so much for your help. But I am . . . self-conscious . . . about it. Would you promise me not to mention it to anyone else?”
She was about to consent, but for good measure, Renn cut in: “Swear it.”
Seln startled and turned toward her king. Bowed. “Of course, Your Majesty. I’ll keep it to myself.” She passed a curious glance toward me.
Renn nodded. “You may go.”
Silence followed Seln’s footsteps until she cleared not only the infirmary, but the hall outside. Shutting the door, Renn said, “I would prefer this information does not leave this room.”
“I’m aware my sister is eccentric,” Dan offered. Then, as an afterthought, “Your Majesty.”
Sten knew that Renn and I had a supernatural connection, but I didn’t think he understood the finer details of it. He simply nodded.
Renn’s concern darkened. I glanced over to see his eyes narrow on me, but before I could address it, Dan approached, and my attention turned fully toward him.
I embraced him, first. Stepped back and looked him over. He wore his usual clothing, peasant’s clothes, and they were travel-stained. “When did you get in?”
“Literally a quarter hour before you passed out in the bailey.” He grinned. “Good timing, eh?”
I touched his face. “You’ve grown.”
“Been eating better.” He turned toward Renn. “Thank you, for the packages. They helped.”
Renn nodded, his countenance like a wolf’s. It made me think of his brother.
“Packages?” I asked.
Dan offered only a crooked half smile in response. Had Renn been even more generous to my family, and during such a hard time? Surely before I’d returned from Sesta—I couldn’t fathom where he’d find the time and a willing messenger after. “And Art brings in a lot.”
“Art Millstone?”
Dan snapped his fingers. “Yeah. We . . . we didn’t have anywhere to write, Nym. But Lissel married him this past spring.”
The news hit me as though I’d opened the door to a hot oven.
“M-Married? She got married?” My stomach sank at the thought that I hadn’t been there.
I hadn’t given her a blessing nor my counsel.
I hadn’t weaved a crown of flowers for her hair or helped sew a wedding gown. I blinked rapidly to keep my eyes dry.
A few thorns of guilt prodded through the link.
Dan nodded. “She likes him, you know? He’s a good man, Nym. Real good. Stepped up a lot after you left. And his family is kind. He lives with us, or he will until he’s drafted. Says he’ll build his own place, but we didn’t know when you were coming home . . . if you were coming home . . .”
He cleared his throat.
I hugged him again. “It’s all right. I’m happy for her. I am. I’ll visit as soon as I can.” I released him. “But your work—”
“I’ll take it up again when I’m back.”
I searched his face. “You came here alone?”
“I met up with a few healers in Grot and traveled with them.” He shrugged. “I’m here, ready to serve. Ready to be somewhere else, you know?”
I wanted to snap that war wasn’t a vacation, but who was I to tell Dan to go home when we needed crafters so desperately? How could we ever stand against Sesta if we didn’t have magic on our side?
I perked up. “Dan, Brien is here.”
He jolted. Hesitated. “What?”
“Brien. Brien is here.” I grabbed his hand. Glanced toward Renn and Sten. “If it’s all right—”
“Go.” Renn waved his hand, though that wolfishness still haunted his countenance, and dark concern rippled from him. “We’ll talk later.”
I nodded my thanks and pulled Dan from the infirmary. “He was in another line to get food—”
Our hands linked, Dan was able to speak directly into my mind. “I didn’t go too deep, Nym. You were thinking about your heart when you fell; it was right there at the top. Didn’t have to flip very far.”
My steps slowed. “Flip very far?”
“People . . . I see them in weird ways. Maybe like a lumis? Most of them are like books. And I have to turn pages to find the information I’m looking for. The deeper the thought, the longer it takes. But yours was right under the cover. I didn’t see anything . . . embarrassing.”
I pressed my lips together as we entered the bailey. But you saw why.
He heard me. “I saw enough to hazard a guess. But even without the king swearing me, I wouldn’t share it. It’s not mine to share.”
He tilted his head like he was listening. “I don’t hear Ursa. I was hoping . . . maybe I’d hear her.”