Chapter 26
Parisar
I was sitting at my desk, tearing my hair out over the impossibilities of what I was seeing in the reports. There were troop movements all over the kingdom, and they weren’t our troops. But the thing that was even more concerning was the fact that no one knew whose troops they were.
I heard Breust’s shout, and I knew. I didn’t know how I knew, but I knew.
I jumped from my seat and flew across the room and out the door. I don’t think my feet touched any of the steps as I careened off the verandah toward the sound of Breust’s voice. He was in the training room. Snow’s training room.
I ran faster, not letting myself consider the worst even though it lurked in the back of my mind like a wolf waiting to pounce. I kept it at bay, focussing only on getting to Snow. Focussed only on saving her.
I burst through the door of the training room and didn’t even stop to survey the scene. It was foolish on my part, but all I cared about was getting to the woman lying prone on the floor. She was so still. Her skin—which had taken on some rosy colour since living among us—was paler than I’d ever seen it. And her lips…her lips were red. Blood red.
Again, I knew. I knew exactly what I was looking at. She was dead, or as good as dead. There was nothing I could do to save her.
A sob rose in my throat and threatened to explode from my lips, but I forced it down even as I knelt beside her. Princess Snow. My princess. My Snow. The person I was supposed to be protecting. The person who frustrated and delighted me in equal measure, much to my annoyance. The woman who dominated my thoughts and heart and had done since we were children.
‘What—’
The other’s had arrived. They had heard Breust’s shout and come running too. By the way Tain cut herself off, I knew they saw what I’d seen. This wasn’t like the incident with the bodice or even like the attack from the comb. This was final. This was something I couldn’t save her from.
I gently lifted her head and shoulders, pulling her against me, cradling her in my arms even as I hoped, prayed, begged Irys to wake me from this nightmare. How many times had I dreamed about this? How many times had I woken sweat-soaked and heart-pounding because something had happened to Snow, and I’d been powerless to stop it?
This had to be another dream. It had to be another nightmare, and I would wake up. I would wake up and creep into her room to watch her sleep and check her breathing and reassure myself that she was alive.
Except I knew. I knew this wasn’t a dream. I could feel the weight of her in my arms and how cold she was to the touch. I could sense the others as they gathered around, each of them silent. They knew. They knew this wasn’t a dream.
‘What’s this?’ Weylei asked softly.
I lifted my eyes reluctantly from Snow’s face to his outstretched hand. A red apple sat in his palm. A red apple with two bites out of it.
I flashed back to watching the king choke and fall after having eaten something, the puzzle pieces slotting together seamlessly. Whatever had put the king to sleep had done the same to Snow, but it looked like it had gone further, done more damage. Snow wasn’t breathing. Her heart wasn’t beating. Snow wasn’t just asleep.
‘Where did that come from?’ Breust asked, his voice hard and rough.
He had taken a liking to Snow, as I knew he would. They all had, in their own way. I knew they wouldn’t have come out and shown their affection for her openly, but I saw the way they interacted with her, and Breust had been the one who was closest to her. He’d looked out for her when I couldn’t. He’d befriended her and taught her how to defend herself.
‘I found it over there,’ Weylei replied, pointing to a stack of hessian bags.
Cor crossed to the bags and tossed them over, bending to pick something up.
‘I think the princess was planning on running away,’ she said, holding the pack out for us all to see.
I wasn’t surprised. I’d expected her to try something a long time before this.
‘But that doesn’t explain where the apple came from,’ Weylei said. ‘There are none in the kitchen store. It is not fruiting season, so the trees in the woods are bare—’ He hissed and startled as the apple in his hand crumpled to dust in his hand.
‘Magic,’ Sim whispered. ‘Powerful magic.’
‘Are we sure the queen didn’t do this?’ Breust asked, his voice and face hard. ‘She is the only one we know with magic. She is the only one capable of doing something like this. Every time the princess has been attacked, magic has been used. How can we be sure the rumours about the queen aren’t true?’
I wanted to defend the queen. I knew she would never do this to Snow, but what Breust said had validity. The queen was the only one I knew who had any magic. That wasn’t to say there weren’t others. I knew magic hadn’t been eradicated completely, otherwise the queen wouldn’t be alive, nor would Snow. Their line would have been wiped out completely if they hadn’t been able to hide. That only stood to reason that there were others who could have escaped the purging. We just didn’t know who they were.
I gathered Snow to me and stood, lifting her in my arms and keeping her close to my chest. She was a dead weight and didn’t move. Her body was limp and lifeless, and my heart cracked in my chest at the sight and feel of her.
I couldn’t bring her back.
I didn’t know how to save her.
No one could.
‘She can’t stay there,’ Tain said.
‘She can, and she will.’
‘Parisar,’ Tain replied with kindness tinged with exasperation. ‘She’s gone. There is nothing more you can do for her.’
I knew it was true, but there was a part of me that just couldn’t let go. Snow was dead, or at least as good as dead. The poison and magic had put her into stasis, just like it had done to her father. She was neither alive nor dead, but with no way to bring her back, she may as well have died.
‘What would you have me do?’ I asked, looking away from the preternaturally still princess to one of my warriors. ‘Bury her in a shallow grave in the woods?’
I knew that’s what they were all thinking. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t abandon her like that.
‘Well…no,’ Tain said, and I turned back to Snow. She was lying on her bed in the room she’d shared with Tain, Sim, and Cor. ‘But she can’t stay here. It’s…weird. None of us can sleep with her lying there like that. It’s like trying to sleep in a mausoleum.’
‘So what do you suggest?’ I asked, barely keeping my anger in check. ‘A bed in the woods? Put her in the storage room? In the meat locker?’
Tain didn’t take the bait. She folded her arms and glared at me. ‘Set up a bed in the training room,’ she said. ‘It was her place. The space she liked to be. Put her there until we find a way to break the spell.’
I blinked up at Tain. ‘You think there is a way to break the spell?’
She shrugged, her vest clanking with the various weapons she hung from it. ‘Isn’t that what you’re trying to do? Find a cure for the princess and the king? Find out where the magic is coming from?’
The last few days since Snow had been poisoned, I’d been scouring every book, scroll and letter I had trying to find out exactly that. Where was the magic coming from, and how could I break the spell over Snow and her father? I didn’t know that Tain, or any of the others, had realised it. We still had our mission, after all. We still had to find out who was planning to invade Eudaimonia and find a way to stop them before a full-scale war broke out. I’d assumed the others would just think I was working on that. The truth was, finding a cure for Snow had become my priority. I told myself it was because I had promised the queen I would protect her, and I couldn’t face letting the queen down, but that wasn’t the whole truth. Whether I wanted to admit it or not, I had feelings for Snow. Deep feelings that she didn’t reciprocate and wouldn’t appreciate. I knew the two of us could never be together, her present stasis notwithstanding. Once upon a time it might have been possible. In fact, I had hoped to declare my intentions for her at the birthday celebrations, but then this happened, and now I knew it would be impossible, even if we could somehow find the cure and wake her.
A shout went up outside, and I jumped to my feet. I’d been waiting on a messenger, hoping for some news that would tell me what I needed to know. Tain followed me from the room, her hands already going to her bow and nocking an arrow. We were all on high alert since the attack on Snow. We had no idea how the apple came into her possession, and it gave even more validity to the thought there was a traitor amongst us. Who the traitor was, I didn’t know.
I stepped out of the cabin and stopped. It was not the messenger I was expecting. The man sitting astride the horse and riding into the compound was the last person I ever expected to see.
‘Prince Elil,’ Tain hissed beside me with a sneer that I felt all the way to my bones.
‘Arrest them,’ Elil said from his place atop his horse.
‘What?’ I stepped forward, Tain at my back.
Elil looked down his nose at me. I had never liked the prince, but I liked him even less now.
‘You are under arrest.’
‘For what?’
He sneered at me. ‘We have reason to believe you have the princess.’
‘You have reason to believe? So without even checking, you’re just going to arrest us?’
My heart was pounding. How did he know Snow was here? Who told him?
Elil didn’t bother answering me. With a nod of his head, we were surrounded, blades pointed our way. Tain pulled the string of her bow, aiming her arrow at a soldier in front of her. I shook my head. I knew the members could fight their way out. We were ten times the fighters of the ones we faced, but I needed more information first. Killing Elil would be terribly satisfying, but I wouldn’t find out the truth. I wouldn’t find out who the traitor was.
‘Search the…place.’ Elil’s lip curled as he said the last word. I wanted to smack it from his face. Better yet, I wanted to thrust my fist into his face and bloody that sneering lip and break that proud nose.
More soldiers poured in from the woods. The odds were against us, but I still thought we could out fight them if it came to it. Instead, I relaxed my pose, cocked my hip and examined my fingernails. I was long overdue for a manicure. I could only imagine the state of my hair and beard. But it didn’t matter. I knew how to play the courtly Lord. I’d been doing it my whole life.
A shout went up, and I knew they’d found Snow. I didn’t let my expression change. I tried to look bored, as if them finding the princess wasn’t a big deal to me. It was, though, and my guts churned uneasily inside my stomach.