Chapter 30
Maddox
Ireturn to consciousness in a room that’s much too cold and bright, lying on a flat marble table with two men standing over me. One of them is seated, his face right beside mine, needle and thread in hand as he mends the deep gash carved into my cheek.
Tamarind? I think but don’t say. Because I can’t physically speak. My voice remains trapped in my throat. I try to move my hand toward him, but it stays rooted in place.
“The citadel healer was unavailable,” comes a familiar voice to my right.
Durian. King Durian, I mentally correct.
The recent memory of the tree siren and Durian’s choking vines comes flooding back so fast I nearly black out again.
He keeps speaking as though everything that transpired on that floating meadow was too mundane to mention.
“Tamarind was a healer before he was appointed the king’s head guard.
You’ll be in good hands with him—just as your king is. ”
If I could glare at him, I would. Why is he still playing this game when we both know what I know? Does he think I’ve forgotten? Or is he just that confident I won’t admit my mistake?
Gloved fingertips ghost against my jaw as Tamarind moves my head gently to the side.
I can hardly feel it. “I’ve dosed you with a tincture of mandragora and hemlock.
It’s meant to slow the bleeding and dull the pain, but you won’t be able to move or speak until I give you the antidote, okay? That’s perfectly normal.”
There’s a hollowness to his voice that is pronounced enough to distract me from my spinning mind. The memory of the tortured look he wore the last time I saw him resurfaces. Right after I’d yelled until he admitted his feelings for Castor. The prince whose curse kills anyone that loves him.
God, my exes were right. I am an evil bitch.
If I just sentenced Tamarind to death, then I’m no better than the dryads who stole my parents’ lives. I try to communicate my remorse through my eyes, but he returns to his stitching as Durian steps closer.
“Thought we lost you for a moment there.” The true king brushes the backs of his fingers across my scarlet-soaked blouse. “You look like a gloxinia flower.” From the corner of my eye, I note the bloodstains vanish with his touch.
Everything feels like it’s in slow motion. My mind reels, repeating, Durian is the king. Durian is the king. Durian is the king.
Castor is the cursed prince.
Durian is the one I’m meant to kill. The briefest rush of relief courses through me before it’s replaced with fury.
I had him alone in that meadow. I was holding a throwing axe that I buried in the skull of a tree siren when my true target was mere inches away. If I’d been cleverer, put the pieces together sooner, all it would have taken was a shift in stance.
“I’ve always thought it was fitting to compare mortals to flowers, you know.” Durian moves his hand to my hair, twisting it around his finger. “Flowers are delicate, their lives fleeting. It’s poetic, don’t you think?”
Tam stiffens beside me as he spreads a thick substance over my stitches and moves to address the cut along my arm in silence.
The door swings open suddenly to reveal a squat woodling with red eyes. “Your Majesty?” he directs at Durian.
“Not now, Agaricus.”
“Pardon, sir, but you directed me to inform you when the Myrtle Queen arrived.”
If I were able to move, I would jolt upright. But I just lie on the table as stars fill my head and spots of panic appear in my vision. The Myrtle Queen is here? Does she already know that I’m a useless human who can’t even manage to go after the right brother?
Stupid, stupid mortal girl, I’m sure she’s thinking.
And she’d be right. How could I have trusted so much?
Despite their elaborate hoax with dozens of people in on the act, there were signs that it was all a show.
If I’d peeked behind the curtain and gotten out of my murderous head long enough, I’d have seen that I wasn’t the only con man around.
“Where is she?” Durian asks Agaricus.
“She is waiting in the throne room, Your Majesty.”
Durian heaves a great sigh. “I’m afraid I must leave you here, Maddox.
Important princely duties to attend to.” He starts to leave but pauses at the door.
“Oh, Tamarind? Did the king happen to receive the bottle of wine that came for me this morning? Must have been delivered to my rooms by mistake.”
If I wasn’t already paralyzed, I would be now. Panic. White-hot panic shoots through me. No. That can’t be right. How could my poisoned wine be delivered to the citadel? I didn’t tell anyone to deliver it. I just left it on the counter by all the others.
With a note labeled, For the king.
“He did, Your—uh—Highness. It arrived just as I was summoned here.” Then he adds an almost inaudible “He needs it today.”
“Ah, excellent. There was a very sweet message tied to it that I’m sure will lift his spirits. He’s seemed rather stressed lately, don’t you think?”
“He has,” Tam agrees solemnly.
Durian heaves another sigh. “Yes, I’m sure he’s halfway through the bottle by now.”
No. What have I done?
Durian’s satisfied smile is the last thing I see as he slips out of the infirmary.
I want to scream at Tam, to tell him to leave my arm alone and give me the antidote now.
A violent tremor that the toxins won’t allow to move through me hums just beneath my skin.
For once I don’t give a fuck what my blood sugar is.
I don’t care about the pact or that the Myrtle Queen is here, learning of my failure any moment now.
All I care about is getting off this table and finding Castor before it’s too late.
For what feels like hours, Tam works quietly on my arm.
I try to make eye contact with him, but he’s focused, as if in a siren’s trance.
Tears leak from my eyes. It’s been so long.
And I know how much Castor loves Aronia wine.
I knew when I steeped the poison and dropped a pair of leaves into the bottle.
I knew when I wrote that note and signed it with a heart and my initial.
“Nearly finished,” Tam says without looking up.
“Been a while since I’ve healed a mortal, to be honest. During healing school, they require a year of shadowing a mortal doctor, in case something happens to them when they are in a tieg state.
I was assigned to a young man named Dr. Robert Parkey.
Brilliant mortal. Surprisingly humble. Evidently, that is not always the case in mortal health care. ”
It’s certainly not.
I hear scissors snip and see him reach for the same paste he smoothed along my stitches. Then, maddeningly, he takes a cloth, douses it in alcohol, and begins cleaning the blood from my arm and face.
If these were any other circumstances, I’d be more than interested to hear about his time learning from a mortal doctor.
Before I fucked around a bit too much in high school, I thought I would go into the medical field myself.
Being a diabetic sort of forces you to learn the lingo at least enough to understand what’s happening inside your body.
But, as it stands, I fear I’m drifting slowly into madness. The longer he talks, the longer Castor has to drink his poisoned wine. Two more tears fall.
Please, I think at Tamarind. Hurry.
But reading minds is not one of his powers.
“Healing mortals is not all that different from healing dryads or arborfae,” he continues.
“All organic material is related in one way or another. I was surprised to learn how similar we are biologically. Both dryads and humans have eukaryotic cells; both need to respirate, reproduce, metabolize. We both bleed red. Our DNA structure is even the same. The only true difference that stands out is dryad magic, but that’s likely due to the fact that the fae have existed far longer on Earth than humankind.
There are even legends that state mortals were created by fae. ”
Something in his words feels like he’s trying to convince me of something.
Like he knows I came here hating them. And maybe he did know.
Maybe he’s one of those souls who can read people’s energies.
But if that were the case, then he would know that my current energy is a sky of darkest gray shot through with furious lightning because I’m stuck in my worst nightmare: where I have zero control of my body or situation.
For an anxious person, this would be extremely uncomfortable.
For a controlling monster whose—friend? Lover?
Cursed fae prince?—is in mortal danger, though… this is the deepest pit in hell.
“There we are.” Tamarind tugs off his gloves with a sharp snap.
“Now for the antidote. It works rather quickly, but you’ll want to remain lying down for a few minutes to get the full feeling in your limbs.
And your wounds are nearly healed—the vervain salve works quickly—but I wouldn’t make any sudden movements for several hours. ”
After how terribly I treated him last night, I should feel guilty when I ignore every bit of his professional advice and sit bolt upright the moment the feeling returns to my body.
“Maddox!” Tam exclaims. “What are you—”
“Where’s Castor?” I interrupt the moment I can speak. The feeling in my legs is taking dreadfully long to return.
“I—he’s in his branch, but you really need to—”
“I’m so sorry,” I state quickly, sliding from the table and nearly collapsing when I find my feet still numb. “I have to go. I can’t explain. And I’m sorry for last night. I was a horrible bitch.”
He stares wide-eyed at me as I check my weapons belt for my diabetic supplies. Blessedly, they’re all accounted for. Apologizing a third time, I swipe Castor’s cloak off the chair in the corner and clumsily stumble my way out of the infirmary.