Page 61 of A Game of Veils

Through some combination of inner fortitude, feverish delusion, and sheer force of will, I scoot along the side of the bed and across the rug to reach my trunks. My tea box sits right at the top of the one containing everything that’s not clothes. I pause to recover my strength and lift it out.

The wooden container isn’t only a tea box. With trembling fingers, I pry free the upper layer that holds the tins of various dried leaves and flowers and set it aside.

The larger compartment beneath that offers more of a mishmash: a couple dozen small linen bags of herbs, nearly as many vials of ingredients best preserved in liquid or gel form, a few jars holding premixed concoctions I thought it might be useful to have ready, no longer including the salve I gave Prince Raul.

As I stare down at them, my gift surges to the forefront of my mind. The components I need swim up before my eyes.

Fuck. That’s quite the combination.

Whatever’s gotten into me, it’s serious. The ingredients tell me it’s going to take a real kick to propel this illness out of my body.

I pluck out a few of the bags, a vial, and a pot of a thick gel that’ll emulsify the mixture together. But two of the items whirling through my aching head aren’t in the array before me. They’re ingredients I assumed would be on hand at my destination, without considering that I might end up in a position where both leaving my room and asking for help were precarious propositions.

There’ll be plenty of garlic in the kitchen. And the palace cooks gather most other herbs fresh each day—I’ve seen thyme growing in the herb garden.

I just have to get to it.

My gaze slides to the mortar, pestle, and tiny oil stove among my brewing equipment. With all the throbbing and searing that’s taken over my body, I’d like nothing more than to sit and do what work I can right here.

But the longer I wait, the more the infection will take hold. I don’t know if I can count on being able to move around the palace even in ten minutes’ time.

Gods help me, I don’t know if I can count on it now.

I have a couple of aids that should dim the worst of the agony for a short while. Rummaging through the box, I fish out a sliver of ruddy root that I hastily chew. An astringent taste fills my mouth. Within seconds of swallowing, my nausea starts to ease.

I grasp a chunk of papery bark and suck it against my cheek. Its flavor is more bitter, but it should gradually ease at least some of the pain radiating through my body.

These are only temporary solutions, though. I have to take advantage of them quickly.

I set my feet flat on the floor and gradually unfurl myself upright. Heat continues sizzling beneath my skin and my headache pounds, but after a few breaths, my legs stop wobbling.

The chill of resolve I felt before thickens, spreading through my limbs. It doesn’t remove the discomfort, but it sets me apart as if my mind is sealed off in that serene chamber within.

Elox is watching over me. He’s lending me the strength I asked for.

He doesn’t want me faltering from my purpose either. The peace I’m hoping to bring my people honors him more than it does any other godlen.

I take a few tentative steps forward. It’s easiest when I hold my head high and my posture stiffly erect, as if my body is a machine I’m directing with a whirring of clockwork rather than my own physical essence.

I’ll have to navigate two hallways, a staircase, another hallway, and then I’ll come to the kitchen. I think there’s a door straight from that room into the garden I need. Not far at all, on the measure of it.

Ha.

As I propel myself forward, I sink my teeth into the bark in my mouth, gnawing more bitterness out of it. The throbbing in my skull fades a little more.

One foot after the other. I cling tightly to the threads of calm I’ve found.

The hallway outside my chambers seems quiet. I suspect my fellow competitors will have taken right to their beds, as I probably should have rather than roaming the woods. If the rest of the court is indulging in some frivolity, it’s far enough away that I only catch one bellowing laugh diminished by the distance.

It’d be nice if my luck held. But I reach the end of the first hall just as the three princes who’ve plagued me come striding around the bend.

“…get complacent,” Prince Bastien is saying to his companions in a flat but insistent tone. At the sight of me, his voice dies and his feet jar to a halt. Lorenzo and Raul stall in their tracks where they’re flanking Bastien.

The slender prince flicks his gaze over my body. A harsh edge creeps into his voice. “Well, look at this. The princess of Accasy appears to be perfectly alert and off on late-night adventures.”

It seems my efforts at looking as if I’m perfectly fine and not about to keel over are working.

I don’t have the time or energy to wonder why Bastien sounds annoyed by the fact that I’m wandering the halls.

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