Page 61 of Fae Crown

This next time I woke, it wasn’t in response to the healer’s ministrations but my own natural alertness. SayingI hurt absolutely every-freaking-wherewas only the very slightest of exaggerations. Had I not known otherwise, I would have guessed that a house-sized boulder had crushed me—before the Dragon Mother herself had charred me to a crisp and then every single umbrac in the Sorumbra had sunken its suckers into my body before yanking out their barbed points; —and thenthe queen had sicced her army of deranged pygmy ogres on me with orders to beat me to a bloody pulp.

Gingerly, I attempted to pry apart my eyelids—and this time it worked. My eyelids were tender and puffy, allowing only a squinting view of my surroundings. But it was no doubt a sign of marked improvement. My body was evidently healing. If for no other reason, I knew it because I was finally able to inhale and exhale properly. My breath no longer stuttered in my chest, and if that hadn’t told me I was on the mend, the fact that I could be in my body without being so overcomeby agony that I could focus on nothing else would have cemented the conclusion.

I wasn’t irreparably broken. And I certainly wasn’t shattered.

I just wasn’t yet whole.

With my head resting atop a pillow, gazing up at the ceiling, I couldn’t determine much. The ceiling was made of the same rough wooden boards as the walls, though these didn’t allow in light—or rain. A natural, diffuse sunlight filled the room, bright enough to tell me there had to be windows somewhere.

Carefully, and extremely slowly, I tilted my head to the right: more of those crates, these covered with petite vials, bottles, and jars, ointments, salves, and poultices, strips of bandages, copper pots, and a pestle and mortar—the arsenal of a healer.

Mindful of the strong tugging at a wound on the right side of my neck, I slowly turned my head in that direction.

My breath hitched in my chest, albeit for an entirely different reason. A simple, unadorned bed stood beneath a high window. And in that bed lay a woman, eyes closed, face relaxed, as if she were sleeping … or perhaps gone from this realm already.

Blankets tucked around her legs and arms, highlighting how frail her body was, the covers rose and fell along with her steady, slow breaths.

She was alive, though not by much.

Her hair twined in a long braid along the pillow, across the blankets, and down to her hips. The strandswere a nearly translucent white that was leached of all color, making it impossible to deduce its original hue.

Her face was gaunt, unnaturally pale. Even ten feet from her bedside and through swollen lids, I could follow a trail of veins as they trawled behind her too-thin skin. Her cheekbones cast dense shadows over her face. Her eye sockets were dark and deep, too easily conjuring the skull beneath that sculpted the flesh.

Amid all that dullness, a shiny, dainty diadem rested atop her crown, standing out like the sun parting the clouds. It was the only sign she’d ever been anything more than this husk.

That she’d been someone’s daughter. Sister. Lover.

That she’d beenmy mother.

Was, I corrected myself. She was close enough that if she were to open her eyes, I’d learn what color they were.

“You’re awake,” said a rasp that was part disapproval, part observation, and part sandpaper grating against rough stone.

Slowly, I dragged my head across my pillow to look ahead. Even so, I winced with a quiet hiss as a stinging jolt raced across my neck and much of my scalp, and made my jaw pulse like it was about to come unhinged.

“That’s why yer not supposed to be awake yet.”

The owner of that gritty voice was a squat goblin as solid as a tree stump. Seeing him made me realize how uncomfortably thin Pru was. Not just her either. I hadn’t seen a single goblin at the palace who appeared as physically strong as this one.

He lumbered over to the nearby crates, grabbed something, and then climbed up to sit on a stool beside me. When he tipped a small clear bottle halfway filled with an equally transparent liquid against my lips, I shook my head.

That action alone activated a series of pains from so many locations in my upper body I didn’t bother cataloging them.

The goblin arched a hairless, skeptical brow. “Are ye sure?” His tone alone indicated thathewas sure I should be taking him up on his offer.

Even so, and even though I was incredibly tempted, I pursed my lips, unwilling to risk another shake of the head.

“Alright, then,” he said, as one did to someone determined to jump into a pit of writhing snakes for no good reason. “If ye change yer mind, just lemme know.”

The more I lay with my countless aches, the more I believed I’d be taking him up on his offer very soon. I risked a one-inch nod, and paid the price for even that with a stabbing yank along my nape.

After that, I wanted very much to ensure he understood I was sayingNo, but only for now, and croaked out, “Later.”

I spoke as I imagined the ventriloquist did in one of my favored childhood storybooks:The Timid Centaur and His Dapper, Well-Dressed Friend. The only one of his kind, a centaur lived among humans. Shy about how different he looked from everyone else, he spoke solely through his only friend, a dummy named Mauricio.

Based on how easily the goblin appeared to understand me, I fancied myself a successfulMauricio.

“If ye can speak,” said the goblin, “then I recommend ye do that ‘stead of moving any bigger part of ye.”

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