Page 103 of Healer to the Ash King
But I don’t stop. I wield the water savagely, screaming as I whip her with it, over and over. She backs away, cowering, trying to shield her face.
It takes the guards a moment to enter the room. Perhaps they aren’t sure if my screams are of the sexual kind. But within seconds they’re rushing in. Two of them seize Khloe and me while others rush to the King’s side.
Owin is among them. He takes off his helmet and approaches me, eyes narrowed. “What happened?”
“The Healer has poisoned the Ash King,” Khloe says, her large brown eyes liquid with feigned sorrow. “She killed him. She is a spy for the rebels, and she—she killed the man I love.” She breaks into sobs that sound so heartbreakingly real they almost fool me.
“It’s not true,” I say quietly. “He was poisoned, yes, but Khloe gave me the toxin. She claimed it was a harmless lip stain to enhance lovemaking. You’ll find that he isn’t dead, as she believes. I saved his life. You’ll also find that she has sheaths strapped to her thighs, where she was concealing weapons she certainly wouldn’t need for a night of passion with His Majesty.”
“Is the King breathing?” barks the guard who’s restraining me.
Another guard, kneeling at the King’s side, looks up and nods.
“But that’s not possible,” Khloe gasps. “You couldn’t have saved him. Healers can’t eradicate poison, certainly not one as potent as this. We designed it to—”
She clamps her mouth shut, but she has said enough. The guard holding me lets go. “You heard her confession, men,” he says. “Take the Favored woman to the dungeon. His Majesty will deal with her when he wakes.” He turns to me. “Thank you, Healer. You saved the kingdom tonight.”
Owin snatches a blanket from the bed and approaches me. “Put this around yourself,” he whispers.
I forgot that I’m naked. “Thank you.” I pull the blanket around my body.
As the guards drag Khloe from the room, she spits at me. “Traitor. Liar.” Then she grins. “We were prepared for this, you know. Say hello to your parents for me. I expect you’ll see them soon. Whether they’re dead or alive is up to you.”
Her laughter echoes along the corridor, fading into silence.
Khloe’s words send a spike of nauseating dread into my gut. I run to the closet and pull on the first clothes I find. It’s difficult to get away—the King’s guards keep pelting me with questions—but at last I escape the room, on the pretext of going to consult with Jonald the healer about the potential aftereffects of the poison on the King’s body.
Except instead of going to Jonald, I leave the palace through the wing where the Favored reside, and I make my way to one of the gates of the inner wall surrounding the palace. When I tell the guards I want to walk in the outer gardens, they exchange quizzical looks, but they don’t protest. I am the Healer of the Favored after all, and I wear a palace ring, a sign of the King’s goodwill.
Unfamiliar as I am with the layout of the grounds, it takes me nearly an hour to locate the sluice gate in the northeast corner of the back gardens. I follow a damp depression in the ground to a stone-lined drainage trench, and then I tromp through heavy foliage, breaking twigs off bushes in my haste. The drainage trench empties into a wider stream that exits the palace grounds via a dark tunnel.
I brush aside branches, spitting out a leaf that somehow got into my mouth. Bushes rake at my arms as I forge a path to the tunnel. Finally I give up trying to stay dry and I slosh through the shallow water, down the dark arched passage, until I reach the sluice gate. The tunnel continues beyond it, cutting through the thick outer walls of the fortress.
“Khloe?” A sharp whisper from the other side of the gate. The whisper chills me as thoroughly as the night breeze gusting through the tunnel.
It’s too dark for me to see who the person is. I have a little healing magic left, so I release a thin ribbon of golden light. As it snakes through the bars, its glow illuminates Rince’s face.
“Cailin.” Surprise colors his tone. “Where is Khloe?”
Hurt and betrayal tighten my chest. “Did you know she planned to kill me as well as the King?”
“I knew there was a chance you wouldn’t make it, Cailin, but I hoped you would. I wanted Khloe to tell you about the poison so you could protect yourself, but if you’d known what it was, you wouldn’t have used it on him, because of your vow. Am I wrong?”
I clench my teeth.
“It had to be this way.” Rince’s velvety tones flow through the bars, thicker and richer than the gurgling water. “You understand, don’t you? For the cause, Cailin, for the kingdom. You must tell me—did we succeed? Is the tyrant dead?”
“You killed people to get into this tunnel,” I say. “The guards. You murdered them.”
“Cailin. Is he dead?”
“No.”
A frustrated sigh bursts from him. “Gods! And Khloe?”
“She’s been taken to the dungeon.”
“Then she is lost to us. But you—your cover is preserved? The Ash King doesn’t suspect you?”
