Page 111 of Healer to the Ash King
“Do I still have to go away from you?” I whisper.
He lets out a broken laugh. “No, love.”
“Thank the gods.” I sigh, closing my eyes.
“I reacted in fear, Cailin. You can’t imagine what I felt when I woke, when I saw what you are. But you saved me, and once I had time to think, I realized that the magic you carry doesn’t matter. It is a risk and a danger, but so is mine. Your heart is the same, and I still want it, if you can forgive me for sending you away. Hate me if you must—I can bear that—but don’t leave me.”
“Never.” I look up at him again, just to assure myself that he’s really here, that I’m safe. “How did you find me?”
“The captain of the guard told me about three dead sentinels near the sluice gate in the outer wall. His best trackers followed them and then reported back to me at the palace. I was ready to ride the moment the trackers returned.”
“That’s almost exactly what Triniden said would happen.”
“We have been hunting the leader of the Cawn rebels for years. He was a cunning adversary who would have escaped, if not for you.” Perish’s tone darkens a little. “I must ask why, when I sent you away, did you go straight to the Undoing? If, as you say, you were not truly in league with them, how did you know where to meet them?”
“Khloe told me the route she was supposed to take to escape after the poisoning attempt,” I say. “She thought I was on her side at the time. But I wouldn’t have gone to the Undoing at all, except they kidnapped my parents—oh gods—myparents—”
I lunge from his lap so quickly my head spins and I nearly vomit. I suck in several quick breaths, blinking until my vision clears, and I crawl to the spot where my parents lie.
I collapse beside them, sobbing.
Their bodies are a mess—decapitated, rotted, and burned. They are thrice dead, and with my energies so low from healing myself, there is no way I can fix them.
“I didn’t know,” Perish says. His tone is tinged with sickened horror. “Cailin, I—”
“You couldn’t have known they were here. You didn’t kill them—Triniden did. And then I rotted them because I couldn’t control my magic.” I can barely whisper through my tight throat.
Perish draws me against him. “Don’t speak of your magic again, not here,” he whispers. “We will talk of it later. We’re fortunate no one else saw you use it. All anyone needs to know is that you were knocked unconscious at the palace and taken as a hostage by the Undoing. I came to your rescue, and together we defeated the rebels.”
It’s truth, mixed with a lie, and with my new understanding of politics, I can see how it will sway the people in our favor. After this, they will be even more eager to accept me as Queen, to embrace the monarchy, and to repudiate the deeds of the Undoing. Even the nobles will think twice before rejecting me, after hearing such a tale of courage and love.
I should be glad for it—and in a way, I am. When I’m with Perish, there is part of me that is always deeply, quietly joyful. But there’s a wound inside me, too—the space my parents occupied, torn open and bleeding.
“I can’t be your queen right away,” I murmur against his neck. “I need to mourn them.”
“Yes, for as long as you need. They will be given a memorial ceremony fit for Bolcan’s greatest heroes.”
“Oh no.” I grimace, shaking my head. “It’s so sweet of you, but they wouldn’t want that. I know exactly what they would want.” I reach up to kiss his cheek. “Please bring them with us and light their funeral pyre yourself once we’re back at the palace. Then we’ll collect the ashes. When the dust settles on all of this, we’re going to take them home.”
39
When someone dies, everyone expects you to perform your grief for them. They watch your reactions carefully, to see how your emotions fit into their personal construct of how loss and sorrow should look.
I perform the grief I know the people want to see. The soft sadness. The tears.
But my true grief runs deeper. It is wilder, angrier.
The memory of my vengeance is the only thing that helps. When I hurt so badly I can’t breathe, I remember how I killed the man who killed my parents, and my lungs loosen.
Heralds travel through the Capital and the entire kingdom, announcing the temporary suspension of the Calling of the Favored due to Khloe’s assassination attempt on the King. She is tried in the Justice Building and sentenced to life imprisonment. Harsh, but it isn’t death. Perhaps the twisted thinking of the anarchists can be unraveled from her mind, and she can be pardoned one day. Her baby will be born in the women’s prison of Cawn, in the section reserved for inmates with tiny children. In five years, Khloe will have a choice—to keep the child with her, or yield it for adoption.
I healed Rince on that terrible night, just enough for him to survive. I finished the healing the next day, once my magic was mostly restored. He is in the King’s prison too, but like Khloe, I hope to pardon him someday, when I believe he is truly sorry for the harm he caused.
No other anarchists survived that night. I know there are more rebels out there, recruiting more vulnerable, bright-eyed young people to join their cause. When I eventually obtain Perish’s consent, I plan to share the truth of the Ashlands with the entire kingdom. Maybe then the people of Bolcan will realize what a hero their king truly is, and what he has done for them. But that will have to wait until Perish is ready. And the first person with whom he will need to share the truth is his estranged aunt.
Two weeks after the attempt on his life, the Ash King hosts a gathering in the Réimse Ríoga, where hired actors perform the story of our love for a crowd larger than any the arena has ever seen. I sit beside him, watching it unfold, crying into his shoulder a few times.
It’s a sensationalized version, to be sure, with the elements and timing slightly altered. There is much no one will ever know—like the way his knuckles grazed my back in the banquet hall, or how he rutted me jealously against that cabinet in the pantry. But the King knows the power of a story, of a memory created and crystallized into the stone for a new foundation, a new future. I like to think of this foundation stone as petrified wood—alive and growing, then calcified into marbled beauty by the fire and darkness we endured.
