Page 5 of Healer to the Ash King
“But I have a splinter.” She holds up her thumb, showing a tiny red wound, festering around a sliver of wood deep under the skin. “When I heard you were coming, I wouldn’t let anyone else take it out. You can fix it, can’t you?”
“Of course.” A thread of gold light unspools from my fingertip, and I guide it through her pores, circling the splinter and gently nudging it to the surface. It pops free, and I flick it away, while my magic cools the inflammation and seals up the damaged cells. Within seconds, the child’s thumb is in perfect health.
“I love how your eyes turn gold when you do that,” she breathes. “Thank you!”
“Aine,” her mother says, in a strained voice. “Come here, child.”
“Go,” I whisper, and she scampers back to her place in line.
I’m conscious of a tall bulk to my left, and when I look up, the Ash King is standing there, watching me. In the lamplit gloom of the courtyard, his face should look softer, less severe than it did in the broad daylight of my village. Yet somehow, the shadows carve his features more harshly than ever. The edge of his jaw is a blade keen as Witherbrand. The hollows of his cheeks and the caverns of his eye sockets are deeper. His eyes seem to glow, lit with a dark red fire from within.
I bow my head quickly, fearing that if I look at the King too long, I’ll suffer another blow from the over-zealous guard who hit me before.
“You’ll dine with us at the head table,” says the Ash King.
Without lifting my head, I look up at him from under my lashes, just to be sure he’s talking to me. He is. He’s staring right at me.
“I will need time to change,” I murmur. “Something else to wear.”
“Perhaps that would be best,” says the Ash King. “Though this look is growing on me.” He nods to my skimpy attire.
He doesn’t smile, not even a twitch of his lip. He sweeps past me to greet the Lord Mayor’s family, while one of the Lord Mayor’s maidservants waves me aside and hustles me into the house, satchel and all. I’m hurried off to what I assume is a guest room, where two servants strip me down and scrub my legs, arms, and face as fast as they can, while another tackles my tangled hair. I feel like a doll they’re polishing and arranging—no will of my own, no say in which undergarments are dragged up my legs or cinched around my ribcage, no opinion on which gown is slammed over my head and buttoned in place.
More quickly than I’d have thought possible, I’ve been cleaned up and crushed into a gown that flares out from my waist in a swirl of sparkling blue. Blue leaves encrust the bodice, and more leaves climb over my shoulders and along my arms by way of sleeves. It doesn’t fit perfectly—it was clearly designed for someone with a smaller chest than me—but I’m not bulging out of ittooindecently, and with my hair braided and pinned, I look fancier than I ever have in my life. My tanned skin fairly glows against the pale blue of the dress.
“Delightful,” sigh the servants. “Now off to dinner! We must not keep His Majesty waiting!” And they push me out the door and along hallways until I stumble into a wide room with a ceiling higher than the peak of the Ceannaire’s two-story cottage. Two glistening chandeliers hang from the hall’s central beam, their chains looping along the ceiling and disappearing behind the damask curtains that shroud the walls. A long table clad in snowy cloths runs the length of the space. Another table, slightly smaller, is already occupied with the King’s guards and several other people. Everyone at both tables is standing beside their chairs, waiting for the King to enter.
A butler guides me to a seat near the middle of the larger table and directs me to wait until His Majesty is seated. I clutch the back of the ornate chair and swallow down the bile threatening to slide up my throat. I don’t dare soothe my nausea with any water right now, though I can see some in the goblets on the table.
Mere hours ago I was in the place I love best, with my knees half-sunk in soil, the bright sky overhead, water between my palms, and the blue volcanic peak of Analoir Doiteain within my sight. Now I’m alone, among strangers and distant acquaintances, trembling because I don’t know the rules of this place and these fine people. My visit with them last time was brief and hurried, because the city was in a state of emergency due to the plague. I’ve never dined in this room with them.
Lifting my eyes, I meet Teagan’s green ones, a few seats up the table. She gives me the smallest of smiles and a slight nod.
Something loosens inside me, just a little, and I can breathe easier.
The King’s herald steps in. “Announcing His Royal Majesty, the Ash King, Perish the son of Prillian, Ard Rí of Bolcan and High Vanquisher of her enemies.”
A laugh bubbles inside me at the fatuous titles the King has given himself. I manage to stifle it, but there’s a twitch at the corner of my mouth that I can’t stop, not even when the Ash King glances at me as he strides past several seats on the way to his own. When he sees me smiling, his pale brows pull together slightly, and for a second I fear he might incinerate me on the spot and find himself a new healer. But he moves on, taking his place with the stern grace that seems to be normal for him.
Once he is seated, we take our places and begin the meal.
4
The people dining at the Lord Mayor’s table are important in this city—merchants, landowners, artisans of superior skill—anyone the Lord Mayor wished to honor with an invitation. I’m relieved that I didn’t have to appear at dinner looking dirty and bedraggled. In fact, I feel downright gorgeous, and between that and my confidence in my magic, I’m able to quell my nerves and begin to enjoy myself a little.
I eat cautiously, watching everyone else and taking cues as to which silver I should use first and how I should partake of each course. The food is delicious; of course it is, because much of it is grown in the fields that I feed with my water. The crops will manage with the natural rainfall and Evan’s occasional attention, but without my care they won’t be as abundant. Does the Ash King know that? Does he care?
As I eat, I try to picture the Ash King enraged, angry enough to send floods of flame across an entire region. He looks so reserved, so cold. Only his voice gives any hint of the molten depths hiding within him.
All people are mountains, the Ceannaire said—or some such wisdom. If people are mountains, this man is a volcano. Lucky for me, I’m used to living near one.
Perhaps I’ve been looking at him too often. He catches my eye twice, and the third time he frowns. Panicking, I whip my gaze to my plate, and I’m careful not to look his way again.
That is, until the Lord Mayor says loudly, “Good gracious, my water goblet is empty.”
A servant hurries forward with a pitcher, but the Lord Mayor angrily waves him away.
“Oh my, how thirsty I am,” the Lord Mayor says again. Once more, the poor servant, looking distressed, edges forward with the pitcher, only to be rebuffed.
