Page 71 of The King's Queen

With a deep bow, I smile sweetly. “Be grateful I’m showing you mine.”

Torin grunts approvingly and, with a deep scowl, extends his arm to me once again. He steers us away from the arena and the vying eyes of the nobles. They all wait, curious to see if I will go to him or not. Torin’s hand closes over my shaking arm.

“Don’t give them the satisfaction.”

I notice now where he is steering us. Blaine will have been taken to the knight’s infirmary rather than the royal health bay. There is a direct passage from the arena to the infirmary, but if I go to him now, the nobles will talk. Not only would it tarnish my reputation but Blaine’s as well.

Well, whatever is left of it.

The wicked bite of winter nips at any exposed skin as we walk even in the warmed halls. The light radiance of a torch brings small comfort whenever we pass one, but in its absence, the cold stings with greater urgency. My heart quickens, and my eyes begin to sting. Torin notices with a sideways glance and gently nudges my shoulder.

“He’s going to be okay.”

I force my cold and cracking lips into a small smile. Torin came long after the events of that night, and he was the one who found me is laying broken on a shoddy cot.

The passageway becomes cooler with every step we take towards the knight’s quarters. As if winter is mocking my plight, the darkness creeps in, beckoning and sinister. The low sounds of moaning echoes through the halls, pain and agony striking against the stones.

A healer stumbles from the open door at the end of the corridor, her face a sickly shade of green, and her legs faltering beneath her. She lifts her gaze to meet ours and attempts a bow, but her buckling legs refuse, and she stumbles towards the floor.

“Careful!” Torin reaches, his hands outstretched, but I am quicker. She crumbles as my arms lace around her middle, carrying the brunt of her weight and the impact. My knees sting as they slam into the cold stone, its rough edges biting into and tearing my skin. Blood drips down my legs, and I bite my lip to avoid remarking on the small hurt.

“Mai Reinhavich, please don’t concern yourself with the likes of me.” The healer attempts to brush out of my hold, but I grip her tighter. She’s so light, too light.

Sweat beads along her hairline, causing her dark curls to stick flat against her face. Her lips are pale, and I can easily wrap one of my small hands around her entire forearm.

“None of this.” I hand her to Torin. “Make sure she finds her way to a physician, and put the cost of treatment on my tab, as well as the cost of any other healers who are unwell.”

Torin nods, and I spin to leave when a shaking hand grabs at my cloak. The healer’s arm quivers from the act of holding it out, but small determination lights her eyes.

“We did not heal him because we were told to. We healed him because he is one of us,” she speaks slowly, as if tasting the treason on each word. The blonde knight holding her blinks slowly as his eyes begin to mist over, and he dips his chin in respect.

Healers are nothing but workhorses in the eyes of the king, and to all others, it would appear to be the same towards his heir at well, but at this moment, an understanding passes between us. A knowing. The knowledge that should I ask at any moment, they would turn on their king because they know who was there when it mattered. That I am one of them.

“And you are one of mine.” I breathe, then turn back to Torin. “Call in an outside physician if you must, but no word of this gets to the king.”

The knight nods, not even a moment of conflict showing on his handsome face as he stalks back down the darkened corridor. With them gone, I turn now to face the open door and walk towards the horror that surely awaits me.

Chapter28

Verosa

Blood splatters across the walls as dozens of injured soldiers are piled into one cramped room. A healer screams as he touches a man whose blood has been poisoned by a cursed blade. He lets his eyes drift back and flutter closed. The healer, a boy no older than I am, falls to the ground. He does not rise.

Tanja grips my hand tighter, steering me away from the boy.

“No one is attending to him,” I protest, looking over my shoulder to where his body still lays. “I can help.”

“Ver, no!” Tanja hisses. “Just keep your head down and try to ignore it. You can’t help him.”

But I can, and I should, but I let her pull me away with a prayer. By the time I look over my shoulder again, the boy is gone, replaced by another heap of bleeding soldiers.

The room is as much of a battlefield as the mountains they fought in beyond the palace walls. Men are screaming, healers are fighting for their lives to keep them at bay, and all I can do is watch from my own secluded viewpoint.

A weary physician bumps into my shoulder hard enough to send me reeling towards the floor. The stone cuts my hand, and a thin line of golden blood trickles out from my palm. Dripping onto my wrist. When I look up, my eyes meet another one of the wounded’s. His eyes are nothing more than hollow sockets, and his arm is halfway off from his shoulder. A frenzied healer is trying to tie it in a sling with one hand, her other arm hanging loosely by her side, bent at a horrible angle. The scent of blood fills my nose, and I struggle to keep down my bile, but nonetheless, I begin to crawl towards him.

I lift my cupped and bleeding palm to his lips right as Tanja finds me again. Her shriek is drowned out by the moans of the injured and dying, and I can only feel her as she tackles me back to the ground from behind. She tears her skirts frantically and uses the fabric to bind my wound and clean the rest.

“Vera, you can’t, they’ll swarm you!” Her voice is low and shaking, and her eyes glistening with unshed tears.

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