Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 59565 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 298(@200wpm)___ 238(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59565 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 298(@200wpm)___ 238(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
I’m shaking now, the ripples are coming from me and slapping him. “It wasn’t an opportunity. Wasn’t for a good story.”
He’s still waiting, and I kick the water irritably. “It just happened. I couldn’t help it. Something overcame me.”
His lips twist as if he was studying me and coming to a briefly satisfying conclusion, and I swallow and shake my head. “It was just a kiss. Nothing more. A terrible thing to do when I promised your brother . . .”
Quin shuts his eyes.
I continue, “We must part ways. But I approached it wrongly. I should have acknowledged the journey we’ve shared together. I should thank you for supporting, encouraging, and protecting me at each step.” I lift my gaze and meet a quietly watchful one. “Can we leave everything between us as memories?”
It takes him a few steadying breaths before he answers, “As a man, I don’t want to. As a king, I know I should. As a brother, I will.”
My eyes burn; I slap them and haul in a stinging lungful of air that still resonates with Quin’s magic. I want to leap up and take my leave so I can find somewhere quiet to . . . grieve. I tighten my resolve and smile.
It wobbles. “What will you do next?”
“I’ll follow my cousin to the mountains, collect her witnesses before winter sets in, and bring them back to the royal city to attest to my uncle’s guilt.”
“What if it doesn’t work?”
“It must. Nicostratus will help me.”
Brothers working side by side. They have better chances this way. “If fate should ever have us meet again . . . should I avoid you? Pretend I don’t know you?”
Quin is quiet, and I understand.
He says, “What about you? What will you do next? The Medicus Contest—” He cuts off, recalling he’d lost my soldad.
Even if I had it . . . In the end it’s a wooden badge with a few carvings on it. Completing the soldad was never the true goal. Carrying it stood for something more. Healing. Helping. Saving lives. Advancing medicine. Education. Equality. Responsibility.
All things that exist beyond vitalian magics.
How prejudiced I’ve been. How privileged—even as a par-linea. My soldad isn’t something to be checked off to feel satisfied. I don’t believe Quin ever meant that when he gave it to me. There’s always been another layer to it. Peel back the façade, and see the truth shimmering. The soldad was an expectation. No, not an expectation, a belief. In me.
I meet Quin’s steady gaze, purpose thickening through my bones. “I’ll go to Iskaldir, learn healing through crude—learn healing through their methods.”
He inclines his head, as if he expected as much, and then he tests me. “Travelling south is dangerous. You’ll have no powerful backer.”
“I have family there. Maybe fate has been trying to send me this way all along.”
“You must be the master of your own fate.”
I swallow and nod tightly. “I want something from you.”
“Name it.”
“I might be gone a while. Would you have someone check on my family sometimes?”
“Whether I manage to overthrow my uncle or not, I’ll make sure they—and your friends—are cared for.”
I touch my clasp to take it off and hesitate. Quin has stiffened. I drop my fingers. “I don’t want to give this back. Even if I should.”
“Why should you? It’s a gift.”
“It’s a token.”
His gaze clashes with mine and it’s hard for me to brace against the emotions flickering through him. He balls his fists underwater and presses himself more firmly into the corner of the bath.
It’s time now.
With trembling hands, I pull my feet from the water, the warmth lingering even as I clutch my boots to my chest. My heart pounds with each step I take toward the door and my last words are whispered. “I wish you success as a king. And happiness as a man.”
I pack what’s left at the inn and head into the woods. Before I pick up my things from the constabulary, I take refuge in Grandfather’s cabin.
I spend the time reading every book there that references southern healing. I commit it to memory.
Two days later, I leave it all behind.
The forest is cool and damp, and water from an earlier rain drips from leaves overhead like tears. At the fork in the swiftly flowing river, I indulge the pull I’ve tried to ignore for days. Something still niggles in my chest, something that has been niggling at me since my last trip into these woods; no, before. Since the coffin. I feel like . . . what if . . .
I’m leaving, I’m not sure when or if I’ll ever return, I . . .
I follow the river towards the memory of my childhood.
The violet oak.
Winds blow and large, hand-like violet leaves wave, capturing my attention. Beckoning me closer. The scent of the powerful wood has me imagining two young boys curled tight in the hollowed trunk, telling stories and falling asleep, heads tucked together.