Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Casimiria chases after him, grabbing his shoulder, pleading with him to hear me out.
She’s worried for him and worried for me, and though I tell myself not to, I glance towards Quin.
He’s stiff in his chair, unmoving. Though I can see through the disguise, though I know his heart is pounding, I hate the mask he has on. Hate how even now, as I stare down a sword, he still wears it.
I hate that in my last moments, I won’t see his truest face.
My gaze snaps back to the man behind the outstretched sword. “I hate it,” I say tightly. “I hate hiding the truth. I hate having to.”
The sword jerks shakily.
“Lindrhalda’s touch was my mask. My way of surviving. I did it to save myself, my friends, and your own people from being burned alive. I did it to help your son forge better healing scriptions that will aid all Skeldars, now and in the future. I did it to stay by your side where I could protect my king’s mother.”
“Your king—” He steps closer, his blade coming with him. I can feel the cold breath of the steel. “That’s why you fought so hard for that captive’s life? You’re a Lumin?”
“Not only a Lumin.” I force my chin up, baring my throat to him. “I am the king’s man.”
King Yngvarr regrips his sword in the following deathly silence, and I close my eyes.
“Please,” Casimiria whispers. “He won the Medicus Contest on your behalf. He saved me.”
There’s a cold wake of air at my throat where his blade shakes, and then, his voice.
“If he must die for his deception,” Quin says in an off-hand tone, “let it be a death that serves the kingdom. Send him to the fight. A healer as skilled as he’s claimed to be . . . could at least save some lives.”
“The fight?” King Yngvarr’s voice is pinched, but there’s an inflection that says he’s listening. Or at least, that he’s aware of his audience.
“There are few healers there as it is,” Quin says. “Perhaps he saves a husband, a brother, a son.”
The crowd murmurs.
There’s another shift of icy air against my throat, the blade still not drawing away.
I ping my eyes open. Quin is drumming a lazy hand over the arm of his chair, his gaze resolutely off me and respectfully on King Yngvarr.
“Take him!” King Yngvarr orders. He motions for his personal guards. “If he survives—”
Casimiria captures his arm and helps steady a wobble. “A thing like him?”
Quin laughs heavily. “If he should last, the gods must want him to.”
King Yngvarr coughs and lands his frightened, angry gaze on mine. “Then we’ll leave it to the gods.”
We’re to leave within the hour. I rush to gather my things only to find them gone. My books, my soldad, my dromveske where I’ve also hidden my clasp . . . I double-check under my bedcovers, behind the woodpile, but there aren’t so many places they could be. My stomach is falling out through my legs. I almost died in the banquet hall, but somehow being robbed of my treasures feels more emptying.
I suck in a sharp breath. Nicostratus. I recall the bag slung over his shoulder. My things, were they right under my nose?
Nicostratus has them.
They’ll be looked after. They’ll be safe.
But my stomach doesn’t stop feeling like it’s falling.
I leave the shed to find my teary-eyed aunt and Prins Lief consoling her. When she sees me, she peels away from him, glowing pearly white under the moonlight, and the hold she grabs me in is terrifyingly tight. “I’d go with you. I’d go with you, but . . .”
She drops her arms from around me to touch her belly tenderly.
I laugh and hug her warmly. “I’ll use all the skills you’ve taught me to protect the soldiers, who in turn will protect you.”
Prins Lief clears his throat; his wife may worry about me, but he has other quarrels.
I reluctantly move over to him and he hustles me angrily behind the shed, out of Auntie’s view. He pushes me against it, demanding to know how sick his father is; how long he has left.
“A year,” I say. “He’s been told by many healers before me.”
“You made him think there was a chance.”
I bow my head.
He bangs his fist against the shed and curses.
“I tried to extend his life, but this is beyond my ability.”
He bangs his fist again.
“Even a vitalian couldn’t save him.”
“Even? You still think their magic makes them better than you.”
“I thought you were upset about my lying to your father.”
“Upset?”
“Angry, then.”
“You’re going to take everything I throw at you?”
“I deserve it.”
He roars. “It was I who forced this mask on you!” His roar breaks into something defeated. “For the sake of scriptions. It is I who harmed him.”
He drops his head, and I steady him before he crumples against the shed. “You sought a better overall outcome,” I murmur, wrapping an arm around his waist and moving him back to my pacing aunt.