Chapter Text
Prologue: A Memory
Yuen
There was no poetry in his death. We often spoke of it, Rynn and I: about valor and mortality, about sacrifice, about painting history with blood both ours and others’. “That’s how you build a legacy,” he told me. “That’s how you make them remember you.”
No one remembers his mother’s drinking or the hungry glint of her white teeth. They remember what she gave us, who she conquered, how she bled out on the battlefield and left us all the pieces of a monarchy and nothing with which to adhere them. She spent her years performing heroics. In the end she expended her last moments doing the same. She lives now in ballads, in legends, but the woman in those tales is not one I know.
Rynn’s death came with no such glory. We lay together on the floor of our tent as he gasped out his final breath, his lips gone purple and flecked with froth, his slick skin marbled by blue-green veins. No one saw, no one knew. The smell of cloves and bile was thick around me, a noxious combination that clung to my nose. Rynn lay in a pool of his own sick, gasping and choking and spasming the seconds away, his eyes wet and bloodshot. He struggled like that for Ko’el knows how long. And then he stopped.
His death warped me, frayed me, spun my mind like yarn on a spindle, twisting and twisting and pulling and pulling, reshaping me until I no longer knew myself, until I was molded by his absence. I had loved him for so long and then he was gone.
Lienna found me and held me. Her hands were cold and clammy and foreign. She flinched at my heat, but held me all the same. She held me through the tremors, through the pain, through the weeping and the vomiting, until there was nothing left within me, until my gut was as empty as my heart.
In time, I returned to my senses and I knew what was needed of me. I took his face as I had done many times before. It was strange to see him so still, to feel his flesh lose its heat. Rynn was never the sort to remain static, never the sort to run cold. He was a frenetic man, always in motion, something which had galled me when I was first learning to copy his features. Unmoving as he had become, he could have been the perfect model had I wished to look like a corpse.
I wore his face like armor and wore his armor like a mask. No one questioned me, no one even thought twice. They followed me as they had followed him. His death went unseen and unnoticed. No songs, no poems, no epic tales. The valiant tragedy which he had so coveted never came to be. His death was bloodless and inelegant and unknown. The grief of his passing was mine alone.
It was a relief.
Chapter 1: Blisters and Bile
Allene
My tower is burning. Smoke billows from the shattered window, a ceaseless stream of noxious gas. The air is heavy with ash, the sky gone a hazy, burdensome gray. I breathe in. Gasp. Choke. Cough. My body seizes as I heave myself up on my elbow and turn just in time to void the contents of my gut. Disgorge trickles down my chin. Shards of drachenglas dig into the exposed flesh of my arm. I am tender all over, seared by dragon flame and battered by my fall. Amidst the ash and blood and bile, the lingering odor of burning hair clings to me. Everything hurts.
Beside me, Caederyn lays crumpled and unmoving, his skin gone a bright, raw red. It’s already starting to blister something nasty. I reach out to touch his chest and scream as the engorged, puffy blister on my palm slides against the fabric of his tunic. Not an hour before, I found the material soft to the touch. Now the rasp of it burns harsher than the roughest sandstone. He’s breathing, at least. I felt that much.
My other hand aches. I raise it and find it clutched around the smoldering remains of the achene that very likely saved my life. Our lives. Without it, I don’t think we would have survived the fall. I try to release it, to unwrap my fingers, but I can’t. The charred body of the umbrella seed sticks to my skin. It’s so brittle that just that movement is enough to cause it to crack and crumble, but it sticks all the same. The puffy tufts that once splayed from its top are already long since burnt away to ash.
There’s a ringing in my ears, a dullness, a strange closed off feeling, but through it I can hear sounds, vague and detached and not quite real. The distant boom and thud of explosions serves as a bass line to the shrill whistle of other, more volatile reactions. It shakes the ground. A hunk of stone, large as my two hands fisted together, tumbles down the castle wall and embeds itself in the ground not more than a foot away from me. It scorches the grass on impact. I don’t know if Feon’s made it out. I turn my head, searching for him, for any glint of gold. I do not find him.
I feel it before I see it. Something stirs the air, whipping up the ash and dust. It stings like a bitch. I flinch and shut my eyes. I cough, over and over and over, so hard I fear my stomach may turn itself inside out. All that comes up is bile. The shrill squeal of scraping metal sounds from high above me. It’s an awful, teeth grinding sort of sound, a prolonged wail that goes on and on and on until my jaw aches with it.
A coolness comes upon me. I open my eyes and there I see him: Feon, winged and golden, emerging from the broken window, shards of drachenglas scoring his beautiful body, drawing long gouges down his gilt scales. I loose a sob, try to call for him. I don’t think he hears. Hot, red droplets pelt the earth, sizzling and hissing where they land. I feel it like acid rain: thick and wet and caustic, a scourge upon my skin. I shriek and nearly black out. Feon’s shadow passes over me and all I can do is watch as he flees, battered and bloody and broken, his wings unevenly spread, his flight labored and unsteady. And then he’s gone.
I curl into myself as tearless sobs wrack my body. There’s not enough moisture left in me to cry. Even this far from the tower, there is no reprieve from the heat. It’s inside me, I think, or maybe it’s around me, the stifling summer air brought to a boil by the kiss of dragon flame. My skin feels like one hot, massive blister, like I’m a fish that’s been seared and then removed from the flame so that I may finish cooking on the plate. I’m going to get baked alive like a stupid, sexy casserole and it’s all Caed’s fault.
There is a new thumping now, one quieter and closer. Footsteps, I think, muffled by the earth — then shouting. “Water! Bring water and a stretcher! Now!” Something touches my wrist and I scream and scream and scream.
❖
I awaken to darkness. The mattress beneath me is soft and stifling. My back is lined with sweat as if I am laying in my own personal swamp, custom shaped to fit my body. There’s a sour scent in my nose that I think must be from some sort of unguent. It smells as if I’ve been marinating in my own fetid juices.
It’s the pain that woke me, I think. Every inch of me aches a worn, weary ache. I feel as if I’ve been tenderized like a piece of meat, hammered at with shallow spikes and partially digested by acid. I didn’t know burning could feel like this. I groan and find my throat so thickly lined with mucous that the sound is no more than a gurgle.
The air is heavy and wet. It sticks to my skin like molasses, coats the insides of my nostrils and throat with its cloying, humid heat. It’s quiet save for the sound of my own breathing — rasping, labored — and something else. Another set of lungs, equally as troubled as mine.
Turning my head is agony. As my neck twists, the skin stretches and folds, flesh sliding against flesh, and all of it raw and angry and so damnably tender. I loose a gasp of pain and wetness pricks at my eyes. There is a faint red glow towards the foot of the room and by its light I can just make out the distinctive hook of Caederyn’s nose. He lays beside me, not quite near enough to touch, his lips parted, his body unmoving save for the unsteady rise and fall of his chest.
“Your Highness..?” ventures a tentative voice from somewhere deeper in the room. “Are you awake?”
I try to clear my throat and wince. “Yes, it seems so,” I reply. The words come out strangled and rough and strange to my ears, an inelegant mockery of my voice.
A small circle of light breaks away from the larger mass. Its form is hazy and indistinct and surrounded by a vaguely rectangular shadow. The light illuminates an odd texture about the air.
“I’m going to open the curtain now,” the voice says, closer, and I think I recognize the speaker. “If that’s alright.”
I’m naked save for the thinnest of robes but it’s nothing she won’t have seen before. “Yes, go ahead.”
The gauzy curtain at the bed’s edge is pulled aside gently and from the darkness emerges Fidelity’s face. With her she brings a small gust of steam that rolls over me like a hot breath. The candle’s flickering light spins gold out of the frizzy ends of her ginger hair. Her sweet face is lined with worry and her eyes have gone all puffy and swollen. When she sees me, she sucks in a sharp breath.
“That bad?” I ask.
Fidelity carefully pushes the curtain aside the rest of the way and sets the chamberstick down upon the bedside table. “It could have been much worse,” she replies. “But I’m still not used to…” She lets her words dwindle and die on her tongue. Her eyes glisten wetly in the candlelight.
My heartbeat thunders in my ears. “What is it?” I ask. “What’s wrong with me?”
“Nothing,” she replies hurriedly.
I try to sit up and cry out quietly in the back of my throat. The pain is excruciating. My skin feels tight and tender, like my body is a sausage threatening to burst free from its casing. Nausea rolls through me once again.
“Oh, no, Princess!” Fidelity exclaims. She reaches for me instinctively but just before her fingers can come in contact with my shoulders, she flinches back. “Sorry,” she breathes. “I — I’ll go fetch the physician.”
With a whirl of skirts, she disappears back into the darkness and leaves me alone with the candlelight. I take slow, measured breaths in an attempt to alleviate my nausea. Soon, Fidelity returns with a tiny entourage behind her, including three faces I do not recognize, one of which must be the physician.
The physician approaches first, flanked on either side by a set of assistants. They check me over carefully, examining my eyes and mouth, listening to my breathing and my heartbeat, and (horribly) testing my swelling. I hold back tears and try not to scream when they prod one of my blisters just slightly too hard. My face burns where the tears run.
“How long was I out?” I croak.
“A day and a half or thereabouts, my lady,” Clemence replies. She stands primly at the bed’s edge, just behind the physician, her black hair bound up for sleep. If it weren’t for the shallow creases lining one side of her face, she would have seemed just as cool and unflappable as ever.
“How do you feel, Your Grace?” the physician asks.
“Awful,” I reply. “Like I’ve been cooked alive.”
The physician spares me a half-baked smiled. “You’re not entirely wrong. Now, we’re going to clean your wounds again before applying a new salve.”
Their assistants set to it, bringing forth a bowl of clear water and small cloths of silk. With painstaking care, they wipe me down with the damp cloths. Even that gentlest of touches is enough to set me to tears once more. When it comes time for the assistants to move aside my robe to reach those scant areas concealed by it, they show none of the characteristic bashfulness I’ve come to associate with Nadaran modesty, for which I am immensely grateful. Lord Jasper, Caed’s primary attendant, is less at ease. He turns away from me until I am once again sufficiently covered.
“Are you alright, Princess?” Fidelity asks, her voice tight with worry.
“No,” I gasp through gritted teeth, “but I’ll manage.”
By the time the assistants are done with me, they have to wipe my face a second time to rid it of tears. I’m allowed a brief reprieve, then, as they set to cleaning Caederyn beside me. Fidelity looses a wide yawn and takes a seat at the foot of the bed, her back rounded into a slouch.
“Did you wait up for me this whole time?” I can’t help the sudden fondness that floods my heart.
“Yes, of course,” Fidelity replies, halfway through another yawn.
“We took shifts,” Clemence clarifies.
Caederyn doesn’t stir as his body is cleansed. He wears a robe the twin of mine, finespun and thin. His skin is raw and shiny and red, his body marred by blisters that glisten an oily sort of yellow. He looks like a piece of greasy pizza, the kind you regret eating almost immediately.
“Has Caed awoken?” I ask.
“No,” answers Lord Jasper. “No, the prince has yet to awaken.” His round face is tight with worry, his usually impeccable edges gone to frizz, his once crisp shirt now wrinkled.
I look to the physician. “Is he — will he be—”
“I have every confidence that His Majesty will recover,” the physician replies quickly. I hope the sweat glistening upon their brow is due only to the humidity of the room and nothing else.
Something at Caederyn’s feet stirs, a strange, lumpy shadow. It shifts and rises, looming over Caed’s body. The flickering candlelight catches on two points, dark and glistening — eyes, I think, just as black as its body. Teeth emerge, long and sharp and slick and white, accompanied by the quiet, high keen of a yawn. Then it settles back down.
“What is that?” I ask.
“It’s — he’s — a dog,” Fidelity answers.
“Why is there a d—” I begin, but am cut off by the sound of a door being slammed open.
“Al!” Cass enters like a storm, steam whirling around his form as he strides forward. Dannica follows behind him, her small body bundled up in a fluffy robe, her hair put up in a bonnet. I can hear her crying even before she reaches my side.
“Hush, there, sweet thing. I’m not in that bad of shape, am I?” I say, attempting a smile. My words land flat.
My youngest sister settles at the edge of the bed, tears streaming down her face, hiccups bubbling up through her like a pot that’s just beginning to boil. “Yes, you are,” she says at last, wiping at her eyes with the backs of her hands. “You look terrible. I thought you might’ve died.”
I sigh. “Never one to mince words, hmm?” I reach forward and take her hand, wincing as it puts pressure on my blisters. “I’m very much alive, though, thank the Laws. I’m too smart and sexy to die just yet.” Dannica glares at me balefully before the expression is interrupted by a loud hiccup. I smile back as best I can, though I’m not certain how effective the expression is given the stiffness in my face.
“Glad to see you haven’t lost the familial brio,” Cass replies. “I think it bodes well for your recovery.” He nods meaningfully towards the physician, who straightens and bows deeply.
“Yes, I do believe that Her Highness should heal cleanly, given time and proper care, which she shall have,” they say.
“Well, that’s a relief,” I sigh. All around me are worried faces — faces of people I know and love, of people who care for me and for Caederyn. With one very conspicuous absence. “Where is Feon? I’m a little wounded he hasn’t come barging in yet.”
The quietude that takes the room is an unpleasant one: strange and strained, clinging to my ears like the mucous that lingers in my throat. I look from Cass to Dannica to Clemence to Fidelity to Lord Jasper. “Where is he?” I breathe, panic seizing me. “He’s not—”
“He’s not dead, not that we know,” Fidelity answers hastily. “But no one has seen him, not since…” Her words dwindle away. She drops my gaze and bites her lip.
“I saw him,” I murmur. “After we jumped out of the tower, he broke out. Busted out of the window and flew away.”
“The guards saw him head west,” Cass says at the same time that Dannica screeches, “You jumped out of the tower??”
“We couldn’t very well stick around, could we? Anyway, it wasn’t as if I was completely unprepared. I had an achene stashed away for just such a happening. If I hadn’t grabbed Caed and jumped—”
“You would be dead,” Lord Jasper finishes, his voice somber. “Dragon fire is not kind to the body.”
A thought strikes me then, making me go stiff all over. “Lysithea,” I breathe. “She was there too. I — I couldn’t reach her — I couldn’t see — did she make it?”
More silence. This time, it is Clemence who breaks it. “I don’t know, Princess. The Larish envoy has long since fled. They withdrew as soon as the king—” Here, she hesitates, her gaze shifting to those on either side of her. It’s an unusual look on her.
I attempt to sit up straighter and am only rewarded with more pain. “What — what happened? What did I miss?” I ask, my voice strained.
“During brunch, the king — changed. Transformed,” Clemence replies, her voice careful. “It seems he was — is — a dragon. And without seeming cause, he shifted right there in the middle of the ballroom.”
“He was pale, like white gold,” Fidelity continues. “And he — he—” Here, her eyes flood with tears and she looses a strangled sob.
“What happened?” I demand.
“Lady Emira—” Fidelity begins, her voice a thin and weak thing, but her words are cut short by her own tears.
“The duchess was nearly crushed to death,” Lord Jasper continues. His eyes linger on Caederyn’s unmoving face, no doubt wondering how and when he will have to break the news to the prince. “She would have died, had it not been for Hazley. They saw the king’s transformation before any of us and managed to — to push Lady Emira out of harm’s way. For the most part.”
“How is she?” I ask. This must explain her absence, for thinking on it now I do not imagine Emira would wait idly while her cousin suffered. “And Hazley?”
“Lady Emira is recovering,” Lord Jasper answers. “Her legs were… I don’t wish to make presumptions about her recovery, but I do not think she is likely to walk again.”
I exhale a low sigh. “And Hazley?” I ask again.
Lord Jasper shakes his head.
We lapse into silence, then. My mind is a mess, a writhing, rushing tangle of thoughts that hurtles forward like the waters of the great Virgis River. “I saw him,” I say at last. “The king. The other dragon, I mean. I couldn’t entirely believe my eyes, thought maybe I was seeing things…” I’d only just caught sight of that pale dragon as it burst free from the drachenglas dome that covers — covered — the palace’s ballroom. It had seemed unreal to me, a strange and sleek body the color of cornsilk, a light, glittering goldenrod, like egg whites or butter or the weak haze of morning through dense clouds. “Wasn’t Yuen — the king’s dragon — like that?” I ask. “That sort of white gold.”
“Yuen died twenty-five years past,” Lord Jasper replies gently. “I think — I think the king was — ensorcelled, I suppose. The Larish delegation did leave very quickly after his transformation, almost as if they knew—”
“No,” I say, with more conviction than I really feel. “No, that doesn’t make sense. What sort of purpose could that possibly serve?” The more I speak, the more I believe it. After all, the king wasn’t the only one to transform that day. Feon had been ousted from his human form, made to shift his body true. I can’t think of any reason for him to voluntarily assume his full size while inside such a confined space.
I think back on that morning, on what I remember of it. I’d woken up late, my body entangled with Caed’s. He’d been awake already, his eyes open and unseeing as he stared up at the underside of his bed’s canopy. I’d kissed him until he stirred, until I roused that shy smile from its dormancy. He was strange that morning, eager yet distracted, his hands wandering with less purpose than I would have liked.
After I wiped the cum off my thighs we dressed and sent for breakfast to be taken to my tower. I’d wanted to stay in bed longer, but Caed had insisted, saying there was some reading he wished to do. I should have known something was off then, but I was drunk on the morning’s languid pleasures and exhausted from a night spent dancing and fucking. So I let him steer us, caring less about where I was than who I was with. I wanted him still, was giddy with the memory of his heat, thought that maybe he’d arranged some sort of surprise for me in my workroom. But, no, he really had wanted to read. Disappointed and growing increasingly hangry by the minute, I decided to snooze until our food arrived.
I awoke not to breakfast, but to an iron heavy tang in the air and the sight of Caed and Feon stood very close in the center of my workroom. Still groggy, I blinked back the fog in my eyes, watching without comprehension as they kissed (finally) and as Caed bade his dragon to kneel. I did think it a bit gauche of my husband to loose his long restrained feelings without inviting (or at least informing) me, but more than anything I had been relieved.
That is, until I saw the blade. What happened after that is a blur: Feon’s eyes gone wide, his pretty face streaked with blood, his chest bared and vulnerable, his Bond mark like a bleeding wound; Caed, conviction writ in the set of his jaw, his eyes glassy with exhaustion, his sword point pressed to Feon’s chest. The bloody markings that encircled them, drawn neatly upon the floor. It all happened too quickly.
One moment they were together, two wretched souls lashed to the mast of a sinking ship. And then Feon was gone — no, not gone. Changed. His body had become golden all over, his many freckles turned to jewels, his skin gone to scale, those long, vicious horns sprouting from his brow. He shifted and grew, the wings ripping their way free of his shoulder blades, claws and teeth and spikes emerging with the inevitability of the rising sun. The sound he made — it was the anguish of a bough bent to breaking, of flesh rent and tendons torn. His body bloomed before me in the same way that algae does: sudden and suffocating, sucking the very air out of the room with his brilliant flames. He would never willingly put Caederyn in danger like that.
“The Bond must have broken,” I breathe.
I don’t realize I’ve said it aloud until a drop of something cold and goopy lands on my exposed shin. I cry out. The physician is poised over me, a small bowl of some strange, clear gelatinous substance in their hands. Beside them, their assistants hold some sort of stiff tentacles — straight and green and near as long as their arms, with little prickly spines on their extremities. The assistants have peeled back the top layer of skin and are scraping out the innards into more bowls like the one the physician holds. All three of them have their eyes locked upon me, their expressions ranging from disbelief to confusion to horror.
“What the fuck?” Cass says.
“It’s the only thing that makes any sense. Just like the king, Feon also transformed. It must have been at the same time, he must have—” I cut myself off and glance towards Caed. He must have done it somehow. All that blood and the way he’d pierced Feon with his blade. I don’t know how, but he’s responsible. I can just about taste it. And I have a sinking feeling that even if I do not yet know the how of it, I do know the why. Still, I don’t think I should reveal that. Not without total certainty, not without privacy. And not without Caed’s consent unless it is absolutely necessary.
“I don’t know how…” I continue, more carefully this time, “but the Bond — and I do mean the whole Bond — must have been undone. And that — that means that the king, that Yuen has been—” I bite my tongue to force myself to stop. I stare down at my hands, battered and bruised and blistered as they are, and try to calm myself. “That — that’s incredible. In a really horrible way, but incredible all the same. To unravel something so magically potent, a magic that has endured generations. I don’t — I don’t entirely understand, but if I’m right, then—”
“Allene.” I look up sharply. Cass almost never uses my full name. There’s a tension in his jaw, the grin flushed clean away from his face.
“Sorry,” I hasten, my eyes now wandering from person to person. Lord Jasper is stricken-faced, his dark eyes wide and bloodshot, his hands fisted and trembling. Fidelity looks quietly horrified. Clemence’s mouth has gone white with tension. “I — I could be wrong. Despite my best efforts, I don’t really understand it all — the Bond, I mean. But I — I don’t think there is a better explanation, not without further research.”
“But that makes no sense!” Lord Jasper cries. I tense, startled by his uncharacteristic outburst. “Why would it have broken and — and how? It wouldn’t just — just disappear. Not without cause or conspiracy. I — you must be incorrect. You must be.” He is breathing heavily and only after a long pause does he remember himself. “Apologies, Your Grace, for—”
I wave his words aside. “No apology is necessary. Like I said, I could — I could be wrong. I hope I am.” I drop my gaze from his and glance back towards Caederyn. Lord Jasper’s right. On its own, my hypothesis seems quite unreasonable. But they didn’t see what I saw, don’t know what I know. I press my lips tightly shut so I am not tempted to spill the secret that is not mine to tell.
“I think we should not speak on this further,” Cass says grimly. “Not tonight. Not without more information.”
“We’ll need to excavate the tower,” Lord Jasper says.
“Has that not been done yet?” I ask.
“No, Your Grace. It’s still much too dangerous to enter. There was no safe way to douse the blaze. The open window stirred the flames to a frenzy and it was some time before it burned itself through everything there was to burn, until roof and floor and joists and beams were consumed and the tower collapsed to the point that the wind was more impediment than enablement, until the dust and debris could smother the fire.”
We lapse into another silence and the physician returns to applying that odd gelatinous substance to my skin. It’s cool and clear and nearly odorless and when administered feels somehow both slippery and sticky. It does seem to ease the worst of the burn, though it’s not an entirely pleasant experience.
“What sort of creature is this?” I ask, gesturing to the strange tentacles.
“Begging your pardon, Your Grace… creature?” the physician asks, their brow furrowed. Their voice is even but I can feel the slight tremors in their hands as they spread the substance over my sternum.
“Yes, I’ve never encountered anything quite like it.”
One of the assistants coughs into her shoulder. The physician hesitates. “Your Grace, it is a plant. That is one of its leaves.” They finish administering the salve and move on to Caederyn.
I am saved from my mortification by the sound of a gentle rapping at the door. Fidelity flees and returns a few moments later with two servants bearing large, covered platters. The scent of roasted garlic instantly sets my stomach to rumbling and I realize quite suddenly that I am absolutely ravenous.
“Good, you have an appetite,” the physician says. The servants set a small table beside me and arrange a number of food stuffs atop it: baked salmon, mashed tubers, a red kidney bean curry, nuts, dates, cheese, and yogurt. It’s a lot of food for just one person and when I say as much, the physician replies, “Eat what you are able to. You’ll need the sustenance to engender proper healing.”
Fidelity places a small folding table over my lap and fills a plate with a little bit of everything. I smile at her and take the fork in hand and wince as the metal bites into my blisters.
“Here, let me,” Fidelity says and before I can refuse, she wrests the fork from my grasp and begins to feed me. I avoid the salmon, still too conscious of how I myself was very nearly cooked alive.
“I could have fed myself,” I grouse. “I’m not doing so poorly that I am entirely helpless, am I?” My words are met with silence. With resentment in my heart, I grab a cashew from the bowl of nuts and chew on it mulishly while Fidelity stares back at me, fork raised, her face sunken into a look of great distress. “What about Caed? If you’re so determined to feed someone, why not him?”
Silence again. After a few very long, very awkward moments of this, the physician coughs delicately and says, “Your Grace, he would need to wake before we could feed him.”
In my annoyance, I had forgotten. I exhale a shuddering breath and look away. “Right. Of course. How — how long do you think it will be?”
“There is no way of knowing for certain, but we hope it will be soon.”
After that, the food ceases to taste like much at all. I can still feel hunger in my gut — dull, aching, and hollow — but I don’t feel very much like eating. Despite this, I persist, unable to stop under the pressure of so many anxious eyes.
“I’ve already written home,” Cass says. “I’m certain Arcanist Ebner will know of some remedy to speed along the healing process. I will not allow any lingering harm to either of you.”
I smile back at him. “No?”
“No,” he confirms.
Beside Cass, Dannica sits at the bed’s foot, leaning against one of the posts, her eyelids drooping wearily. She slouches further and further, her head nodding to one side until it hits the post with a soft thunk and she jolts awake. “Ow!” She rubs at her temple gingerly.
“I think you should get to bed, dear one,” I say, smiling.
“I’m fine,” she huffs.
“I’ll still be here when you wake tomorrow. Laws know I won’t be going anywhere quickly.”
What little fuss Dannica manages to make is swiftly stifled by Cass. “I’ll take her back,” he says. “Get some rest, Al, I’ll see you in the morning.”
I watch them fondly as they leave. I hadn’t known they’d make the long journey from Voswain just to see me wed — they wanted to keep it a surprise — but I’m glad they did. It’s lonely, sometimes, without them, without my family. I wonder when next I’ll be able to see my mothers or my father. My life has been so full of Caederyn and Feon these past few months that I have, for the most part, managed not to dwell on my homesickness. Now, with Caed unconscious and Feon missing, there is nothing but the ache in my body and my heart.
“I wish Feon were here,” I sigh. “Not only because I worry about him but because his blood — I’ve never seen the like of it. It seems to heal indiscriminately. And he would never willingly let Caederyn suffer so, not if he knew.”
“We do have some,” Lord Jasper replies. “A small amount of Feon’s blood set aside for — for emergencies. I had wanted to wait until the both of you were conscious as it is — as it can be quite draining upon the body.”
I attempt to sit up straight and every inch of my skin screams in protest. I collapse back into the pillows with a gasp. “Go,” I croak. “Now. Please.”
Lord Jasper nods and rushes out of the room.
Fidelity plies me with more food until I have to physically push away the fork. “Enough,” I say. “Any more and I’ll suffer indigestion along with my burns.” She ceases, but I can tell from the way she tucks her head back until it double chins that she is reluctant to do so.
Lord Jasper returns some minutes later with a small bottle in hand. The glass is all frosted over on the outside but I can see something dark and viscous lies within. He handles it with great care that borders on reverence, reluctant even to relinquish it to the physician.
“It’s still too cold to administer,” they say, taking the bottle and cupping it in their hands. “We’ll need to warm it gently so it doesn’t serve as too much of a shock.”
“Is that why this room is so blasted hot?” I ask.
“That and for your lungs, yes, Your Grace,” the physician replies. “You inhaled quite a lot of smoke. The dry climate would aggravate any damage already done.”
It’s some time before the physician deems the blood warm enough to work with, long enough that Fidelity has begun to doze off just as Dannica had, long enough that Lord Jasper has come and gone nearly a dozen times, fetching first a bowl of room temperature water, then a series of warmed towels, and then a cup of tea for me, until even Clemence can no longer stand to watch him.
“My lord, would you sit please before you give us all headaches?” she snaps.
He does sit, then, mumbling apologies as he frets with first his cuff, then a button, then a loose thread on the chair’s arm, and all the while his foot goes tap tap tap as he jiggles it against the floor. I want to strangle him just a bit. So we are all immensely grateful when the physician stands once more and opens the bottle.
“Oh, thank the Laws!” I mutter. “Please deliver me from this torture.”
“It won’t be pleasant,” the physician warns. “In fact, it may hurt quite a bit.”
“Yes, I am well aware, thank you,” I reply.
When the first drop of blood hits my arm, I loose a muffled scream. Tears prick at my eyes but I tamp them down the best I can, and so too I clamp my mouth shut, determined not to give them any reason to hold back. The physician hesitates, even after I give them a nod. “Get on with it,” I hiss through gritted teeth.
Carefully, so carefully, they dribble the blood across my skin. It pools and spreads, still goopy and viscous from being chilled, but the heat of my blisters thins it, warms it ‘til it runs, racing down my skin like flood water, like a wildfire. I bite my lip until it bleeds, clench my hands so hard one of my blisters pops. I jolt violently in place and the physician’s hand — so steady until that point — flinches, spilling a particularly large glob of congealed blood from the bottle’s rim. It lands in the center of my sternum with a sickening splat. It sizzles and hisses against my skin. Bubbles form and pop and the blood spreads down my chest. Bile bites at the back of my throat. Everything goes white.