Bluebell was relieved to cross the border into Almissia. The lawless realm of the undermagicians was behind her, and she had returned to a place where things were as they seemed. She endured the long days pacing with very little sleep, and the strange swift nighttime travel, knowing they were drawing close to the end of their journey. At the other end, a possible cure for her father waited. Sleep waited.
They took the rutted track around Stonemantel toward the flower farm on the sixth night of travel, while clouds covered the moon and the air was still and smelling of damp earth. Bluebell’s ribs expanded; the darkness of the last few weeks began to lift. She didn’t entertain the thought that Eldra couldn’t cure Athelrick: Eldra was able to enchant herself so she could walk, make the dog and horses speed like hares, and reverse the sand magician’s spell. An elf-shot would be easy for her to remove.
They unsaddled their horses in the dark stable and the animals, now released from the enchantment, collapsed into sleeping heaps. Eldra herself began her walk from the stable with a smooth gait, but was limping again by the time they reached the front door. Inside, the air was warm and smoky. Sleeping bodies. Rose had returned already, and lay encircled in Heath’s arms. Idiots. The urge to lie down among them and close her eyes for blissful hours was so strong that Bluebell had to shake herself. She hadn’t come on this journey to let her father languish another moment under his enchantment.
“Father is through there,” she whispered to Eldra.
Already their arrival had woken Heath, who sat up sleepily and said softly, “Bluebell?”
Bluebell ignored him, opening the door to the king’s bower and leading Eldra in. Willow was asleep on the floor, but scurried out with one stern look from Bluebell. A few moments later, Rose was there with them.
“Bluebell, I need to talk. Wengest has—”
Exhaustion made Bluebell sharp. She held up a hand. “Not now. Father first. Then sleep, then your problems with Wengest tomorrow. I see you’re taking comfort where you shouldn’t already.”
Rose was about to bite back, but then she stopped and looked closely at Bluebell’s face. “You look utterly exhausted.”
“I have survived on an hour or two of sleep a day for nearly a week,” Bluebell said. She thought about introducing Rose to Eldra, but the older woman was absorbed in her examination of Athelrick.
Rose turned her eyes to Eldra, and Bluebell gestured that she shouldn’t interrupt. “Go,” she said. “We’ll talk later.”
Eldra wrinkled her nose as though she’d smelled something bad. “I’ll need complete quiet.”
Rose withdrew reluctantly, and Bluebell stood back as Eldra sat on the edge of Athelrick’s bed.
“He’s very gray,” she said. “Too many cares, I imagine. Being a king.” She gave Bluebell a grim smile.
“Can you feel the magic?” Bluebell asked.
“Oh, yes. It’s not even very strong. If it had been stronger it might have killed him. But I should be able to remove this easily.”
Bluebell’s knees buckled. “Oh, thank fuck.”
“How long do you say he’s been like this?”
“Nearly five weeks.”
“Then it will take time.”
“How much time? Weeks? Months?”
“Days. And when he wakes, he will have no recollection of time having passed. It will be as though he had just put his head down to sleep, closed his eyes, and opened them again.”
“He’ll be confused then.”
“Momentarily. But he will wake with all his faculties.”
Bluebell couldn’t control her smile.
“Hopefully,” Eldra concluded.
“Hopefully?”
“There’s always the chance that the magic leaving will simply kill him. I don’t know. Some undermagicians leave a barb inside the elf-shot, so that its removal is fatal. It depends on whether the person who gave it to him wanted him dead.”
Bluebell’s gut tightened. “And will you be able to tell us who elf-shot him?”
“As the magic leaves his body, it will reveal its secrets. Don’t worry.”
Bluebell turned this over in her mind. If the elf-shot killed him, then Almissia would lose its king. But he was no king in this state.
“So, you want me to go ahead?” Eldra asked.
“Yes,” Bluebell said grimly, “whatever the cost.”
Eldra’s gaze held Bluebell’s for a few moments. Bluebell was not good at reading people’s subtle cues, but she thought she could see admiration in Eldra’s eyes.
“I’ll get started then. I’ll be here with him for the whole process. Go about your lives.”
Bluebell left the room, stumbling into Rose who was waiting. Willow was nowhere in sight, but Heath was preparing food in the kitchen.
“Bluebell…” Rose started.
“No, Rose. No. Not you now. Sleep now.”
Rose’s eyes grew glassy with tears. Bluebell might have softened under any other circumstances, but weariness had stripped her softness away. She rolled out her blanket by the fire, lay down, and, while the household tiptoed around her, slept.
Grithbani. Wylm held the sword upright, eyeing the runic inscriptions coolly in the dawn light. The randerman had told him each rune had powerful magic, and that when the time for combat with Bluebell was near, they would glow. He squeezed the hilt, sharp pain seizing his hand. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself through the pain, squeezed harder.
It was no use; he couldn’t do it. Even beyond the pain there was a physical obstruction. The sword simply wouldn’t sit in his hand properly.
He sheathed the sword and rewrapped the wound, glancing around to find Eni with his eyes. The boy had grown confident as he learned the landscape of the woods, and was off in the distance crouched on the ground, marveling over something he had found with his fingers.
A thump of footsteps drew Wylm’s attention. He turned, tense as ever. It was Willow and she was running. He was growing used to her strange, unpredictable behavior. Her veering from being completely engaged in their conversation to being off in some distant place in her head, her strange gray eyes almost without pupils. He was used to her constant tic of drawing triangles on her chest with her fingers, of saying Maava’s name as though she were clearing her throat with it lest he choke her. But in all this time he had never once seen her run.
“What’s wrong?” he asked as she drew closer.
“She’s back,” Willow gasped. “Bluebell is back.”
Wylm’s stomach turned to water. His ears rang, and he had to sit down so he didn’t fall down.
Immediately he hated himself for such weakness. What kind of man was he, to collapse like a pisspants child at the mention of his stepsister’s name?
Willow crouched in front of him. “Are you well? You look pale. Has your fever returned?”
“When? When did she get back?”
“Just now. She woke me. She came in with an old woman I don’t know. Looks heathen, covered in charms, mud in her hair.”
An undermagician. Bluebell had gone to fetch herself an undermagician to heal Athelrick. All would soon be undone, and here he was unable to hold the magical trollblade destined to kill her. It’s too soon. Too soon. Destiny rushed upon him while his breath was still flat in his lungs. He barely noticed that Willow had pulled him against her shoulder and was stroking his hair.
“Don’t be afraid of her,” Willow said.
“I’m not afraid,” he said through a mouthful of her straight brown hair. What was she doing? Up until this point, she had become skittish at anything close to physical contact between them. A good trimartyr virgin. “Does Bluebell think the old woman can cure her father?”
“I don’t know what Bluebell thinks.”
“Perhaps her spells won’t work.”
“It’s in the hands of Maava now.” And off she went into her strange, silent whispers, as though she had left this clearing and the woods behind.
He let himself be held. Willow had bent so easily to his will, her brain so malleable from years of trimartyr worship. He’d remembered a few prayers and proverbs, and she had fallen over herself to side with him, to provide him food and medicine and take the boy from time to time so he could rest or scheme or practice swordplay with his mutilated hand. He had never viewed her as anything more than an object to be placed where he needed her most, but her hands had moved down his back now and he caught a smell of her sweet skin and a glimpse down her dress to the upper curve of a slight breast. How like Bluebell she was with her hard surfaces and athletic limbs. But how unlike Bluebell, too. Vulnerable and innocent and not of this world. Something stirred in his loins, but he was smart enough not to mistake it for emotion; it had simply been a long time since a woman had touched him.
Gently, he pushed her away. She seemed disappointed. “Willow,” he said, “I need you to keep a very close eye on Bluebell. You need to tell me if your father wakes. The moment it happens.”
She nodded solemnly. “Of course.”
“And be careful when coming to give us food. Don’t let her see you or follow you. She’s sharp. Sharper than you can imagine.”
“I know my sister well enough.”
“Nobody does. You can think her the sharpest and the strongest person in the world and still you’d be underestimating her. She is a monster. Never forget it.”
Already her thoughts had wandered; he could see it by the way her pupils shrank.
“Go, then,” he said. “Be my eyes and ears.”
“Do you not want my comfort?”
The question startled him. “I…The greatest comfort you can give me is to assure me I am safe from Bluebell until my wound has healed.”
She nodded once. “But you have the sword.”
“Yes. All will be well when the time comes, but I need it not to come. Not yet.”
“I will be your eyes and ears,” she said solemnly, then left. He watched her go, then turned once again to his sword. No matter what pain, no matter that he opened the wound again, he must master this weapon. And soon.
Not now, Rose, not now. How many times had Bluebell said that since her arrival? Rose understood her sister was tired: the dark shadows under her eyes were proof of that. But then she woke and took her dog out and refused company: “I’m too tired to think straight. Ask me about it tomorrow.”
Rose knew she should wait. Time would not affect the outcome, and she needed to approach Bluebell in a good mood. She even considered waiting until their father was recovered, but the urgency pressed itself too hard upon her heart.
Bluebell spent the rest of the day in the king’s room with Eldra, whom Rose had not yet spoken with. Bluebell kept everyone away. Frustration upon frustration as the whole day passed and Rose was no closer to resolving the anxious misery in her heart.
There was the consolation of Heath, of course. They left the house separately, discreetly, and met in the woods to spend hours together. But they did not touch and kiss and make love. Rose was sick and cold for the loss of Rowan. They talked, and there was only one topic of conversation. How much she missed her daughter and couldn’t believe this had happened to her. How sorry he was that she was in pain.
The next morning, Rose stood in the kitchen grinding grain for bread. Willow had carefully unpicked the stitches in Rose’s forehead then said she was going out to collect herbs for a salve. Heath had gone to tend the horses. Rose had grown frightened of solitude: being alone with her thoughts was a form of torture. As she worked, she became aware from the prickling of the hairs on the back of her neck that someone had entered the room. She turned to see Eldra standing there, watching her. Rose’s skin went cold. She had once seen Eldra in a dream, and now she stood here in the flesh. Small, pale, and with a very focused gaze. She seemed a thing of the night, out of place in the morning light.
“Good morning,” Rose said, trying a smile.
“I told you to kill Wengest,” Eldra said, with no returning smile.
Rose’s mouth strained at the corners. “Yes, you did. Four years ago.”
“Perhaps you should have listened.” Then she limped off, opened the kitchen door, and left.
Rose held her breath, but she didn’t return.
That meant Bluebell was alone with Father.
Rose carefully placed the heavy quern-stone on the wooden bench, wiped her hands on her apron, and went to the bedroom.
Bluebell sat next to the bed, her arms stretched out in front of her, hands clasped, and her face on the bed. Was she sleeping?
“Bluebell?”
Bluebell looked up, blinking. Yes, she had been dozing. But she looked less tired than the day before.
“Not now, Rose,” Bluebell said.
“Yes, now. Eldra isn’t here. You’ve had a proper night’s sleep. Now. It’s urgent. It’s a disaster.”
Bluebell’s face softened. She reached out to touch the angry line on Rose’s forehead. “It’s healed, then?”
“Yes, thanks to my sisters as much as the witch in the forest.”
Bluebell nodded. “Go on. What do you need to say to me?”
Rose held her breath, couldn’t speak for a moment. Until Bluebell knew and decided what she would do, hope was still alive that Rose would get Rowan back. Slowly, carefully, she said, “Wengest has discovered that I have not been faithful.”
Bluebell sat upright. “He has?”
“Ivy told him.”
“How did Ivy know?”
“She…she saw us. Before we left to head north. But Wengest doesn’t know it was Heath. And he still thinks Rowan is his.”
Bluebell’s mouth tightened. “Do you see what you have done?”
But Rose wasn’t in the mood for listening to lectures. The next part came out in a rush. “He’s taken Rowan away and he won’t tell me where she is. He can’t do that. He can’t separate a mother and her child. It’s not fair. And he says to tell you that peace will hold between Nettlechester and Almissia only if I never see her again.”
Bluebell frowned. “So peace will hold?”
Rose’s heart thudded. Already, she knew how this discussion would end. “He says so. Yes.”
“Then you can’t see Rowan.”
“But she’s my baby,” Rose sobbed.
Bluebell sighed, spread her hands apart. “I am sympathetic. Of course. But I have to balance the desires of your heart against the lives that will be lost if we go to war with Nettlechester again.”
“It’s not a desire of my heart. It’s a need.”
“Same outcome.”
“I’ll die! I’ll die if I can’t see her! Wengest is terrified of you. He’s terrified of Almissia. You could make him do whatever you want.”
“But Rowan will be alive and well. Wengest adores her. She has a nurse that she knows and loves.”
“She’ll miss me.”
“She’ll…” Bluebell stopped herself.
“Go on, say it,” Rose said, anger clouding her vision. “She’ll forget me. That’s what you were going to say.”
“No, I was going to say she’ll adapt,” Bluebell said. “She’s very young.”
Rose’s body felt light and grainy, as though she were becoming as transparent as she would be in Rowan’s mind. A thing half remembered. The pain in her heart was more intense than it ever had been; she thought it might kill her. Bluebell wanted her to let Rowan go.
“Maybe, in a few years, Wengest will have cooled down,” Bluebell said. “You’re right. He is afraid of us, and when the edge has worn off his anger we can ask him again about you seeing your daughter.”
“Years? Do you realize what you’re saying to me?” Rose’s voice sounded hysterical, and it frightened her. She had lost control of everything. The threads of meaning were unraveling and slipping from her fingers.
Bluebell pulled herself to her feet, towering over Rose and grasping her upper arms. “I told you, Rose. It gives me no joy to say that, but I told you over and over again that no good would come of fucking that man. If you had only listened to me, Ivy wouldn’t have seen you, and wouldn’t have had something to say to Wengest. Do you understand this? You did this to yourself. You couldn’t control yourself. You put Rowan at risk of losing you.”
Rose gasped. Half of her wanted to scream at Bluebell. How did she dare to say such cruel things? If Rose’s love for Heath was so destructive, then why did it feel so good and pure? But the other half of her realized with horror Bluebell was right. She had put herself first. She always put herself first. She had expected Bluebell would go to war with Wengest, never thinking deeply about the people who would die. Die and never live again, because she was in love with her husband’s nephew.
Bluebell released her. “I’m sorry that you are sad, Rose. But you have thought of nobody but yourself. I’m not going to rescue you now.”
Rose doubled over, face in her hands. The nightmare was too real to comprehend.
“Accept your lot and make the best of it,” Bluebell said, opening the door for her to leave. “And for fuck’s sake, stay away from Heath. Wengest will kill him if he finds out.” She gently pushed Rose out of the bedroom. “Don’t let your selfish desire doom him as well.”
Then the door closed and Rose stood on the other side in the empty house, her world in pieces at her feet.
Bluebell blamed herself.
She should never have let Heath come with them. Yes, it would have meant letting the truth about her father’s illness spread a little wider, but she should have realized the idiots couldn’t keep their hands off each other. No doubt they would say to each other that love was a mighty force, mightier than armies. But love wasn’t mighty; love was just selfish. And now Bluebell’s plans for Rowan were scattered to the wind.
She turned over on her other side. Sleep wasn’t coming easy tonight. Rose lay next to her, finally asleep after sniffling and crying quietly for hours. Willow was on the other side of the hearthpit. Eldra had simply lain down next to the king to sleep. Heath was in his usual corner, keeping a respectful distance from them.
Ha! A respectful distance might have helped.
It was hard for Bluebell to be furious with Rose, whom she loved, and much easier for her to be furious with Heath. Certainly he was a good soldier, and had fought by her side from time to time. But she had asked him to do only one thing, and he hadn’t managed it. The most important thing. He had defied her absolutely. It might have been for the best if Heath was named as Rose’s lover; then he would be Wengest’s problem.
But no. It remained important that Wengest believed Rowan was his. It was the only thing protecting the child. One glimmer of auburn in her hair and Wengest would realize the truth.
Bluebell sat up and glanced across at his sleeping form. No doubt they’d want to be together now that Wengest had put Rose aside. Then there would be more bastard babies to deal with. She kicked off her blanket and crossed the room to stand over him. Nudged him with her toe. Firmly.
He startled awake, blinking back sleep. Looked at her curiously.
“Get up and ready to leave,” she spat.
Heath climbed to his feet and Bluebell waited while he pulled on his shoes and rolled up his pack. Then she gestured for him to follow, as she led him outside into the dew-drenched night.
She took him through the front garden and out under the carved wooden arch, her bare feet growing damp. Then she leaned back on a pillar and he stood in front of her, wordless. He knew what was coming.
“I specifically asked you not to—”
“I know!” he said, holding up both hands.
“Then why did you?”
“Because Rose specifically asked me otherwise.”
She studied him in the gloom. His face gave away nothing about what he was thinking, but she knew he was afraid of her. “And why should I not put you to the sword, just as Wengest would if he knew?”
He took a deep shaking breath. “Because I have been a loyal and hardworking soldier.”
“That’s true. Mostly. But a loyal soldier might have kept his cock in his trousers when told to.”
“Have you never loved, Bluebell?”
She smiled grimly. “You sound like Rose. Yes, I have loved. I love Rose. I love all my sisters. My father, of course. I have friends whom I love dearly. I have even desired. Don’t look so shocked. But my love and my desire have always been subject to my duty. I have great power, great wealth, great fame. These things are not just granted to me, an accident of my birth that I sit around and enjoy without responsibility, as Wengest does. I earn them. I live for my kingdom and I would die for it. Every breath I draw, I draw for my king, for Almissia, for the greater good of Thyrsland. If I didn’t, I’d be crippled by my guilt. And I am constantly amazed that nobody else in my family feels that way.”
He dropped his head. Was he ashamed? He ought to be.
“I would give up my life, Heath, and have my body burned to ashes that travel forever on the cold wind. You and Rose, you wouldn’t even give up each other.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You have to go.”
“Of course. Back to Folkenham? Or would you have me back in Blickstow?”
“Neither. You have to go into exile.”
His head snapped up.
“You are no longer my soldier and, under threat of death, you are not to return to my kingdom or your uncle’s kingdom.”
“Bluebell—”
She held up her hand to stop him. “No excuses. No pleading. Rose and Rowan’s safety is at stake now. You need to be far, far away from them both, and far away from Wengest lest he has a moment of acumen and realizes Rowan isn’t his. This dangerous game is over. You will leave now and you will not look back.”
He set his chin, and looked like nothing so much as a boy pretending to be brave to impress his father. An owl hooted in the trees, a lonely sound. “I will go,” he said, “but not because you threaten me. I’ll go because I love Rose and I would do anything to keep her and our daughter safe.”
“Whatever you want to believe about yourself is fine with me,” Bluebell grumbled. “Go find yourself a wife. Have babies. Have a life. Rose is never going to be yours.”
She could see her last remark had hurt him, as intended.
“Will you tell Rose why I’ve gone?”
“I don’t know. Probably.”
“I couldn’t stand her to think I didn’t care for her.”
Bluebell frowned. “Rose is not yours to worry about anymore. I can take care of my sister; better than you ever could. You led her into danger and misery.”
“I cared only for her happiness.”
“Well, perhaps spend the next few lonely years thinking really hard about that,” Bluebell said dismissively, “because I’ve never seen her look so unhappy.”
She watched him go to the stable, then she crept back inside, careful not to wake anyone. Rose was still asleep, oblivious. Bluebell had a sharp pang of sympathy for her sister. No doubt the loss of Heath would hurt her, but she would be better off. Perhaps Bluebell could see if the elders in Thridstow would take Rose in Ash’s place at the study halls. Certainly, Rose needed something to do with her time.
Bluebell crouched next to Rose a moment and stroked her hair gently. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. Then she lay down, and finally slept.