YARIN, TO SARAN’S great relief, could not send a letter to Mavahan that night. While there were several individuals with the capacity to take over the role of messenger, none of them seemed to have the way with birds that the last messenger possessed. Short-range crows and long-range pigeons were different in temperament. She’d learned this from Madam Ophelia, whom Yarin sent down to her small dank cell just beneath the first floor of the castle to tend to the abrasions from her beating.
The cell wasn’t so far down as to encase her in complete, hopeless darkness. It sat just at the edge of that bleak, inescapable prison, where the air wasn’t too cold or the floor too damp. A bed made of straw sat tucked in the corner with a tin bowl to piss in. A metal grated window hung where the top of the wall met the short ceiling. A small beam of moonlight filtered in to bathe the torchless room in a pale glow. The storm had passed.
A guard stood at the open door, his arms folded across his broad armored chest, and a sympathetic frown marred his features. He watched Madam Ophelia tend to the wounds with the aid of a very weak candle resting on the floor near her knees.
Madam Ophelia’s cold hands wrapped gossamer bandages about Saran’s arms to cover the scrapes. The healer took greater care with the smaller wounds than she normally would, muttering about the conditions in which the princess would be kept and how they could lead to infection.
Saran hadn’t spoken a word since the woman arrived. A hundred thoughts warred in her mind, some she felt the need to voice, but the heaviness in her heart made the idea of speaking them too exhausting. She resigned herself to watching the old woman, whose gray hair pulled so tight that her wrinkles stretched smooth.
“There are a few spells I can run on your blood to determine whether or not you are carrying a child,” Madam Ophelia said. “Shall I?”
This startled Saran. She’d convinced herself so surely that it was true, she hadn’t even considered the possibility that it wasn’t.
“Yes.” Her voice broke as she spoke and she coughed to clear her throat.
“It won’t hurt to add another cut to you.” The healer sighed, taking out a tiny blade and holding it up to Saran’s finger. The guard at the door took a half step forward but stopped when Saran lifted her hand. Strange, she thought, that the man keeping her prisoner felt a duty to protect her from a tiny knife.
Madam Ophelia cut Saran’s finger and drained the blood into a small glass vial, which she corked and pressed into the pocket of her cotton apron. “I’ll come back when the spell is over.”
Saran grabbed her hand as she stood and drew her low enough to whisper, “I’m not. Do you understand? Even if it says I am, I’m not. Tell no one the truth.”
Madam Ophelia’s eyes, often cold and distant, softened. She pressed her other hand to the top of Saran’s head. “My loyalty is always and ever to you. Soon we will show them the light. When you are queen, we will rise.”
Saran nodded softly, her lips parting with words she wouldn’t speak. There were too many prophecies, too many conflicting religions, and too many people who believed in salvation derived from impossible idols. The healer was part of a sect of women who worshipped the Grand Feminine, a belief that men were inferior and had doomed the world, and that one day a woman would rise to power and the reign of man would be over. Women would rule over the world, bringing peace and justice. A fairy tale. Saran didn’t believe in it, and she wasn’t unwilling to use it to her advantage. But when confronted with Madam Ophelia’s kindness and loyalty, it made Saran want to admit the truth.
But she wouldn’t.
Like her father and his Living God, Madam Ophelia wouldn’t be swayed from her beliefs. She wore this look in her cold eyes, a hardness as sharp as diamonds that said, if pushed, she had a terrifying desire for violence and a need to quench it. Madam Ophelia was dangerous, though her power could only ever be used for healing. Saran realized then how glad she was that healers only possessed the power for mending and not breaking.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Madam Ophelia scooped up her bag of medical supplies and the candle on the floor. She gave Saran a gentle curtsy before the guard let her out and locked the door behind her.
In the dark, quiet cell, Saran lay stiff and sore across the straw bed. It smelled of mildew and dust, and each breath she took coated the inside of her mouth and nose with dirt.