| |
Nuris dreamt of flames. He wasn’t sure if he could see Nelda amongst them or Aphera—he was searching for them both. He could feel the panic building inside him that he had lost her. That no matter if he found her amidst the heat, she would be lost to him. A sharp pain shot through him and he sat up in a narrow cot, the army surgeon scowling down at him.
“Burns on burns,” the man growled.
Nuris looked over the dark, bloody mess that was his arm and lay back down.
“I want her out,” the surgeon said forcefully.
“No,” came a child’s voice. Nuris turned and took in the little one, her face as grimy as it had been when he had first seen her in the cage, the same tear stains tracking down her cheeks. He reached out with his other hand and brushed his fingers over her cheek. She grabbed quickly at his hand. “I must stay,” she said.
Nuris nodded and turned back to the surgeon. “Take it off if you must,” he said.
“It will work once it heals, and not as well as it did. I am willing to let you keep it.” The surgeon stalked away, and Nuris turned back to the child.
“Are you hurt?”
She shook her head.
“Were you frightened?”
She nodded then, another tear running down her face. “I was scared for you,” she said.
“Oh, Pip,” he sighed. She sat down on the cot then and lay across his chest. It hurt, but he didn’t complain, closing his good arm around her.
He must have drifted back to sleep, for he woke as something was dragged across his skin. He couldn’t hold in the cry of pain. He glanced at the surgeon standing at the end of the cot and then at the child sitting beside him, very focused as she applied cream to his burns.
“It must be done,” she whispered without looking at him.
“Carry on,” he said. He bit down on his lip to try and prevent another cry of pain.
“Shh,” she murmured as though soothing the cry he hadn’t made.
“Have they found them?” Nuris asked.
“Who?” asked a deeper voice, and he looked around at the king standing beside the bed. Nuris made to sit up, but couldn’t find the strength.
“The witches,” he clarified, but it was Nelda he worried about. The idea of what the cardinal might be doing to her was more frightening than what he might not be able to do with his arm going forward. All those years of hate, and none of it had mattered once he’d held her in his arms again.
“I have someone looking,” the king said, his voice low. Nuris wondered at his change of heart. Or was it a way to ensure he had control over her and was able to end her when he wanted? As long as he got her away from the cardinal and his men, it didn’t matter.
“The boys?” Nuris asked.
“Safe,” the king said.
Nuris looked up at him, staring off into the distance. In the dim light of the room, it was hard to make out his features, and Nuris pressed his eyes closed. There was a similarity between one of the boys, one of Nelda’s boys, and the man before him. Had the prince survived, or had this man fathered another son? Not that he believed the king would have fathered a child with Nelda. He had barely known who she was before the fire. But something gave Nuris pause—something pulled at him about the boy. Just as he knew that the queen was responsible in some way for that fire. “What happened?” he asked.
“The fire?” the king returned. Nuris nodded and then flinched as the child dragged more cream across his arm.
“I am almost finished,” she said, something soothing in her voice. He nodded, tempted to close his eyes and sleep once more, but he blinked up at the king instead.
“We don’t know. I assume your little witch didn’t start it,” he said.
“I don’t have fire,” she returned matter-of-factly, “as you know.”
“Yes,” the king said, a comfortable grin spread across his face.
Has he come to like this child as well?
“Have you had any visitors? Anyone you don’t know or couldn’t trust?” the king asked, returning his attention to Nuris.
“Only those you have sent to us, the soldier and his maid.”
Pip hung her head.
“Are they...? Did they survive?” Nuris asked.
“Yes,” the king replied. “The girl is yet to wake. They think it the smoke.”
Nuris nodded. That meant the soldier was out of action, as he was unlikely to leave the maid’s side. He had wanted to ask about their connection, but he knew better.
“Sir?” the child asked, drawing the surgeon’s attention.
“That is good,” the man said, reaching out to pat her head and then rethinking it. His hand hovered above her. “You can dress it now. There is silk.”
“And then we can get on the road,” Nuris said. Although he still didn’t have the strength to sit.
“We will find her,” the king assured him, although something about his look didn’t reassure Nuris at all.
“She didn’t start the fire,” he said.
“I know,” the king returned.
“The first one,” Nuris clarified. The king looked down and then waved the surgeon away.
“Do you mind, Your Majesty?” Pip asked, and he looked at her for a moment as she lifted Nuris’s arm. He came around the bed and sat down to hold Nuris by the hand. Pip nodded and carefully started to wind the bandages around the saved arm, starting with the hand the king held.
“Who do you think started it?” the king asked, his voice low.
Nuris took a breath and held it, unsure if he should say anything at all. The king looked at him with a desperation Nuris didn’t think he had seen previously in the man. “I don’t know for sure,” he said. “It is a guess.”
“Your guessing skills have always been good enough for me.”
“A... the queen,” Nuris whispered.
The king looked at him for a moment and then to the child.
“Why?”
“To hide the child.”
“What child?” the king asked.
“The prince,” Nuris said, although every fibre of his being told him it was a mistake to share such thoughts.
The king dropped his arm, and he cried out. Pip grumbled something under her breath.
“You think he lives?” the king implored.
Nuris wanted to shrug, wanted to take back all he had said. “I’m not certain.”
“Why?” the king asked, his voice too loud and too high.
“I don’t know,” Nuris whispered.
“Guess,” the king growled.
“I can’t,” he insisted.
“Who was the child in the crib?” the king asked, his voice so low Nuris strained to hear him.
“I don’t know that either,” he returned. Nor could he understand how the woman he had thought he cared about for so long could do such a thing.
“My son lives,” the king whispered.
“I am not certain.” Nuris insisted, although he was.
“Where might he be?” he asked, but then turned on his heel and ran from the room.
“What will it mean when people know who he is?” Pip asked, trying to hold his arm and wrap it at the same time.
“You know,” Nuris whispered, trying not to cry out as she worked.
“As do you. He...” She paused, seemingly focused on her work. He tried to help by holding his arm up, but it was hard. She moved around to sit on the bed, resting his hand on her leg and then leaning over to work. “It is almost as though I could see it around him, like the crown floated above his head.”
“You have met him,” Nuris whispered.
She nodded as she wrapped beyond the burn, almost to his shoulder, and then gently tucked in the end of the bandage. She took another piece of silk between her teeth and tore it, wrapping it around the end of the bandage and tying it off. “I don’t think that is right,” she said, her face creasing, “but it will not come away.”
Nuris nodded, gently touching the wrapped arm with his fingertips, and it was less painful.
“The cream,” she said. “It contains herbs to help with the healing and numb the pain.”
“Thank you,” he said.
She leaned back across him, resting on his chest. It hurt to breathe, although his coughing had subsided. He had coughed for months after the last fire.
“Is Frayne safe from the queen?” he whispered to the child in his arms.
“No,” she returned just as quietly. “She wants him to be safe, but she cannot accept what he is.”
“And what is that?” Nuris asked, feeling his eyes pull closed again.
“He is like you.”
“Me?”
She pulled up, leaning on his chest to look him in the eye. He found it harder to breathe, unsure if that was due to her gaze or the weight on his chest. How had he accepted this little one so quickly?
“A witch’s twin,” she said.
He sat up, trying not to grab at his damaged arm.
“How do you know that?” he demanded. She sat back, appearing a little frightened of him for the first time.
“I know Nelda,” she said.
“The boy. How do you know he is a witch’s twin?” He lowered his voice, looking around the dim space in fear they might be overheard.
“I can see it,” she said with a slight shrug, as though she couldn’t fully explain it, and tears glistened in her eyes. “Like Nelda saw it.”
“A twin,” he whispered.
She nodded slowly.
“Where is she?” he asked, thinking of Grace. The little witch he had saved from the cardinal, the one he should have allowed the man to kill.
Pip shook her head then, the tears spilling over. He pulled her close, holding her to his chest, his useless arm hanging down beside him. Either she was lost, or she was the child burned in the fire.
“Aphera,” he murmured. She knew the truth—she had to. She had birthed two children, murdered one, and the other she must have sent away. But would she admit to such a thing if he were announced? If his identity were revealed? And how would she explain Nelda claiming him as her own?