A fracture furrowed its way through the very center of me and I knew if I let it go on much longer it would break me completely. “Make it stop. Make it stop,” I shouted.
Gideon barked at the priest who nodded to the priestess. An acrid scent filled the air and then someone grabbed my arm and cut another slice through my palm. The metallic odor mixed with the brew, and then someone shoved it under my nose. It smelled even worse the second time around, but I didn’t care. I’d drink whatever they wanted if it would take the pain away.
It went down my throat like rivulets of ice, cooling and numbing everything in its wake. The pain subsided in gradual waves until it left me exhausted and cold on the floor, surrounded by concerned and mistrustful faces.
Gideon shouldered his way through them and fell to his knees. He gathered me up in his arms like he used to when we were kids, but the look on his face was anything but affectionate.
“What does this mean?” I asked him.
“It means we must get you out of the castle,” was his grim reply.
* * *
“My lady?”A tentative hand on my shoulder ripped me from the foggy reverie. “We’re here.”
An icy sweat dampened my brow and the meager contents of my stomach threatened to reappear. Leisha offered a cloth soaked in lavender mist to wash my face. Appearing at court for the first time in years with a sour sweat streaming from my pores would be a fatal mistake—one I couldn’t afford. The restorative soothed my nerves and left a refreshing, pleasant floral note on my skin to mask any apprehension. Living amongst the humans at the temple had given me more of a reprieve than I’d thought.
The shifter race, gifted with enhanced senses and keen eyesight in addition to their inherited familial powers, wouldn’t hesitate to go for my proverbial—and literal—throat at the first sign of weakness. I had no illusions about meeting the Dragon. Revered as the fiercest of all our kind, he would be no different than all the rest. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if he were worse. The rumors I’d heard—
“Is something wrong?” Leisha inquired.
I gathered my furs around my throat and accepted the hand of the waiting steward. Lord Blaque was the least of my worries. First, I wanted to face the court and see my father. The Dragon couldn’t be worse than that.
Could he?
“All is well,” I told her, pleased my voice didn’t waver.
Maybe saying it aloud would make it true.
“Should I walk with you to your rooms to get freshened up?” she asked. Her eyes were tight with concern.
I shook my head. “I’d like to visit my father straightaway.”
“But isn’t Lord Blaque going to be waiting for you?”
“I will visit my father first,” I reiterated.
Leisha bowed her head, but it wasn’t fast enough to hide the look of reprimand on her face. “Yes, my lady.”
Gideon disappeared, no doubt to announce our arrival, and I would take advantage of the opportunity to slip away, despite the disapproval I’d receive as a result. I would not shirk my duties, but my priority was seeing my father before it was too late.
The first steward I found dressed in simple breeches and a clean linen shirt gaped at me as I asked him where the King was resting. He pointed toward a section of the castle used for treating the ill and injured, and I hastened toward it before he could ask what the disgraced princess was doing back in the castle.
A wave of sour air greeted me upon entrance to my father’s chambers. I pasted a smile on my face that I hoped didn’t look as brittle as it felt, even though there was no one to see it. His room was empty save for his wheezing form, a shadow of the man he’d once been. I turned from the thought and the wave of sadness that crested in my chest and strode to the enormous windows across from his bed. The ancient shutters creaked in protest as I shoved them open. The healer would no doubt have my hide, but I didn’t care. I didn’t have it in me to let my father, the greatest man I’d ever known, waste away in his own filth. It couldn’t be healthy to stew in the scent of sickness.
I crossed to his bed, resting a hip on the chair arm next to him as I studied his recumbent form. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. A rogue tear streaked down my cheek, and I wiped it away with a violent movement.
My father, much as shifter-kind would like to disagree, was a great man. Despite the temper so looked down upon amongst our kind, he hadbeen a caring person and he absolutely doted on my mother. According to the best healer the lands could provide, his illness resulted from heartbreak after my mother died giving birth to me. As I smoothed his chestnut hair away from his brow, I chided myself for talking of him in the past tense. Gideon may think he would die, but I wasn’t so certain. Or maybe I was deluded. Even so, I’d rather be delusional for a while longer than give up on him forever. I’d already lost one parent…I couldn’t bear to lose another.
“He was asking for you,” Gideon said, entering from Father’s adjoining study. He didn’t join me by his bedside. Instead, he hovered in the doorway. “I knew I’d find you here. The pain became too much, so I instructed the healer to supply him with a sleeping draught.”
I turned away from him, my throat closing around the bitter words that threatened to spew forth. I knew there wouldn’t be a joyous conversation to be had at our parting, but I, at the very least, wanted to tell him goodbye. To have him call me La-lena one last time like he did when Gideon and I were children. The sickness caused by losing a mate, when the match was said to be blessed by the Goddess, was enough to cause one of the greatest men I’d ever known to whither away to nothing.
“I’m sorry, sister,” Gideon offered, but the words sounded hollow.
“No, don’t be silly,” I said, though I didn’t know if I was talking to Gideon...or myself. “He needs his rest.” I shifted enough to brush back a lock of hair from Father’s brow, frowning when I caught sight of all the silver strands. He’d been so vital once, so solid. “Do the healers bring any news about his condition? Have there been any improvements?” I looked back knowing I was grasping at nothing, but trying anyway. I would always keep trying.
To lose hope was to give up, and I would be damned if I was going to do either.
