When Airlie questions her about other options, she explains the herbs she would require to make healing tinctures, even going as far as explaining how long it would take for her to prepare them and how long they would last.
Airlie soaks it all up, hanging on her every word, brow furrowed. I see the panic recede with every moment that passes until finally, she nods and accepts the witch’s decision.
When the silence falls over the room once more, Airlie clears her throat and hands the witch the baby without hesitation. As she leans over Roan's sleeping form, her cheek pressed against his, she murmurs quietly into her husband's ear, low enough that the witch wouldn’t be able to hear it, but I can.
Slow enough that I don’t jar my wound, I step into the doorway overlooking the gutted garden to give her some privacy and take a deep breath to settle myself. It’s the first real one I’ve taken since I returned to find Airlie in her labors and the baby arriving, but we’re finally back in the safety of Yregar once more. There’s nothing left for me to do now but keep watch as we wait. The witch’s healing work has put some color back into Roan’s cheeks, thank the Fates, and I'm glad Airlie didn’t see him when I first got him back here.
I have no doubt she would still be sobbing.
Firna brought down a more comfortable cot, with extra padding and blankets, and before she sends Airlie on her way, the witch instructs the guards to assist me in moving Roan on to it from the stretcher-style bed she healed him on, watching with a shrewd eye to be sure we don't injure him further as we lift him down.
“Firna can bring another cot down here, and the crib for the baby. We’ll stay here with him,” Airlie says, tears in her voice as she presses her son's cheek gently into her own and inhales him as though his scent is her own form of pain relief.
At the sight of it, there’s a pain in my chest that matches the one in my side, a longing for the life she’s fought hard for and built around herself that the Fates keep holding just out of my own reach. Almost a thousand years of waiting only to have a witch for a mate, a queen no high fae will willingly bow to after Kharl’s war, and the prospective mother to a part-blood heir she will no doubt twist against my own bloodlines. No matter how strong the pull between us is, I can’t forget the future set out before me if I fail to keep my wits about me.
“There’s absolutely no good in you wearing yourself out down here. I’m working hard to help your milk supply—we’re not going to ruin it now by causing such stress. Roan will be under my constant care, and I’ll send a maid if his condition changes, but I won’t have you adding more work to the situation needlessly. In a few days we’ll be able to move him up to your rooms but, for now, keeping him here is for the best.”
She steps forward to clasp Airlie's shoulder with a gentle hand, ignoring Tauron and I as we react to the familiarity in the contact, but Airlie seems settled by it. A battle wages within me to tear them apart, but it takes only a glance down at Roan to keep myself in check. Until the witch proves my suspicions, it’s better to sit back and watch her, to let her comfort Airlie and let her guard down.
When the witch speaks, her voice is low but strong, the confidence of a competent healer shining through. “Your task is your son, and mine is Roan. If we work together now, we’ll see them both through this season and safely into each other’s arms. We’ve already broken a curse between us—this injury is nothing to that.”
Though tears fill her eyes, Airlie smiles and nods with a deep sigh. She ducks down to press a kiss to Roan's cheek, stroking his forehead as though checking for a temperature. When he doesn't wake at her touch, she straightens again and walks to Firna. The keeper clucks under her breath as she leads the princess out of the healer’s quarters, a soothing noise and a motherly presence in all the ways my cousin needs her to be.
I’ve already banished Aura to the guest rooms and set a soldier on guard to ensure they don't cross paths in the hallway. It’s everything I can do to respect Airlie’s wishes that no one else meets their son before Roan does, but it doesn’t feel like enough.
I had every intention of standing guard in the healer’s quarters with the soldiers assigned there, but the pain from the wound in my side flares again, and I know it won’t heal properly until I sleep. I have no choice but to make excuses and go back to my own rooms. I pass out cold the moment my head touches the pillow.
I wake before dawn, a cold sweat covering my body as the last of a deathly dream empties from my mind. I’m exhausted, my body seeming three times its usual weight as I drag myself from my sheets and into the bathroom. When I unwrap the bandages from around my stomach and wash away the cold sweat, I find my wound gone. The skin is healed over but still pink where the dagger was driven into my flesh, and it’s tight as I move.
I dress in my battle clothes, everything but my armor, then head down to the healer’s quarters with haste to check on Roan. The witch stands watch over him, tension in her stance and worry pinching at her brows that makes my stomach revolt.
Her eyes are grave as she meets my gaze. “There’s no change. I’m not concerned about it…yet.”
There’s no arguing with the tone of her voice, no hesitation or wheedling, she’s a healer giving her assessment, and though I might question everything else that spills out of those lips of hers, I have no doubt of her truth here.
I linger there for an hour, agitation at the wait crawling over me until I have no choice but to leave them, making my way to the barracks as a distraction. My presence might not be a distraction to the witch but if my impatience and irritation at my uselessness boils over, there’s no doubt I’ll become a problem to her.
I won’t let my own failings risk Roan’s life, not if I have control over them.
Commander Corym directs the soldiers through their daily tasks as the shifts go on around us. The castle and surrounding village are still on lockdown as we brace for an attack from the witches, especially as the raving masses had begun to swarm into the Outlands to draw us out.
Something inside of me warns that the witches’ attacks aren’t over yet, as though the Fates themselves are whispering in my ear that we've been too lucky. Roan's life being spared means there's still a price to pay for breaking the curse, a bounty on us all. It's the first real win the high fae have had in the war; even with the hundreds of small battles we’ve won, overall, the witches have still claimed more.
The tightness in my torso is a concern. The captain asks if I want to spar, a casual invitation to warm up and loosen my muscles in case we get the call, and I accept with a sharp nod. I change into my training armor and grab my dull sword, swinging it with ease even as my shoulder aches with an older injury.
I’m used to the pains of war.
I face the soldiers three at a time, each of them well trained and competent with a sword but no match for me. Every soldier who taps out has another jumping in, over and over and over again, until I finally make it down to the last three soldiers. As my chest heaves and my body drips with sweat, a flash of silver catches my eye, and I turn to find the witch staring at me as she walks past the training grounds. Her arms are full of dead branches, and a maid holding a crate of dead leaves stands at her side. The path they’re on goes straight past the barracks and around the base of the castle to the royal gardens, once perfectly ornate and fruitful but now just another reminder of the barren state of the kingdom.
A soldier is with them, monitoring them and ensuring the witch can do no harm, but her eyes are trained on me, and I wonder how long she’s been watching me put the soldiers through their paces. Whether she'll admit it or not, she looks impressed, a keen assessment of many long centuries of hard work.
One of my soldiers rushes towards me, sword raised and a war cry on his lips. I turn to block him and swipe his legs out from underneath him, waiting until his body crashes to the ground before I tap his shoulder with my sword to mark his death were we on the battlefield. Luckily for him, the enemies we face aren’t high fae and most can barely lift a sword. Witches weren’t made for fighting; they’re weaker and mostly hide behind their magic.
I turn back to meet the witch’s eye, but she's gone, her back quickly disappearing from my sight line as she strides back to the medicinal garden, her arms now empty as she’s offloaded the branches for burning. The maid scurries closely by her side, her heeled shoes loud on the cobblestones as she struggles to keep up.
The soldiers don’t comment about the witch anymore, something akin to respect in their eyes as they watch her pass. Saving Roan's life and caring for him through his healing might have been enough for her to creep beneath their defenses and go in for the kill.
No matter how many high-fae lives she saves, she will always be a witch first.
