“Thank you,” I said, teeth clenched, forcing the word through a smile.
The sound of my voice snapped him back into motion. He tended the wound while Alma droned on about the order of the wedding ceremony. I committed each ritual to memory, interrupting when clarity demanded it.
“Our hands?” I asked as she explained the blood mingling.
She pursed her lips, considering. “‘Tis tradition, yes. Though Queen Samyntha once chose her forearm.”
“The palm is more prone to infection,” the healer added, attention fixed on my neck as he applied fresh dressing.
“Has King Kallias voiced any preference?” I asked.
“Not that I am aware of,” Alma said, brow creasing.
“I request the forearm, in the tradition of old.”
My concern lay less with myself than with his grip faltering in battle from a cut across his palm. He had fought wounded before, but Tallon would not offer mercy.
I would not be the thing that held Kallias back.
“Noted.” Alma darted to the dresser, stealing the healer’s quill to scratch the change onto parchment.
The healer smiled to himself while spreading sap with a thin stick, convinced he had influenced me.
I let him believe it. Infection was no trifling matter. If I could prevent one, I’d catch two fish with one hook.
Once the bandage was secure and Alma finished tightening the laces beyond comfort, we moved through the halls. The walls no longer felt bare; their former glory was returning piece by piece. Vines followed newly set hooks in the sandstone, stretching toward high windows. Paintings I pulled from the archives filled the gaps. Our portraits of dragons would join them soon—as well as my own one day.
“Ah, here it is,” Alma said as we reached a massive painting tucked into a quiet corner of the palace I had yet to explore.
Kallias hadn’t changed much.
The glow surrounding the young man standing atop the wall between the Golden Palace and Reem obscured his features, but his stance pulled a grin from me. Boots planted wide. Shoulders squared. Spear lifted toward the sun. Strength radiated from him even then.
He could not have been much more than a boy.
“How old was he?” I asked, studying the crowd gathered below him.
His parents stood at the base of the wall, both wearing mantles. The king bore the same one Kallias wore now. The queen’s was delicate, shaped from single leaves bracketing her shoulders.
“Fifteen years,” Alma said, awe softening her voice.
I stepped closer, tracing the shock of gray in his father’s hair. Deep lines carved his brow, intensified by the proud smile lifting his cheeks. His mother glowed with joy, mouth open in laughter, her hand wrapped around her husband’s arm. The artist captured the tenderness in that grasp.
A pang of longing tightened in my chest. I would never meet them. They looked kind, and I had never heard a cruel word spoken against them.
“He was so young,” I murmured, eyes drawn to the vivid garb. It was so different from today’s drab, undyed styles. Color filled the canvas; a world before scarcity. Before war stripped people down to survival.
Once, Radaan knew peace for centuries, troubled only by bandits and border disputes.
Now, people were content to just survive. Clothing served function. Coin fed families or paid workers; no longer wasted on frivolous, indulgent things like pigment.
“I want to meet whoever oversees the color merchants,” I said, leaning back before a sharp sting along my scab reminded me to straighten.
“Pigments, dyes, or stains?” Alma asked, unfazed by my request.
“Dyes—clothing, specifically. I want to see people dressed like this again.” My fingers lifted toward the painting. “Radaan has been in survival mode long enough. It is time for her to thrive.”
My brush flew across the canvas, wandering without intent. My mind drifted in the bustle of the day, my hand moving on its own. What I painted was familiar, so ingrained into my soul I could have done it blindfolded.
