Page 16 of Feralheart

He couldn’t. The cough kept dragging him under, shaking him until he folded in half. When it finally let go, he spat into a cloth. Pink stained the fabric.

Mother’s cough had started with pink too. By the end it had gone red, then nearly black. She’d drowned in it while I held her hand and couldn’t do anything but watch.

Father stood in the doorway to his bedroom, his hands hanging empty at his sides. The helplessness on his face was its own kind of terror.

He came over to join us, his movements slow, a man aged too fast walking through water. He put his hand over Tolross’s, the one still clutching the cloth.

“It’s getting worse,” he whispered.

I nodded because my throat would choke on the word.

A castle guard, he’d been trained to protect. Now he spent his days underground breaking his body for coins that weren’t enough, while his son bled out on the surface.

“We’ll find a way,” he said.

He couldn’t fix this and neither could I. We were drowning together and calling it staying afloat.

I made Tolross drink the rest of the tonic and waited until he’d fallen asleep before leaving his side. In my bedroom, I pulled my coin purse from the drawer and emptied it into my palm.

Three coppers and a dull half-mark.

Not enough.

Never enough.

Tiptoeing back into the living area, I tucked Tolross’s poem into my pocket and sat in my chair by the stove. I counted each rise and fall of my little brother’s chest until dawn started graying the sky.

By the first lift bell, Father had left for work, and I’d chosen the worst idea. When the midday break bell rang, I’d go back into the elite woods. I’d take what Tolross needed, and I’d do it without pausing to help anyone else.

If they caught me this time, there’d be no prince to turn the hunt away.

But Tolross was coughing up pink, and the apothecary wouldn’t extend credit, and we were out of options.

I pulled on my boots in the early-morning twilight and secured my gathering knife and bag to my belt.

After refilling Tolross’s water and placing his lunch within reach, I slipped out the front door.

The air bit cold enough to sting, and somewhere above, beyond the laundry lines and the smoke, the fortress’s bonewailer sat silent.

For now.

CHAPTER FIVE

FEN

At dawn, I arrived at the council chamber.

My mother’s voice cut through the room before I’d fully entered. “The Scorching will be held in one week.” Her posture was so still she could’ve been carved from the same pale stone as the castle walls.

I stopped mid-step, one hand still on the door.

Not three weeks. One.

“I see.” I closed the door and started across the room.

The council chamber had been built to make a person feel insignificant, with high ceilings that swallowed sound and windows facing the mountain range instead of Shaleside below, as if the kingdom’s business couldn’t be troubled with what actually lived there. Light slanted across the broad wooden table, cold and white.

I took my seat at Mother’s right hand. The chair had been constructed of the best wood and positioned outside the council’s half-circle.