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Hopefully.
Juliana surveyed their surroundings, glancing at the sky. “We need to keep moving.”
“Where to?”
“Back towards Acanthia.”
Hawthorn buckled. It was over a day away by carriage. On foot he didn’t want to think. So much lay between them and their destination, a myriad of disasters— “It’s too far—”
“I spent years in these woods,” she reminded him. “Our old cottage isn’t too far away. We should reach it before nightfall.”
Hawthorn nodded, not sure what else he could do. Uselessness gnawed at him like a rodent. He followed Juliana further down the twisted path, pulling on the frayed cuffs of his shirt, trying not to look at his scuffed, mud-soaked boots on the flecks of blood and flesh splashed across his garments. He’d never been so filthy in his life.
He hoped the others were all right.
Not long before nightfall, they reached a tiny cottage beside a stream, swallowed up by the trees and half made of earth. It was a shallow slip of a building, the sort that looked like a strong breeze might blow it away.
Inside was barely any better. It had one main room, no proper space for bathing, and a tiny bedroom in the attic. A rudimentary kitchen was set around a fireplace. Most of the furniture was rough and crude, all sharp edges, no softness.
Easy as it was to imagine Juliana here, he felt she was better suited for palace life.
“Don’t,” Juliana growled.
“What?”
“I know how provincial it is.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
She shifted into the kitchen of sorts and started digging through cupboards. The place didn’t look picked clean, exactly. It was more like it had never had much in the way of belongings to begin with.
Juliana emerged from the cupboards with a small wooden box. She put it on the table, taking out dried herbs so old they’d practically disintegrated, needles, thread, and a small clear vial of something Hawthorn assumed was alcohol.
Wincing, she at last unbuckled her sword, hauling off her tunic and rolling up what remained of her shredded shirt.
Her upper arm was slashed. Why hadn’t he noticed?
“Not too bad,” she declared, dousing it with the alcohol. “Doesn’t need stitches.”
“Stitches?” Hawthorn recalled. “As in… sewing? Mortalssew their flesh?”
“We don’t have other options, not…”Not out here.
Because whenever she’d been injured as a child, she’d been treated by the same faerie healers he had access to. Mortals were more breakable, but fae magic healed them just as well.
But there were no healers out here.
“Here,” said Hawthorn, moving forward and grabbing her wrist, “let me.”
Juliana hesitated, but soon relented. His hand moved towards her wound, noticing other tiny silvery scars as he went. His palm hovered over her cut, and he tugged on the energy he’d always had, as a faerie, as a prince. The ability to change and manipulate matter in the way others could clench their fists.
Light poured from his fingertips, knitting her flesh back together. It wasn’t flawless, wasn’t perfect, but it now looked like it had happened days ago rather than hours.
“I’ve never been particularly adept at healing magic,” he said.
Juliana glanced down at her arm. “I still need to bind it.”
He shuffled off his own muddied doublet and found a patch of his silken shirt that remained unspoiled. It hardly seemed worth keeping at this point, and he didn’t much care for how filthy the rags in Juliana’s box looked.
