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Noting my unsteady legs, Garrick wrapped one arm beneath my knees and another under my lower back, his warm fingers splayed against my bare skin. I tried to ignore the way my heart and body reacted all at once. “You’re so soft,” he whispered, but my thoughts were hazy, and I was sure I was imagining it. He held me close to his chest as he carried me to the bed, gently laying me down.
Bleary, I blinked my eyes at him, startled when he took my hand in his tenderly. I was sinking into exhaustion, and I wanted to welcome blissful unconsciousness rather than continue to feel the pain shooting through my ribs. Even my earlier fear seemed distant.
“The healer will help,” Garrick murmured. “I’m sorry, Starlight.”
I’m sorry, Starlight.I jolted awake as agony tore through my body.
A fae woman with large, owlish eyes and snowy feathers for hair hovered over me. Crying out, I thrashed in the bed, instinctively trying to slap her away. “If you want to heal, Your Majesty,” she said through gritted teeth, “you’ll hold still. Otherwise, I’ll have him put you to sleep again.”
Again?Betrayal slammed through me as my thoughts fully cleared. My eyes found Garrick on the other side of the bed, his face once again expressionless. How had he drugged me?
The pain in my ribs was swiftly melting into a soothing warmth, helping me to breathe easily. The owl-like woman glanced at Garrick. “Why didn’t their healer do her job correctly?”
“I’ll talk to the king and queen about it,” Garrick said.
The woman scowled. “You’d better. This woman might be trapped in a frail human body, but that means we need to protect her all the more. She’s our only hope, hunter.”
“I know this.” This time, Garrick’s tone was a growl. “Why do you think I’m tasked with guarding her?”
Something flashed in the woman’s eyes, like suspicion and dislike. Maybe she had the same thought that I did: that Isolde hadn’t fully healed me because the king and queen had commanded her not to. That they wanted me to look weak, so they could remain powerful.
I wanted to seize the healer’s hand, to beg her to stay and help me. She was on my side.
But then she continued speaking. “I have a potion to help inspire wakefulness. It’s a drug one should only use sparingly, but a small dose of it should be enough to keep her awake to perform her trial.” Her eyes shot to me. “You’ll be healed enough for tonight. Prove you are truly worthy of the throne, mortal. I lost my closest friends and two children to those bloody underworld creatures. We need you to seal that door once and for all.”
My hope dulled. Of course, even the citizens who were eager to welcome and help me still wanted something from me. They’d never let me escape. Everyone in this accursed city would do everything they could to throw me into the next arena, the next deadly trial.
Worse still, exhaustion from being healed was making my limbs turn leaden and my eyelids grow heavy already. I would bein no condition to flee. They’d only drug me to wake me just in time to drag me to the next test. To my death.
I was doomed.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Bitter liquid spilled into my mouth, waking me up. Instinctively, I tried to spit it out, but a gentle hand covered my lips. “Swallow,” the owlish woman bid me. I blinked up at her face as I forced myself to swallow and accept more of the concoction when she pressed a vial to my mouth.
The world was hazy on the edges, and it was only as I drank the last drop of liquid that I became conscious of voices muttering nearby. My eyes flicked toward the corner across the room, where Garrick and Isolde were engaged in a heated conversation, apparently unaware that the healer had woken me. The room was dark, and the pair was shrouded in shadows from where the light of the candle at my bedside scarcely reached.
Night had fallen. My next trial was soon. Fear dug talons into my chest.
“You’re supposed to be the best healer in the kingdom,” Garrick was saying, his tone as harsh as a blade scraped against stone.
“I am,” Isolde responded, crossing her arms.
“Then if you won’t tell me what happened, answer me plainly. Did you fail to heal Ren completely?”
