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“Lilibet—the Queen?” Lin was stunned. “Kel, you are frightening me a bit. If the Prince has injured himself in some foolish way, surely that cannot be—”
“He did not injure himself. He has been whipped.”
Lin sat back, openmouthed. “Who would whip a Prince of Castellane? Are they in the Trick now?”
Kel said, tonelessly, “It was a royal order. He had to be whipped.”
“I don’t understand.”
Kel looked at her in a sort of agony. The angle of the carriage indicated to Lin that they had begun to climb the Hill. She was suddenly desperate to know what had happened. Surely no one would whip the son of House Aurelian with true severity. The body of the Crown Prince was almost holy. He was precious, irreplaceable.
“Conor,” Kel said, “displeased his father. The King felt he should be made to understand his duty. He ordered Legate Jolivet to whip him until he lost consciousness.”
Lin curled her hands into fists to keep them still. The story seemed incredible. The way Mayesh had always described King Markus—distant, dreamy, studious—did not seem to match this behavior at all.
“And the Legate—he agreed to this?”
“He had no choice,” said Kel, almost unwillingly. “Jolivet has always disapproved faintly of Conor, and the way he lives his life—and me as well, by extension; he considers us both a pair of wastrels—but he cares for Conor. He did not wish to do what he did.”
“Has this,” Lin whispered, “happened before?”
“No,” Kel said. He ran his hands through his hair, agitated. “We were in the Gallery. Conor had angered everyone—gray hell, I don’t think there was anyone who wasn’t furious, but still—theKing had Jolivet take him to the Hayloft, the room where we train. I went, too; no one stopped me. And Lilibet ran after, calling for Jolivet to stop, but the King’s orders supersede all others. It has just been so long since he has given any.” His breath quickened. “I thought it would be symbolic. A lash or two over his jacket, to show him he’d done wrong. The King was not eventhere,but Jolivet had his orders. He knew them—and had known them a long time, I think. He made Conor kneel. Whipped him through his shirt, until the shirt came apart like wet paper.” He made a dry, retching noise. Clenched his right hand tightly. “Five lashes, ten, then I lost count. It stopped when he was unconscious.” He looked at Lin. “There was nothing I could do. I am meant to be Conor’s shield, his armor. But there wasnothing I could do.I told them to whip me instead, but Jolivet did not even seem to hear.”
There was a metallic taste in Lin’s mouth. She said, “The Legate had his orders from the King. You could not have made him disobey them. Kel—where is the Prince now?”
“Our room,” Kel said. “Jolivet carried him there. Like he carried me, when I came to Marivent.”
“And there was discussion of finding a physician?” Lin could see the white glow of Marivent, swelling outside the windows, as if they were nearing the moon.
“None of the Palace staff know what happened. The Queen was afraid to summon even Gasquet, as the news would travel so quickly through the Hill. That the King had whipped Conor. That there was discord in the House. That Conor had been shamed.”
“I do not see anything shameful about it,” said Lin. “If there is shame, it is the King’s.”
“The Charter Families will not see it that way. They will see it as weakness, a crack in the foundation of House Aurelian. I told the Queen about you—that you had healed me before, that you were Bensimon’s granddaughter. That you wouldn’t talk. So she agreed to let me fetch you. She is Marakandi; they have a great faith in Ashkari physicians.”
“I won’t know,” Lin said. “I won’t know what I can do until I see him.”
She knew, though did not say, that whipping alone could kill a man. Blood loss, shock, even damage to the internal organs. She thought of Asaph and the long fall down the cliffs to the sea. Did they—the Queen, the Legate, even the King—understand what had been done? Surely they had never seen whip scars, that ugly grid of pain and trauma that ached long after the wounds had healed.
“I know,” Kel said, as they passed beneath the North Gate. “But if it were not you, Lin, there would be no one. No other physician who could attend him. I—”
So I am not the best, just the only,she thought, but she was not angry. How could she be? It was so plain in Kel’s face that there was more than duty here, more than obedience that had been drummed into him through years of training. It did not matter how much she believed that, in his place, she would resent Prince Conor, even hate him. She was not in his place. She could not understand.
The carriage had come to a stop in the courtyard of the Castel Mitat. Kel threw the door open, leaping down to the ground, and turned to help her down after him. “Come,” he said. “I will bring you to him.”
Sulemon passed over the city walls and into the land of Aram, and found it deserted. Many of its great buildings, its temples and libraries, its gardens and marketplaces, lay in ruins, but while he saw much destruction, he did not see death: The people of Aram were gone, the city and the land uninhabited. Adassa had held off the sorcerers long enough for her people to escape.
In fury, Suleman climbed the tower of Balal, his stone burning like a flame at his side. And when he reached the top, he found the Queen waiting for him.
It seemed she could barely stand. She had been worn away like a candle burned down to the wick. He knew then that she was dying, that she had used all she had—the power in her stone, and then her own power—to hold off the enemies of her people.
“What have you done?” he cried. “You have blackened the land, and your city lies abandoned. Where have your people gone?”
“They have escaped,” she said. “Far beyond your reach.”
But Suleman only shook his head. “Nothing is beyond the reach of sorcerers, and when you are dead, we will hunt your people down and make them slaves through the generations. You have won nothing.”
And Adassa felt despair.
