Kate hauled him over, wincing at how roughly she was handling him. Not that she could help it. He was so heavy, as if the drake poison were taking on weight inside him. His forehead burned with fever when she laid her fingers against it. His eyes slid open for a moment, before falling closed again. His breathing deepened, and she hoped he was truly asleep now. She didn’t want him awake for this next part.
Steeling her courage, she set about removing his belt and unfastening the buttons on his outer tunic. Once it was undone, she pulled his arms free one at a time. He wore short leather vambraces around each wrist. She unlaced them, pausing for a moment when she saw the tattoo on his right wrist: a hawk with a shield clutched in its talons. Recognition tugged at her mind but she couldn’t identify the symbol. Nevertheless, its presence sent a strange flutter through her stomach, a reminder of all the years that had passed since she’d last seen Corwin. He never had the tattoo when she knew him.
He’s a different person now, she reminded herself. As am I.
His under tunic proved a bigger challenge. She had to pull it up and over his head. He groaned as the fabric grazed his wounds, some of it stuck to him with dried blood. Once it was off, she tossed it aside. Then she looked down on him, trying to ignore his nakedness and focus only on the wounds that needed cleansing. Even still, a flush spread over her skin at the sight of his body, his skin smooth and perfect save for his injuries and the thin line of dark, coarse hair running down from his navel to the waist of his breeches.
Next she retrieved water from the well and set about cleaning the wounds. Her fingers trembled as she ran a wet rag over the gashes. For the puncture wounds, she poured water straight into them. Corwin flinched and came awake enough to cringe. But just as quickly he faded again.
With the wounds finally as clean as possible, she retrieved the jar of salve from her saddlebag. It was meant for horses, but she didn’t think it would harm him. At least it couldn’t be worse than the drake poison. Gently, Kate began to apply it. His skin was fire against her fingertips. When she finished with this, she would have to wet more rags and drape them over him to fight the fever. She herself was starting to get chilled, but there would be no fire tonight.
Kate became so focused on the task that she failed to notice when Corwin awoke.
“That tickles,” he said, capturing her hand where it hovered an inch over his bare chest. His fingers were listless, but his touch was heavy. It sent tingles down her arm.
She stared at him, startled to see he was close to lucid, more than he’d been so far during this long, horrible day. She dropped her gaze, a flush heating her skin once more. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be, Kate, sweet Kate, Traitor Kate. . . .”
She sucked in a breath at his use of her hated moniker. She raised her gaze to his face, for a second believing he’d meant to hurt her with those words, but he wasn’t as coherent as he’d momentarily seemed. She waited to see if he would say more. When he didn’t, she returned her focus to applying the salve.
Sometime later she heard him draw a ragged breath. “You are so beautiful, Kate Brighton. Did I ever tell you that?”
Once, she thought, her heart beating too rapidly for speaking. The first time you kissed me. She stole a glance at him, only to find his blue eyes opened and peering at her. They were bloodshot and bleary, but as alluring as ever, like the sky on a clear, summer day. She looked away.
“I should’ve told you that every day,” he said.
Old memories stirred in Kate’s mind, and for the first time in years, they were good ones.
“And your sideways smile. I haven’t seen it in so long. Not outside of my dreams.”
Now Kate gaped down at him. His words had been slurred together, and one look at his face told her the truth of his delirium, but what he said made her heart wrench. It was cruel to remind her of something that was no more, that could never be again.
“But then your father . . . he had to . . . had to do what he did and ruin everything.”
She went still, her emotions churning hard. He was delirious, she knew, maybe worse than before, but he was speaking of things that she had longed to know. Things she had once begged him to tell her. Temptation seized hold of her. She’d waited so long to learn the truth of that night, to hear what he had seen. When they arrested her father, she was forbidden to see him. Corwin was her only hope to understand. Years ago, he’d refused to tell her anything.
“I don’t want to hurt you with the truth, Kate,” he had said. “Your father attacked mine, nearly killed him. Can’t that be enough?”
No. Because the truth is the only way to put the torment to rest, Kate thought now, staring at Corwin’s face. His eyes were still open but his gaze wavered, never quite focusing. She knew she shouldn’t. It was wrong to press him for truths he’d refused to give before, when he was too weak to tell her no now. She also knew that everything he said might be exaggerated or false in his venom-weakened state. But she would never again have this chance.
I have to know, she thought. I need peace.
“He did ruin everything, didn’t he?” Kate allowed a smile to curl the side of her face, her sideways smile, as he used to call it. “But I’ve never understood what really happened. Will you tell me, your highness?”
“Corwin,” he said. “I’m always Corwin to you, my sweet Kate.”
She bit her tongue and drew a breath deep enough to temper the tremors sliding through her stomach.
“Corwin,” she said, the sound of his name in her mouth an exquisite sort of pain. “Please tell me what happened that night. Tell me everything.”
8
Kate
THE JOURNEY INTO THE PAST didn’t last long. And in the end, Corwin told her little she hadn’t heard before, if only as rumor. Her father attacked the king, stabbing him several times with a dagger. He wasn’t crazed or possessed, but a man in full control of his faculties. If anything, it was King Orwin who had been crazed that night. Corwin described the way his father had screamed, flailing about, yanking the hair from his head. Afterward, the green robes speculated that the blade Hale had used was tainted with some kind of poison they were never able to identify.
When Corwin finished the story, Kate felt an emptiness expanding inside her. She had allowed herself to hope for more, some insight into the inexplicable. She never denied her father was guilty; she just wanted to understand why. He must have had a reason. But it seemed that was a secret he’d carried with him unto his execution. The dead tell no truths.
Biting her lip, Kate stared down at Corwin, whose eyes had closed again. She couldn’t tell if he was still conscious or not. “Why didn’t you let me see him?”
Corwin’s eyes fluttered open, his long, dark lashes a striking contrast to the blue. “He . . . he didn’t want to see you. He asked for you to be kept away.”
Kate gaped. It was impossible. Her father had known he was to be executed—he never would’ve stopped her from saying good-bye. He loved her too much to betray her like that.
Like he betrayed the king?
No, she refused to believe it. They were too close, as alike as petals on an everweep flower.
Corwin shifted restlessly on the straw, his eyes closed again. “But he had a message for you.”
“What?” Kate leaned over him, her heart beginning to race. “What was it?”
“He said . . . go to Fenmore.”
Kate’s brow furrowed as she mulled the words over in her mind. Fenmore was a distant land far to the west, across the treacherous Fury Sea. Stories described it as a place so wondrous and strange that those who ventured there never wished to return. Of course, those same stories failed to speculate that perhaps people simply perished in the attempt to find it. It might’ve been where Kate and Hale would’ve fled, if he’d been granted a sentence of exile, as she had begged Corwin to make happen.
Her confusion turned to anger. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?” When Corwin didn’t answer, she shook him, unmindful of his injuries. “Corwin, why didn’t you tell me this before?”
His eyes remained closed, and he sounded far away as he answered, “I was so angry at him for hurting my father . . . and at you and Edwin.”