“A gift from the king,” she said snidely, as if I’d done something scandalous to deserve it. “He informed Mistress Lorena that you may have whatever you desire, as long as you remain in this room.”
I bathed quickly, eager to ask my questions before I was left alone again. As my hair was dried and dressed, I drew a quick likeness of Boojohni and showed the dour maid who attended me. She combed my damp hair with harsh tugs, impatient to be done with her duties, but she eyed my picture with reluctant curiosity.
“I haven’t seen him, Milady,” she shrugged. “He’s a funny-looking little fellow. Don’t see many trolls in Jeru City anymore. The late king was certain they sheltered the Gifted and had a bit of the magic in their own blood. He ran them all out. Good riddance, I say.”
I quickly drew a picture of Tiras, a crown sitting on his pale hair. He’d never worn a crown in my presence, but I didn’t have time to make a perfect likeness and needed her to understand.
“King Tiras?” she asked, as if I was daft.
I nodded emphatically.
“What about ‘im?” she asked crossly.
I turned my palms out, hoping she understood that I was asking for his whereabouts.
“He doesn’t report to me, Milady!” she sneered. “But I’ll be sure to tell him you were askin’ about him.” She sighed and headed for the door, juggling the dishes from my meal, murmuring about “uppity ladies.”
I wondered if she was rude because I couldn’t rebuke her or if she enjoyed knowing I couldn’t voice a complaint about her. Not that anyone would care what I thought. Still, one question had been answered. The king wasn’t dead.
The next evening, King Tiras himself unlocked my door and strode into my room without warning, verifying that he was not only alive, but that he was in fine health. I’d been drawing all day at the table, enchanted with the variety of the supplies, anxious to keep busy after so many days of forced isolation, and when he had entered, I’d ignored the intrusion, thinking it was my dour attendant bringing me a meal I had no interest in. I didn’t look up until he spoke, his tone wry, his voice soft.
“I see you received my peace offering.”
I rose to my feet, eyeing him with wonder and not a little apprehension. He was clothed in a fine linen shirt and fitted breeches with tall boots. He vibrated with good health and vitality, looking completely recovered from whatever had ailed him, and I would have questioned my sanity—or at least my memory—had I any reason at all to doubt either. His thick, white hair was brushed back from his brown face, and he seemed even taller, even broader than before. Maybe it was that he stood towering over me, bearing little resemblance to the man who had been doubled over in agony on the dungeon floor.
“You have a Healer’s touch,” he said softly. His tone was nonthreatening, but I shook my head, denying his claim. I was not a Healer. I would not be accused of being one.
“Sit.” He extended his hand toward the chair I’d just vacated and pulled out the one across from it, clearly settling in for further discussion on the matter. I did as I was told, my back stiff, my hands folded demurely in my lap. I eyed him warily, and he stared back with frank curiosity.
“What is your name, Lady Corvyn? Your given name?”
I touched my throat impatiently. He knew I couldn’t respond. He seemed to have forgotten that.
“Write it.” He shoved a blank sheet of paper toward me.
I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders, indicating I could not.
“You can’t write?” his voice rose in incredulity. “How will I talk to you?”
I tugged at my ear. He could talk to me just as he was doing now. I could hear just fine.
“You can hear me, yes. But you can’t respond.”
I shrugged once more.
“What do I call you?” he asked, irritated. “I refuse to call you Milady forever.”
I picked up a piece of charcoal and the paper he’d provided, and began to sketch rapidly.
“A bird?” He was confused.
I nodded and tapped the page then pointed to my chest.
“You’re named after a bird?”
I nodded again, eagerly. I added details to the small bird, so he would recognize it.
“A lark?”
I nodded once more.
“Lark? That’s not a name,” he argued gently, almost as if he were offended on my behalf.
I lifted my eyes to his, because it was a name. It was my name.
He must have seen my affront and been amused by it, because his lips quirked infinitesimally.
“Why don’t you know how to write? You are the daughter of a nobleman. You should know how to read and write. Why did no one teach you?”
I drew my father’s face, crude but recognizable. I’d had practice drawing him. I tapped it. Tiras stared at it thoughtfully.
“Your father wouldn’t allow it?”
I nodded. I turned to the paper again and drew a quick image of myself in chains. I set the charcoal back down.
“You were a prisoner?” he guessed hesitantly.
It was the most accurate response I could give, and he understood well enough. I was still a prisoner. I nodded at his question but raised a disdainful eyebrow, spreading my arms to indicate my surroundings.
“You are still a prisoner,” he murmured, as if he’d plucked the words from my head.
I held his gaze and inclined my head, indicating that he was correct.
“But you are my prisoner now. Not your father’s. And I want you to read. And write.” He pursed his lips thoughtfully.
I pulled the paper toward myself and began to form the letters I’d been taught long ago. A, B, C, D and L for Lark. An old woman in the village had taught me L and told me my name began with that letter. My father had discovered I was being taught and sentenced her to twenty lashes in the village square. No one else had attempted to educate me after that.
“You know these?” he asked, his eyes on my ill-formed letters.
I nodded.
He took the charcoal from my hands and drew a straight line with another line laid above it. “This is a T. For Tiras.” He wrote more letters and tapped them. “Tiras.” He wrote an L and an A followed by shapes I didn’t recognize. “Lark. This is the word Lark.”
I couldn’t pull my eyes away from my name. My name! I traced it reverently.
“Practice your name. Practice my name. I will be back tomorrow to teach you more.”
I hurried to get in front of him, not wanting him to leave. He looked down at me in surprise. I grabbed his left hand in both of mine and pulled him back to the table. His hand was thick and warm and calloused and made me think of the bark on the trees near my home, but I pushed the awareness away and tapped the paper.
“I can’t teach you everything now,” he protested in surprise.
I tapped the letters I had made. A, B, C, D. I picked up the charcoal and urgently tapped the space after the D. What came next? I wanted all the letters. All the shapes. I wanted to write them all, to practice them all, so that when he came back I would recognize them.
“You want to know what follows?”
I nodded eagerly.
He took a quill from my supplies and dipped it carefully in the ink. Then using a fresh sheet of parchment, he started at A and continued on for several minutes, creating lines and squiggles and curved edges that looked both familiar and forbidden. I clapped gleefully, and he looked at me in surprise, a smile hovering around his lips. He put the quill down. I picked it up and handed it to him again, pushing it on him.
“All of them?”
I nodded so hard my jaw ached.
He laughed out loud this time, and the action made his black eyes crinkle at the edges and his lips turn up in a way that was terribly attractive and impossibly infuriating. I glared at him and tapped the paper insistently. It wasn’t funny—I wasn’t funny. He’d been given every word he needed, and every word had been stripped from me. I wanted them back. All of them.