A cool cloth was pressed to my forehead. The hand holding it eased me back down on the bed and I was staring at the face of the wizened old man again.
He leaned over me. “There now, lad.” He wiped the wet cloth over my face and I whimpered. There was no relief. The coolness only contrasted with the hot flush of my skin and heightened my misery.
I grunted, glad when he stopped.
But then he poured on fresh torment.
He took my arm, which I had curled protectively on my chest, and stretched it out at my side. As if that wasn’t uncomfortable enough, he slapped on some foul-smelling ointment. I lifted my head with a hiss as he lathered the concoction up and down from shoulder to wrist.
The face grinned widely, revealing a smile barren of teeth, save for one rotting canine—a brown teardrop in the gaping maw of his mouth. “Stings, I know.”
“Are you trying to kill me?” I demanded, dropping my head back on a pillow as the maniacally smiling old man slapped more of that wet concoction on my arm. The fire in my arm raged to new levels.
“If I wanted to kill you, I wouldn’t be bothering with this stuff. Now cease your squirming. This will heal you.”
“So I’m not going to die?”
He shrugged one bone-thin shoulder. For all his rotting teeth, he was well groomed, wearing a fine velvet tunic with embroidery at the cuffs. They hadn’t sent some peasant to look after me.
His words only confirmed this. “You most assuredly will die. Only not today. You’re fortunate. The king wants you alive or I wouldn’t be here. I’d be feasting in the hall with everyone else.”
Feasting in the hall with everyone else.
With Luna? Was she there with everyone else? With Prince Chasan? I didn’t like the way that arrogant peacock looked at her. He knew there was something different about her. He’d figure it out soon. He was no fool. It hadn’t taken me very long to conclude she was blind. My face burned hotter at the memory of how I had first discovered that about her—the intimate moment when she had walked in on me naked. It just drove home how vulnerable she was here in this den of snakes. The last thing I wanted was for them to mark her as weak.
All thoughts scattered as the burn in my arm grew excruciating. My mouth opened wide on a silent cry. I arched off the bed, my hand flying to the afflicted skin, ready to wipe the awful ointment off.
The physician held my hand away. “I’m drawing out the venom.”
He called over his shoulder for someone. I hadn’t even realized anyone else was in the room, but two servants were suddenly there, restraining me to the bed with ropes.
“’Tis for your own good,” the physician puffed.
“Luna,” I moaned as though she could appear to give me relief, solace.
“Ah, your friend is in good hands.”
Through my fog of pain I detected something in his voice. Something I did not like. Panic flared inside me. I surged harder. The servants exclaimed and threw their weight even more on top of me.
I strained against their hold, against the pain, until I couldn’t strain anymore. Until I couldn’t fight.
Closing my eyes, I let go and fell into darkness.
THIRTEEN
Luna
I COULDN’T SLEEP.
This late, the world inside the castle was silent as a crypt as I paced the confines of my bedchamber, learning its layout, committing it to memory.
I thought of Fowler, wondering where he was and how he fared inside these thick stone walls. When I asked after him, I was simply told he was being well tended and not to worry. As though he was no longer my concern. As though nothing should ever be my concern again.
After dinner I had been escorted to my chamber and dressed in a billowy nightgown. A maid sat me down at a cushioned bench and brushed my hair until it crackled around my head. “This will grow out long again before you know it,” she assured me, as though that assurance were necessary.
Then I was tucked into bed.
Maris made a little more sense to me now. If this was her life, if this was how she had been treated all these years, I could understand how marriage to a stranger would be a welcome prospect. Because it was something, anything, to break up the absolute tedium of her days.
I stepped out onto the balcony, marking its width, gripping the stone railing. Wind lifted my hair back from my ears. I was definitely high above the ground. The current hit me strong, as though there had been nothing in its way until it collided with me. No trees, no cliffs or rocky terrain. I inhaled deeply, marveling at the absence of loam on the air. There was no whiff of dwellers. One could almost imagine they didn’t exist out there. Here inside Ainswind, I felt insulated. It was a dangerous sensation. Nowhere was safe.
Leaving the balcony, I stopped before the heavy oak door of my chamber and pressed my ear to its length. I heard nothing on the other side. Closing my hand on the latch, I slowly opened the door and stepped out into the wide corridor.
A rasp of breath and rustle of fabric alerted me to the fact that I wasn’t alone, after all. I spun around to face the individual.