Foretold (23 page)

“There are no wolves,” I answer.

Lips parting, Lucia begs soundlessly. A dark halo of sweat outlines her body, her trembling hands clawing at the covers. Mindlessly, she pushes them off, then keens for them once they’re gone. I feed her water from my fingertips, and shudder at the sensation of her leather tongue rasping for more.

My beloved sister has fallen, and the physicians argue amongst themselves. None comfort her but me, so I start over again with the cloth: bathing her face, her chest, her searing arms and hands.

Our father arrives, and Cilo barely bows before saying, “It’s quite possibly hysterics, my lord. To fall ill on the eve of naming her quest, surely it’s nerves.”

Praise Vara, our father dismisses that with a waved hand. “Ridiculous. Laenus? Gemella?”

The eldest of the three, Laenus relies on that seniority to add gravity to his diagnosis. He tugs his white beard and
pronounces, “Poison. Yesterday, she was fit and well; today, struck down and out of her head. It’s too sudden to be anything but malfeasance.”

“All due honor to my mentor,” Gemella says, cutting a look at Laenus that says she’d prefer not to honor him at all, “she’s burning with fever and beset with the scale. We’ve had word that villages in the outer provinces have seen the same of late. Either there’s a spree of poisonings—”

Wrapping himself in a decided chill, Laenus shakes his head. “Augusta Lucia hardly spends her days scrabbling with wild animals and dung fields. You cannot compare unlike cases.”

“She
is
mortal, you dolt.”

I say that.

No one expects it. Until then, I am invisible. A servant, actually busy at my task and minded by no one. Now Laenus minds me quite a bit, though Father seems unperturbed by my outburst.

Seeing her chance to win the diagnosis, Gemella tightens a wrap around her shoulders. “Certainly, Laenus should offer a bezoar against poison. But Her Majesty
is
mortal. What harm can come of treating this as illness, as well?”

Father nods. “I agree. Make all due haste.”

The doctors file out, muttering among themselves. And to my surprise, Father reaches for the bowl in my hands. Once his gaze falls to Lucia’s face, it doesn’t raise again. He dips the cloth and squeezes it, wiping new sweat from her brow.

“She’s never been ill,” he says. He settles, bound by shadows, at her side. “
You
were always the uncertain one. You caught every little pox, it seemed, and then the fire …”

Suddenly, my feet ache from standing; my head hurts from too much upset. Folding my hands, I say, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, Corvina. Children get sick. Accidents happen.”

He dips the cloth again, and the light catches on the silver streaks in his black curls. For a moment, I’m confused by them. My father has always been the king; kings are strong and young.

But I newly realize that his youth is just an impression. In truth, he is growing older, and his voice is vulnerable when he says, “But they must not die before their father does. Promise me you won’t.”

I’m much too surprised to say anything more than, “I won’t.”

“We’ll make sure Lucia promises when she’s well again.”

The ground beneath me shifts ever so slightly. The tenderness in his hands I find remarkable. They have done this work before; he doesn’t shift uneasily. He’s not guessing how to tend Lucia, he
knows
. And he’s just said that she’s never been the sickly sort—not like her mother, Vara bless our death-kept queen.

I don’t know that my father has ever
said
he loved me, but it seems he’s been doing just that all along.

This weighs on me, but I cannot consider it too deeply. There are dragon’s galls to be forced down Lucia’s throat, and willow bark tea to be poured after them. I make a hundred compresses if I make ten. Well after dark each night, I harvest ice from the straw pit in the atrium and pack it into her bed.

She cries, and I cry, and none of it makes any difference. The physicians still argue: it’s magic, it’s disease, it’s a sanguine fever—no, a consumptive one—no matter, the cures are all the same now. Bloodletting and cinnamon tonics. Cinnamon poultices and more bloodletting. Her chambers stink of both and I’ll never eat a sweet bun again.

The seizures come; the rumors start. The physicians retreat, for the crown princess is dying, and no one wants to bear the responsibility for that. No one dares approach my father, who has made camp at Lucia’s side. He’s consumed with grief in anticipation.

This is why it wounds me to wound him, when I slip from the castle and steal Gavrus, one of his finest horses. Love aside, I’m still the nothing daughter—the stable master knows I’m not entitled to a steed. The cook knows I have no right to a bag of provisions.

And I’m certainly no Light-Forged Champion—but Lucia is my heart, the kingdom’s heart, and if it takes a Fabled Cup to restore her, I’ll find it.

“I just need a place to water my horse and sleep for the night,” I beg.

I rub my fingers on my tunic, as if I can wipe off the bone-deep sting of having them caught in a closing door. It doesn’t work, but if I can do nothing, I prefer to move while I do it.

“We’ve got nothing for you!” This farmer’s wife is perfectly suited to her job. She is broad-shouldered and strong, and doesn’t hesitate to protect her home from threats perceived and real.

I shouldn’t have knocked after dark; I should have found a place in the wood to camp for the night. Truthfully, I found a place. The clearing was cool, sweetened by a spring and wild-growing sage.

But the darkness overcame me—I was unprepared for true night, one without torches and strong walls to shape it. Beasts of every sort, perhaps bigger for my ignorance, crept all round me. I clung to my satchel and my horse as long as I could bear it.

When something screamed (and Vara willing, it was a bird, please let it have been a bird), I fled. The sound echoed, chilling my spine, filling my ears—it bound me with a fear that went on and on.

My life in the palace was more comfortable than I realized, but realize it now I do. Laying my cheek on the rough wood door, I knock again helplessly. “Some straw in your barn? Anything, please.”

“I’ll have no abomination on my land,” the farmer’s wife cries.

Something on her side of the door makes a terrible sound. A wooden latch closes, a plucked wire whines. With a sharp breath, I straighten and that saves me.

An arrow shears through the slats. I taste its hiss; the shaft burns my cheek. The latching sound comes again, and my blood and bones, far wiser than my thoughts, move instantly. The narrow keen of another bolt zings past me, and I leap onto Gavrus’ back

The direction doesn’t matter. I’m animal instinct, my only thought is
Run, run, run!

We streak through hills, as dark trees claw at the stars. Great, flying leaps carry us over acacia thorns and thin streams more mud than water. Edging the woods again, I start to laugh. All of my innards remain inside; I’m gloriously unpunctured. My head swims, sparkling with the giddy intoxication of escape.

Wind on my skin and night on my back, I have scarcely imagined the pleasures of adventure.

And scarcely imagined they are, when I find myself lost. Vernal is a good kingdom, better than most. But even the best kingdoms have brigands. Even the finest adventures have dangers.

Gavrus slows. Already exhausted, he’s now burned to a
stub. To push him further would be to ruin him. Just as it’s true I’ve done little camping, I have done even less hiking—and it would be cruel to break such a steady companion besides. My drunkenness fades; I must face the situation on cunning instead of instinct.

Sliding to my own feet, I shiver when the ground sinks beneath me.
It’s alive
, I can’t help but think;
it wants to swallow me
. But that’s madness, unsettled thoughts fed by fear and unfamiliarity. I’m tired, and new-broken from riding, that’s all.

Just then, the sharpness of an evergreen distracts me. No, not evergreen—bay laurel. My stomach rumbles in confirmation. The scent isn’t as rich as when it rolls out of the kitchens, because these trees gleam with life.

Laurel trees are full of spirits—they’re the wooden bodies of maidens forever safe from ravishment. It’s a sin to cut their wood-made flesh. Leaving Gavrus close to the stream, I slip inside a fragrant cloud of leaves. They shiver and whisper, hanging thick on spindling branches.

I can barely see out; certainly no one will see in. In the morning, I’ll head east and hope that the three flaming witches exist. This is my last thought before I sleep.

“My lady,” a man says.

No, a boy—no, I’m not certain, only that he’s strange and broad and beautiful. He crouches, holding the laurel’s branches open to peer at me in the morning light. His hair gleams around his head, dark at his scalp, the curls bleached copper by the sun.

I manage only to blink at him in confusion.

“My lady,” he repeats, offering his hand. “I’m sorry to wake you, but you very nearly lost your horse.”

Joints crackling, I have no choice but to crawl out of my
bower. Down is always easier than up, and I take his proffered hand. Hot and rough, it swallows mine. There is easy strength in it; he could pluck me off my feet if he wished to, I’m certain.

And I’m dwarfed beside him. At my full height, I can’t even see his collarbone. My nose brushes the rough weave of his shirt, and I breathe him, I’ll claim on accident, and discover he’s not perfumed but seasoned. Ginger and black pepper, a sting of cardamom—he’s an exotic giant in homespun.

He raises our still-joined hands and tips my chin up. “Can you speak?”

I want to say,
Do you know your eyes are green as olives?
But I don’t, as he must know, and it’s ridiculous besides. Blessedly, my voice comes out steady and regular when I do say, “Yes, thank you. What of my horse?”

He knits his brow and smiles crookedly. Letting my hand slip from his, he turns to gesture to Gavrus and another beast so massive, I hesitate to call it a horse. It’s a thick, wild thing, with tufts at its hooves and eyes as big as pomegranates.

“Carnifex and I found him a ways upstream.” Admiration creeps into his voice. “Never seen a finer mount, I must admit.”

My senses return bit by bit. Chest tightening, I stare at the animals and fend off a chill. He could have taken him—it’s not as though I would have known it. Then I’d be lost, on foot, and too far from home to save myself, let alone Lucia.

Now that I’m awake and aware of myself again, I reach for my satchel. “I’m in your debt. Can I reward you?”

His laughter rings through the grove, low and rich. “If I weren’t a gentleman …”

Because of my scars, no blush stings my cheeks. But it
does
burn my throat, an unpleasant prickling. I’m no innocent—my
life has always been perched at the edges of court, and all its perversions and pleasures.

I
don’t speak in innuendo, and no one’s ever mistaken me for it, either. I’m not a desirable thing, no matter the romantic notions that roll in my sister’s head. But I
am
a thing that desires. I want to touch this giant’s mouth and pull his curls straight; I wonder at the shape of him beneath his tunic.

This is stupid, and useless—and distracting me from my quest.

“I meant bread,” I correct. “That’s all I have to offer.”

“Company,” he counters. “Let me ride with you awhile.”

“Why?”

His crooked smile returns. “So I can moon over your horse.”

Some tiny spark inside me darkens. Shaking my head, I loop a hand in Gavrus’ bridle. “You can’t, I’m sorry. But I’ll make sure your kindness is repaid. What’s your name?”

“Valerian,” he says. He whistles sharply, and Carnifex stirs, wandering to him like a pup to its master.

From boxes at circuses, I’ve seen great cats coaxed through rings of fire, and pushed into pools to prove they can swim. Bears dance if encouraged with whips; elephants will too. But never have I seen a creature—much less a terrifying wall of creature such as Carnifex—greet a man so willingly, with so much affection. He butts his head against Valerian’s, and huffs when he’s rewarded with a fond stroke.

Ignoring the possibility that it’s madness to trust a horse to judge a man’s character, I relent. Climbing astride Gavrus, I remind myself that the prophecy is already ruined. If I’m no champion, there’s no reason to seek my prize alone. Turning eastward, toward the sun, I bow my head ever so slightly. “Have you a sword?”

Valerian reaches for the scabbard at his hip in reply.

“Are you accomplished with it?” I ask.

“Extremely.”

“Then please join me,” I say, and ride ahead of him, to let the wind wash the blush away from my throat.

Stopped at a crossroads, Valerian studies the signs with great interest.

If we keep to the east, we’ll ride into Alisca, a town bordered by farms and renowned for its spirits. To the north, we’ll find Castra Curia, a village that exists mainly to support the Anchorites of Vara, who live in the temple complex there. To the south are cliffs and sea, open to whatever world can be found on the back of a ship.

“It would help,” Valerian says casually, “if I knew where we were going.”

I twist Gavrus’ reins around my hand. There’s little point in lying. Nevertheless, I hesitate. It’s been a long morning ride to this crossroads. Valerian’s raced me down hills, and plucked blossoms from trees to weave in Carnifex’s mane.

He shared his wine bladder with me, and covered the place where my lips had touched it with his. This mad, happy creature talks to me easily. He looks me in the eyes. He looks at
me
.

And none of this is my purpose. Shame fills me. In her cool chamber, Lucia burns with fever, and what am I doing? Fantasizing and laughing and fooling myself. I pinch myself as a reminder. This is no game, no adventure for pleasure. I tell him the truth.

“My sister’s dying, and I seek the Fabled Cup.”

To his credit, Valerian doesn’t boggle. He merely looks thoughtful. “Which tasks have you finished?”

Nudging Gavrus with my knees, I look toward Alisca. The horizon darkens with smoke from cook fires, balanced
by the white puff of sheep wandering the hills outside town. “I’ve only just set out.”