“I grew up in a northern province,” Teagan tells him gently. “I know how fierce the winters are. But I appreciate your worry.”
“I’m not worried!” he retorts. “Why should I care what you do? It’s not like you came here to say goodbye tome.”
I cough to cover my amusement at his display of righteous adolescent indignation.
Teagan steps closer to him, stooping a few inches to catch his eyes. “Of course I wanted to say goodbye to you, sweet Lestyn.” She reaches out to cup his flushed cheek; it reddens even further beneath her touch. “I’ll miss you.”
“You—You will?”
“Very much.”
He seems stunned by the news. So much so, he cannot even react as Teagan leans forward to brush her lips against his cheek in a quick kiss. He is still standing there, slack-jawed, when she turns back to me. Her mouth struggles to contain a grin. “Walk me out?”
Nodding, I fall into step beside her. We exit onto the street where a steady stream of carts and horses drift past. Most are headed toward King’s Avenue, the main thoroughfare that cuts through the city center, but a fair few are bound for the barracks, which is serving as the main hub of activity until the palace isrestored to its former glory. I feel many sets of eyes on us as they pass by, but keep my own trained firmly on Teagan.
“Write to me when you settle in?”
“I’ll send so many ravens, you’ll be sick of me,” she promises. “I’ll let you know where I end up, tell you all about my new life. And you can share news of everything here.”
I blink rapidly, trying to hold my emotions in check. They are surging up inside my chest, an unrelenting tide of grief.
How many more losses am I to endure? How many more goodbyes can I utter before my voice breaks completely?
Teagan pulls me into one last embrace. Her mouth at my ear whispers a familiar refrain repeated often by Caelderans before a long parting. “By the warmth of the ember and the light of the flame, may the fire guide your path through the darkness.”
I meet her eyes and, in a strangled voice, murmur, “Goodbye, my friend.”
Standing in front of the infirmary, I watch her cloaked form meld into the street traffic until I lose sight of her. Until she, like the rest, is gone from me. And then, with a heart as heavy as the clouds that press down overhead, I go back inside and get to work.
Chapter
four
The quake hits in the dead of night, startling me out of a dark dream. At first, I think I’m still asleep, that the shaking bed frame is another fragment of the horrible visions that haunt my subconscious—a sea of sand threatening to swallow me whole as carrion birds circle in a sky streaked with lightning, waiting to pick my bones clean. But as I jerk fully awake, I realize it’s happening again.
Another quake.
A strong one, at that.
That makes three in the past month. It’s hard to believe they were once a rare occurrence. Tremors plague us with increasing frequency as the blight spreads across Anwyvn, sickening the realm in slow degrees. Even here in the Northlands, where they were so long spared the grasping clutches of evil, it has begun to creep over the Cimmerian Mountains with skeletal fingers.
In response to this invasion, the earth heaves and shakes like a terminally ill patient too strong for his own good, fighting against that forthcoming doom with an obstinance that only drains his dwindling strength more quickly. For if the earth itself can feel pain, surely this is how it manifests—not with a quietgroan of acceptance but in great shudders that threaten to split the world in two. All of us along with it.
Bolting out of bed, I stumble toward the doorway. The planks beneath my feet are unsteady as a ship deck, pitching me to and fro against the walls of the narrow hallway. I drop into a crouch and scurry the rest of the way into the parlor. Lestyn is already awake, jostled out of the sound sleep I left him in on my sofa several hours ago, his book abandoned on the floor along with his eyeglasses. With sleep-tousled black curls sticking in several directions and his copper skin atypically pale, for once he looks every bit the boy of thirteen instead of the competent novitiate I’ve come to know over the past few months.
“It will be over soon,” I call, gripping the doorframe as the quake begins to lessen in intensity. “Feel it? It’s already slowing.”
He nods, swallowing down his fright. After a few more moments of turbulence, the world stills and falls silent once more.
“There.” I breathe deep. “See? It’s done.”
I walk over to him, one hand pressed to the fabric of my nightgown, as though I might subdue my racing pulse through sheer force. He looks faraway, his eyes not seeing me nor the room around him but something else. Something worse. Cautiously, I drop down beside him, mirroring his pose—back pressed to the sofa, knees curled to my chest, arms looped tight around them.
“Hey, now. It’s all right. It’s over.”
Lestyn does not respond. His body trembles, as though still feeling the effects of the earthquake. His stare bores into the bookshelves, through them, reaching memories so painful I am afraid to pull him out of them.
There are things about the boy I’ve learned without needing to ask, without him explicitly telling me. I know he lost much inthe battle—more than most. Just as I know he does not come to my apartments merely for access to the apothecary tomes, however he might pretend. He does not like to sleep at the barracks where other displaced orphans spend their nights. He prefers the lumpy cot we set up for him in the cold back room of the infirmary. Sometimes, though, he needs the semblance of home—even if he is not yet ready to express it. No matter how sharp-eyed or quick-witted, he is in many ways a lost little boy still learning to navigate this lonely new reality.