“It appears as though this is a fleeting ailment, your highness,” the physician said in a gravelly voice, propping his veiny hands on top of his leather bag. “After a week abed, you should be fit to rule again.”
“Thank you, Mortimer,” said the king, his typically booming voice meek and mild. “As always, your faithful service to the crown is most appreciated. However, I do feel I would benefit from a second opinion.” The king’s head turned toward the window. “Lady Seren?”
The physician visibly bristled, but he bowed his head before shoving his instruments back into his bag. When he finished, instead of leaving, he stalked to the corner to wait beside Caiman.
My mother removed her elbow-length gloves, tucking them into the small purse dangling from her wrist. “If your highness wouldn’t mind, I would like my daughter’s help.”
“She is to be my daughter as well.” The king waved me forward. “Let her come to me.”
I followed my mother to the king’s bedside, awaiting instruction. My mother had seen battles, healed warriors on the brink of death. Having never witnessed the horrors of war, I wasn’t as adept at healing, but she had taught me the basics.If I hadn’t been matched with the prince, I would’ve followed in her footsteps as a healer. Now, I would serve the world in a different way.
My mother took the king’s large hand in her own and closed her eyes. Her skin began to glow as her healing magic passed through her body to his. If she gave too much, she’d be the one in bed for the week.
Her eyes snapped open, and her brow furrowed. “Roisin, take his hand.” She gave over the king’s hand and sank onto the mattress, sliding her hands beneath the neck of his white tunic, covering his heart.
I closed my own eyes and let the heat of magic inside me swell like a river in a rainstorm, channeling the warmth through my veins toward the king. Heat reached my fingertips . . . and stopped. I tried to force it beyond whatever invisible barrier kept us apart, but it refused to pass. When I opened my eyes again, I met my mother’s panicked gaze.
Folding his arms over his chest, Alrec shifted his weight from one foot to the other. The golden waistcoat he’d discarded at the foot of the bed glittered in the lamplight. “Well? What is it? What’s wrong with him?”
My mother smoothed her hands down her skirts. No one else seemed to notice the way they trembled. “I’m afraid the news is grave.”
I’d forgotten I was holding the king’s hand until his fingers contracted, wrapping around mine.
My mother’s lips pursed, as if she were trying to find the right words. “Your highness, it’s your heart. It’s failing.”
Alrec stepped forward, his boot colliding with the bedframe. “You must be wrong. Sir Mortimer said he would be fine in a week.”
The physician sneered from his place next to the wall.All Caiman did was stare at his father.
“With all due respect to Sir Mortimer,” my mother said carefully, bowing her head as if she were beneath him when she had a hundred years more experience than the insufferable doctor, “he does not have my skills.”
“Skills?” Alrec dashed a hand through his hair. “If you had any skills to speak of, you would heal him.”
“If he was suffering from a disease, I could. But this is a fight he cannot win, one against time and age. Man was not created to last forever, and his heart is tired.”
“That’s a load of bollocks.”
“Alrec!” The king withdrew his hand from my grasp, his eyes narrowed on his son. “You dare speak to your future mother-in-law that way? This woman has healed me more times than I can count. If she says my heart is failing, then it must be true.”
Alrec’s face contorted, and his hands fisted at his sides before he turned on his heel and stalked out of the chamber, the physician following close behind. Caiman remained so still, so silent, I had forgotten he was there. As if he knew I was thinking about him, his dark eyes lifted to mine.
My stomach fluttered, and it took all my strength to turn away. He had no right to look at me like that. Like he wasn’t an awful pig. Like he was someone worth caring about.
“There’s no sense staring at a dying man,” the king said with a weak smile. “Get back to the party and assure everyone that I am well.”
What must it be like, knowing one was nearing the end of his life? Fae could live for hundreds, even thousands of years. Part of my betrothal contract stipulated that once Alrec had passed, my reign as queen would end and our son would take the throne. Assuming we had a son. I shook away the errant thought. There would be plenty of time to worry about that later. Right now, I needed to find my fiancé and make sure he was all right.
My mother and I started for the privy chamber adjoining the bedroom. Caiman finally moved, taking my mother’s place on the bed beside the king.
The door fell closed with a quiet click.
“Did you feel it?” she whispered as we passed the ornate furniture scattered around the candlelit chamber, decorated in the same deep golds and reds as the rest of the King’s private quarters.
I skirted around a tête-à-tête , narrowly avoiding ramming into its scrolled arms. “I did. It felt as though my magic was blocked.” With the handful of people I’d healed before, my magic had passed seamlessly between us. Then again, those wounds had been superficial, a broken bone here, a cut or gash there. The worst had been the time Lowri had gouged her leg on a rusted nail protruding from an old fence. Her parents were fae, but her ancestors had intermixed with humans, weakening their magic through the years, so she hadn’t been strong enough to quickly heal on her own. Terrified of having a nasty scar, she’d begged me to help. As if she’d needed to beg. She was my dearest friend. I would’ve done it regardless.
“I’ve felt it when men on the battlefield were too far gone to save,” she explained. “When that happens, all we can do is make them comfortable.”
“Isn’t there any way to save him?” It wasn’t that I doubted my mother, but the king seemed like a good man, and his people loved him. We needed to exhaust all avenues before giving up.