Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 55602 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 278(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55602 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 278(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
I frown, shake my hands. My spiritual power is dormant. Like . . . I look up at Nicostratus’s weak smile. Hiccuppy panic scratches deep in my throat, and I swallow it away. “The healer . . . did they block my magic?”
He stares at me. “You have to recover fully.”
“I’m healed.”
“Not the internal and external wounds. The shock.”
I watch him, and his eyes soften. He says, “I’ll be right by your side. I’ll help you grow strong again, alright?”
I let out the breath I’d been holding and nod. “Where are we?”
“We’re at an inn a day from Hinsard. You’ll like this place. It’s nestled in the herb fields surrounding the city.”
I swing my legs out of the bed and rise on shaky legs. Immediately, I realise the view of these fields is not the first thing I want to experience. Rather a visit to a privy, and a bath. Nicostratus laughs at this, leads the way, and leaves me to take my time.
Fresh clothes are waiting for me after my bath, and I slide into the soft, luxurious material, fix my belongings—soldad and golden feather—to my belt and my clasp to a thicker cloak. The hood is lined with fox fur for a crisp autumn.
I find Nicostratus waiting outside in the garden, the pretty shrubbery fenced in with a low stone wall outside which fields of herbs stretch as far as the eye can see. There are lanes with trees separating chamomile from lavender and those lanes seem to lead to a distant pavilion. It’s in this direction Nicostratus and I casually walk.
I pluck upturned roots from the ground, wishing I could sense the pulse of their healing spirit, but my fingertips only feel coarse stalks, crumbling dirt, stringy ends, and sharp prickles.
It’ll come back. I just woke after serious injuries. Nicostratus—or Quin—will unlock my meridians soon.
I crush the root in my grip and sticky juice sluices down my fingers, leaving a bitter trail beside us.
Nicostratus eyes my hand and stares ahead at the approaching pavilion. “It’s been tough for you, since leaving the royal city.”
“The royal city was no picnic either.”
He side-eyes me. “You could have escaped after your ‘death’, made a new name for yourself. You could’ve had it easier.”
“Are you asking why I followed your brother?”
He lets out a breath with a weak chuckle, his gaze falling and narrowing on my clasp. “I thought you found him difficult. Frustrating.”
“Let me assure you, I still think that.” But I’ve also seen so much more to him. No matter how much I’ve wanted to avoid him in the past, fate has always thrown us back together, forced us to reveal deeper levels of ourselves. To like them, to hate them, to understand them.
My voice crackles. “He’s the hope the people of this kingdom are looking for. He needs to succeed in removing your uncle from power. I followed him as his personal healer. To aid him along the way.”
“If that’s why . . .” We reach the pavilion steps and he sweeps me up them in a twirl of magic that has me gasping. He smiles warmly. “I’m also on my brother’s side. If you want, help me help him.”
“Let’s . . . all work together.”
“He and I will be parting ways tomorrow. We’ll have to act the part of strangers in Hinsard. Will you come with me?”
I absently touch my knotting stomach, and Nicostratus steps closer, steers me to a bench and table and sits me down.
“Are you in pain? I’ll call for a healer—”
I shake my head, and exaggerate the rub at my stomach. “I’m just dizzy. Hungry.”
“I should have thought. Stay right here, I’ll get us something.”
He soars towards the inn, a graceful figure dancing across fields.
I drop my fingers from my knotted stomach to my golden feather, and breathe in perfumed air and inexplicable tension.
Stop being ridiculous.
Of course I want to spend more time with Nicostratus and be by his side. And if it helps Quin, there’s simply no question.
Maybe I won’t be easing Quin’s pain, but I could put my skills to good use. Take care of the soldiers and those who are on the king’s side. There’s bound to be retaliation from the high duke, bound to be bloodshed. I can be by Nicostratus’s side, healing the wounded in this pursuit of justice.
I stare at the verdant foliage in all directions around the pavilion, then at my root-sapped hand, and my chest grows heavy. My meridians will reopen soon.
The sound of hooves clapping over dirt in the distance has me looking up. I stand abruptly and watch as Quin, a few hundred yards off, moves his horse steadily down one of the lanes towards me. As he nears, I notice familiar bundles either side of the horse. The things we left at the last inn; one of them with the sharper outline of my grandfather’s books.