Flamecaster

  “Karn!” she cried out. Vaulting from the bed, she knelt beside the healer, but Karn was already there.

  Swearing, the lieutenant rolled the boy onto his back. “What happened? Did you stab him, too?”

  “Shut it,” Jenna said. “I think he’s fainted.” She brushed the healer’s hair off his clammy forehead. His eyes were closed, his lids like twin bruises against the pallor of his face, his legs and arms twitching uncontrollably.

  Squatting in front of him, Karn slapped him on the cheeks, at first lightly, and then with more force. There was no response.

  Jenna gripped Adam’s hands, chafing them, wishing she could somehow pull the deadly magic back, but she had no idea how. Reaching into the neckline of his tunic, she pulled out the jinxpiece. It was the serpent pendant she’d seen in the healer’s memory. She tried to wrap both of his hands around the pendant, but they fell away as soon as she let go.

  No. Nobody else was going to die because of her.

  She glared at Karn. “You’re a mage. Heal him!”

  He shook his head, shrugging helplessly. “I don’t know how.”

  In desperation, she grabbed the water pitcher from a niche in the wall and upended it over the healer’s head.

  Adam spluttered and coughed, batting at the pitcher with one hand. “I’m all right,” he said. “Stop drowning me.” He shook his head, spraying water everywhere like a dog. Jenna grabbed up a clean rag and mopped at his face. Now his hand found his amulet and he hung on. “I’ve just got to learn to pace myself, is all,” he said, licking his lips.

  “You’ve got to learn not to do stupid things,” Jenna said.

  Karn sat back on his heels and looked at Jenna for the first time. “Well, well.” He smiled faintly, a smile of relief. “You look better, if he doesn’t. You are a fine healer, Freeman. The legend lives on.”

  Jenna sank back onto the bed, her fingers searching out the wound under her rib cage. Though it was still open, it no longer drew her attention like an icy boil, and the skin around the wound was hardening. Her head was clearer than it had been for days, and she was beginning to care that she was filthy. “That’s . . . that’s amazing,” she said. She looked at the drenched healer. “You’re amazing.”

  Then Adam smiled, a full-on, genuine smile that warmed her to the core. Maybe it was foolish, maybe they looked like a pair of loons, grinning at each other in a dungeon cell. Maybe it would be all ashes and regret tomorrow, but she couldn’t help smiling back.

  27

  TO THE KING’S HEALTH

  By the next morning, Ash had nearly recovered—physically, at least—from his healing of Jenna. He had a depleted amulet and a major magical hangover, which wasn’t improved by the tongue-lashing he received from Master Merrill for leaving his post the day before.

  “What do you mean disappearing yesterday and leaving all of your work for Harold and Boyd to do?” Merrill demanded. “They couldn’t do some of the calculations, so the proportions were wrong, and we had to throw out an entire batch. Do you have any idea what that costs?”

  Ash stared at him in dull disbelief. “Didn’t they tell you where I . . .”

  “You are answerable to me,” Merrill fumed. “I don’t care what else you had to do, you need my permission to leave your work area.”

  Ash wasn’t long on patience to begin with, and what little he had was quickly draining away. “The king summoned me. I didn’t think it was wise to say no.”

  That made things worse, especially when the master healer noticed the condition of Ash’s tunic, which was draped over a chair. “Is that blood on your tunic? Were you performing surgery? By the great saint, you are not qualified! If His Majesty doesn’t understand that now, I’ll make sure he does before the day is out.”

  “You do that,” Ash said. “You go right ahead and talk to him. Make your case. Let me know how that works out for you.” And he pushed past the master healer and into the compounding area.

  All morning and into the afternoon, Ash couldn’t keep his mind off Jenna Bandelow with the golden eyes and kindled skin. It was as if their minds had been joined, however briefly, when he’d tried to examine her. It would be a long time before he recovered from that.

  He picked over the images Jenna had shared with him. Hurtling down into a coal-hole in a huge iron bucket. A bridge exploding, too far away to hear, the pieces sparkling in the sunlight before landing in the river. The king of Arden on a platform, looking down on a sea of roughly dressed miners, a little girl struggling in his grip until he broke her and flung her aside. A name scrawled on the side of a building. Flamecaster. A battered building with a sign over the door: Fletcher’s Tack and Harness. A warehouse in flames, sending sparks high into the winter sky.

  Ash had played at murder in the summers, returning to the sanctuary at Oden’s Ford the rest of the year. If what he’d seen was true, Jenna had been a fighter, and survivor, nearly every day of her life. She put him to shame.

  If he could believe what he’d seen. Perhaps her gift was the planting of lies that mimicked the truth. Truth or not—he did believe it. When he’d asked her what it meant, she’d said, It means that we are done lying to each other.

  But he’d never agreed to that. He had a lot to lose by telling the truth.

  Maybe she knew the truth already. She’d spotted him for a wolf, after all, as soon as she saw him. After all these years away, did that mean he was still a wolf under the skin?

  She’d mucked around in his mind. What else had she learned about him that she might reveal under interrogation? Would he end up regretting that he’d saved her life?

  No. He didn’t regret it—he couldn’t. That had been his mission since his father’s murder—to heal the innocent and punish the guilty.

  It was as if they’d shared a lifetime during that brief connection. The only other person who knew him that well was his sister Lyss. And he’d changed so much that she didn’t really know him anymore.

  Had Lyss changed as much as he had?

  One thing he knew—Jenna Bandelow was dangerous. He’d saved her life—now he should just stay away from her.

  But he couldn’t. Every time he thought of her, his heart accelerated and his gut clenched with longing. He’d been alone for so long. Though he’d walked out with girls at school, he’d kept his mind and emotions under lock and key. Had he really been so hungry for a different kind of connection that he’d completely lost his footing?

  It wasn’t like she’d shown any sign of being smitten with him. If he made a move on a patient, chained in a dungeon, it would just seem creepy.

  Don’t lose your head, sul’Han. Remember what you’re here for. As his father always said: the hunter who can’t keep his eyes on his target goes to bed hungry. Remember that feeling you had when you thought Lyss was the one locked in Montaigne’s dungeon. The best way to help Jenna Bandelow was to kill the king of Arden—sooner rather than later.

  All morning and into the afternoon, Merrill’s foul mood continued. Harold and Boyd disappeared after the setup, so Ash cleaned up the lab afterward. Then he was assigned to change all the beds in the infirmary, although no one had slept in them. By the time he’d finished, the place had emptied out. Even Merrill had given up finding him jobs to do and disappeared.

  “You survived, I see.”

  Ash looked up to see Lila standing in the doorway of the infirmary.

  “Barely,” he said.

  “You do look like scummer on a slab.” She came forward, into the room, peering around to make sure nobody else was in there. Then she perched on the edge of one of the prep tables. “So who was it who so desperately needed your skilled healing hand?”

  Ash shared an edited version of what had happened the night before, still wary of handing Lila anything that might be used against him.

  Lila listened, head cocked, swinging her legs.

  “Her name is Jenna Bandelow?”

  “So I’m told,” Ash said.

  “She’s from Delp
hi?”

  Ash nodded.

  “Why is she important? Is she a blueblood, or—?”

  “She’s a coal miner.”

  “A coal miner?” Lila sat forward, her hands on her knees. “Seriously? So what does the king want with a coal miner?”

  “She says they suspect she’s a saboteur back home, and they’re going to try and make her give up her friends.”

  “Is she a saboteur?”

  “Maybe,” Ash said. “Probably.”

  “Well. How’s it looking? Do you think she’ll survive?”

  “I think she has a good chance, now,” Ash said.

  Lila chewed her lip, like she wanted to say something, but couldn’t quite get it out.

  “What?”

  Lila raised both hands. “Never mind.” She slid down from the table. “I actually came here to fetch you to the Great Hall.”

  Ash eyed her suspiciously. “Why?”

  “Did you know that it’s Solstice?”

  “Solstice? Really?” Ash stared at Lila, ambushed by a flood of memories. Celebrations of Solstice in Fellsmarch, wizard lights decorating the evergreens on the palace grounds, taking the sleigh up into the mountains to cut pine roping and fir, wassailing the trees in the palace gardens, breaking open the Solstice crackers at dinner, releasing magical illuminated birds that fluttered around the room. His father’s dramas in the Great Hall that rivaled those seen in any large city.

  And later, Solstice at Oden’s Ford, when the Temple choirs sang on the quad, and speakers from all the temples proclaimed the good news of the returning sun.

  Lila grinned. “I thought you might have overlooked it. I came to get you. They’re serving wassail in the Great Hall, and we are invited to drink to the king’s health.”

  To his good health or bad health? “Thanks for coming to get me. Just . . . I need to get something from my room. I’ll be right back.”

  In his room, Ash stood on his bed to retrieve a thin leather sleeve that he’d slid behind the crown molding. Inside, he’d hidden a needle painted with black adder. Anyone pricked with it would be unlikely to know he’d been stung until much later. When it was too late.

  Ash slid it into the pouch under his collar alongside the bottle he’d hidden there the day before. Slinging his healer’s bag over his shoulder, he rejoined Lila. “Let’s go,” he said.

  She eyed the bag. “Do you ever stop working?”

  “I’m going down to see my patient afterward,” he said.

  The Great Hall was crowded with servants and soldiers and the petty nobility, many of them already deep in their cups. There were huge wassail bowls at either end of the room, and fruits and nuts and cakes and pastries. Many of the servants were decked out in unusual finery, having left off the uniforms of Arden for a day. Apparently this wassailing custom was a long-standing tradition. Ash found it interesting how different people looked when they wore the clothes they chose themselves. Almost unrecognizable. He was still wearing drab healer colors, since he didn’t really have any other clothes.

  The wassail was thick and potent. Someone had tacked up sprigs of mistletoe in every doorway, and many were taking advantage of it.

  At the center of the hall, a small dais had been constructed, layered over with evergreens and white and gold ribbon. Up on the platform stood a table centered with two large gold chalices. That must be where the royal family would preside over the festivities and drink to the return of the sun.

  Ash worked his way in that direction, hoping to get access to the stage before the king arrived. But when he went to mount the steps, a brace of blackbirds blocked his way. “That up there is for the king and his family,” one said. “There’s plenty for you lot at the ends of the hall.”

  Ash loitered next to the dais, nursing his drink, waiting for another opportunity. Finally, a stir at the far end of the room announced the arrival of the king and queen and their entourage, clad in their holiday finery, a riotous bouquet of color. The procession was surrounded by perhaps four dozen blackbirds, armored and grim, no doubt the result of the recent attempt on the king’s life.

  Whoever this competing would-be assassin is, he’s making my job a lot harder, Ash thought.

  The contrast between glittering armor and glittering jewels and silk and gold and taffeta was striking. Under the pikes of the guardsmen, the crowd parted like water before the prow of a great ship, closing behind the royal procession like a wake.

  Montaigne was clad in cloth of gold. Queen Marina was dressed all in white, her gown a stunning contrast to her dark hair and complexion. Her trailing sleeves were edged in white ermine, uncommon here in the south. Ash studied her with interest. He rarely saw the queen, who almost never left her apartments. She seemed ill at ease, and kept her eyes on her feet, moving cautiously as if afraid of a misstep.

  With them was a handsome, dark-haired boy, near Ash’s age, perhaps a little older, wearing a circlet of gold, and a younger girl, maybe a seven-year, whose hair had been arranged in soft ringlets.

  “That’s Prince Jarat, heir to the throne, and Princess Madeleine,” Lila murmured. She’d found him in the crowd.

  Both royal children had inherited something of their mother’s beauty, though their complexions favored their father’s. The boy had a stingy-looking mouth and his father’s glacial blue eyes.

  Ash planted himself by the steps where the royals would pass by, carefully palming his needle. But an impenetrable wall of black uniforms kept him from getting to within arm’s length of any of them.

  When the royal family reached center stage, a servant filled jeweled cups from the two gold chalices—one for the adults, and another, perhaps less potent brew for the children. Marin Karn stood to the right of the dais, and a foot or two below, covered in the military glitterbits appropriate to his rank. Ash looked around the room, finally spotting Destin Karn in the galleries, scanning the crowd for trouble. For once, he was wearing the black of the royal guard, a dress sword belted at his waist.

  When everyone on the stage was served, Montaigne and his queen lifted their cups. As was traditional, they would drink first. “To the great good health of the servants of this household, and the noble houses that are our strength! To the health of the nation, and glory to the great saint!”

  And the assemblage lifted their much less elaborate cups and cried, “To the great good health of their majesties, King Gerard Montaigne and Queen Marina, and their royal highnesses, Prince Jarat and Princess Madeleine!”

  That was when a servant standing next to the chalice swayed and crumpled to the floor.

  There was instant pandemonium up on the stage. Marin Karn batted the cup from the king’s hand. It landed, rolling, splattering steaming wassail everywhere, until it disappeared over the edge. The royal children set their cups down with a thunk, their faces pale and frightened. The blackbirds surrounding the stage formed a prickling wall around the dais and blocked all the exits to the hall.

  But Queen Marina tilted her head back and drank greedily, three huge gulps, before Father Fosnaught wrenched the cup from her hands and handed it off to a blackbird. Then he gripped her wrist and thrust his face into hers, haranguing her about something.

  “Who was that—the one that fell?” Ash whispered.

  “That was the king of Arden’s taster,” Lila said. She pulled him into a corner and got in his face. “Do you know anything about this?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “No doubt they’ll search all of us. You’re not . . . carrying anything you shouldn’t be, are you? If so, give it to me and I’ll get rid of it.”

  “Besides an amulet?” Ash touched his amulet, in the process returning his sting to its sheath. “Do you think I’m stupid? Only a fool would use a fast-acting poison on a target with a taster. The taster goes down before the king gets it into his system.”

  Lila blinked at him, as if surprised by this display of logic. “What about the viper?” she persisted. “Were you responsible for that?”
br />   “I may be good with animals, but until I can teach a snake to bite the right person, I wouldn’t use one to try and kill someone. Either this would-be killer is an amateur, or someone wants to put the king on his guard.” Ash watched as Merrill forced his way through the crowd to kneel at the taster’s side.

  And that’s when the queen collapsed. Her ladies surrounded her, fluttering like birds. Merrill abandoned the taster and knelt by the queen’s side.

  “Blood and bones,” Ash muttered, debating. He hated to leave the queen in Merrill’s incapable hands. There was no escaping the hall, anyway.

  You can’t save everyone, sul’Han. That was becoming his mantra.

  And suddenly, somehow, Destin Karn was there, in Ash’s face. “Come with me,” he said, gripping Ash’s arm, “and see to the queen.” The lieutenant seemed unaccountably agitated. Maybe he was worried that if the queen died, he would get the blame for not somehow preventing it.

  “Master Merrill’s handling it,” Ash said. “I’d rather not butt in. He’s furious with me already, and I’m still a little shaky from—”

  “Listen to me, healer,” Karn said. “The queen is the kindest, most compassionate—the only truly decent person in this entire court. You are going to come with me, and you are going to heal her if you can, understand?”

  “All right,” Ash said. “Let’s go.”

  “That’s what you get for being so damned capable,” Lila called after him.

  28

  DEATH’S DOORSTEP

  The crowd parted to let Ash and Karn through. He climbed onto the dais to find Merrill waving a pomander under the queen’s nose. “Stay back and give Her Majesty some air,” he cried.

  Montaigne leaned against a marble pillar, guards on every side, arms folded across his chest. His eyes were like chipped ice, fixed on Destin Karn. There would be no getting close to the king now.

  “That poison was meant for me, Lieutenant. How could you let this happen, when there has already been one attempt on my life. You knew there was an assassin in the palace.” He gestured angrily, the stone on his right hand glittering. “Apparently he has the run of the place.”