Healing Fire (2 page)

“Oh, Mabon. My own. My friend. Please.” He was not above begging.

“Prince Jules!”

He was pulled away, out of the burning room, away from Mabon. His skin tore as he fought the guard, his entire body feeling like it was a flame. He managed to get free long enough to return to Mabon’s side.

“I love you, my prince.” Mabon touched his cheek, eyes closing. Then the big body toppled over.

It was as if the world winked out of existence, as if a million lights disappeared.

Mabon was dead.

The guards pulled Jules out of his rooms, dragging him back down the hall. He closed his eyes and let himself go limp.

Mabon was dead.

For him.

Lem felt pain.

He almost cheered. He’d thought he was dead, but pain meant he was alive. Was the castle still under attack? Maybe they still needed him. He wasn’t sure what was wrong, why he hurt, but he would fight if he could. He forced his eyes open.

The physicians walked quietly, long silvery hair down, black armbands marking the ones they had lost.

Oh. He was in the hospital. The attack was over. They had won, right? Surely, they had.

He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out.

A little female with a hawk-like face and glittering eyes touched his arm. “Your voice will return. You have beaten the poison, but it must work its way out of your body.”

Poison? He had been poisoned?

The memory flashed back into his mind of being slashed by one of the Graithen. His side throbbed painfully at the memory.

“Do you have any pain, sir?”

He answered automatically, “No.” Guardians did not have pain. No pain. No fear. No weakness.

She tsked at him. “I know that’s the party line, but you’re in the infirmary. You must be honest about what your body needs while you’re here. So you can heal properly.”

“It’s not that bad,” he told her, honestly. He ached all over, and his head throbbed, but his side only hurt when he thought about what had happened. They had been attacked. He had tried to lead the Graithen away. And he had rung the bell, leaving his master…

He managed a single word, though there was barely any sound to it, more a rough noise like a plane on wood. “Anselle?” Had he saved his Master?

She shrugged, but her expression was sympathetic, kind. “He fights the venom. He is older.”

Lem struggled to sit up, regret that he’d not protected his Master better more painful than any wound he could be made to suffer through. “I must see him.”

She smiled at him. “You found your voice, I see.”

“Yes.” He’d had to. For his Master.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed. The female took a step back, not stopping him, but not helping. His legs trembled, shook violently, but he held himself up.

“Where?” he asked, barking the word out as his body wanted to collapse. He wouldn’t let it, though.

“Follow me.” She led him along a busy hallway to a quiet room, where Anselle lay on a cot, totally grey and still. Oh, that was not good. “No one has ever survived the Graithen poisons,” the nurse told him quietly. “Until you.”

Lem stepped into the room to stand at Anselle’s bedside. “Anselle? Master?”

The old dragon’s eyes opened, stared at him. “My boy.” The deep, cracked sound of his master’s voice was soothing, even though his master was clearly weak, dying.

The nurse pushed a chair against the back of his legs. Lem sat hard, grateful he no longer had to keep himself upright.

“I’m so sorry, Master. I tried to keep you safe.”

“We lost many, lad. Mabon. Killi. There would have been more if you had not sounded the alarm.”

“Mabon and Killi were with the royals!” Had they lost any of their charges? Or was that just him?

“They came after Prince Jules.” The captain of the guard appeared in the doorway, looking grave. “And there was an incident with the royals.”

“Is the prince okay?” Lem asked. Mabon was dead. Please let it not have been for nothing.

“He’s nonresponsive. He hasn’t woken since Mabon died.”

“That’s awful.” Lem hung his head, feeling the weight of this injury as deeply as his Master’s. He should have been quicker to the bell. He should have been stronger. He should have saved them both.

“It is, but he will recover.” The captain looked so sure.

Lem was not as sure that Anselle would get better. He was, in fact, very doubtful.

“May I sit with Anselle?” the captain asked. “I don’t wish him to be alone.”

Lem knew it wasn’t his place to allow or not allow the captain to stay with Anselle, but he wished to beg for forgiveness in private. “If I can have a few minutes first please, Captain.”

“If you wish to keep him company, you have the right. You were his trainee.”

Yes, and he had failed his master. He wasn’t sure he had any rights left. He inclined his head to the captain, waiting until the man had left before turning back to Anselle and bowing his head low.

“Please, Master, I beg your forgiveness for failing you.” Lem knew he didn’t deserve it, but, nonetheless, he had to ask.

“Failing me? Pshaw. You saved the palace. You sounded the alarm.”

“But you’re dying.” Lem should have gotten Anselle safely behind closed doors before leaving to sound the bell. And he should have been earlier to sound it, as well.

“Everything dies, my boy.”

“Not because of me!”

“No.” Anselle gave him a stern look. “Not because of you. Because we were attacked.”

“I should have done more, Master. I failed your training.” He had failed in so many different ways.

“Nonsense. I have never been so proud.” Anselle reached out for him.

Lem took Anselle’s hand, willing his Master to draw on his strength.

“My heart son. You will be the best of my legacy.”

Oh, Anselle’s heart son. It was the biggest honor Lem could dream of being bestowed.

“I will not fail you again, Master. I swear it.”

“You have never failed me. Not once since you hatched.”

The words made his eyes fill with tears.

“Master, please. Don’t leave me.”

“I could never leave you. My training lives within you.”

Lem held on tightly to Ansell’s hand. “I will make you proud, Master. I swear it.”

“I love you, my son.”

The tears began to spill from Lem’s cheeks. He bent his head over Ansell’s hand, kissed it.

“Master...” He wanted to beg Anselle not to die, but he knew it would make no difference. The poison had ravaged his Master’s body.

The dragon sighed softly. Then the huge heart stopped beating, the magical spirit filling the room with Anselle’s final rush of presence.

Lem closed his eyes and breathed his Master in, the tears pouring down his cheeks.

***

Jules woke a ten day after Mabon passed. He went from the hospital to his quarters, refusing to speak, to eat. Nothing. His heart was broken, and his body ached.

There was a knock at his door, then it opened, the captain of the guard coming in.

“Your bodyguard is here, Your Highness.”

He stared, his heart pounding furiously. What? What? His Mabon lived?

The captain stepped aside, and a tall, broad man with a square face, who was definitely not Mabon, walked in.

The man came up to him and stopped abruptly. “Lem, reporting for duty, Your Highness.”

No. No, this was not Mabon. Jules stood up and opened his door, pointed to the hall. No.

“I will not leave unless you do, sire.”

“He is yours, Highness,” the captain told him. “Your father has ordered it.” With that the captain bowed and left, closing the door behind him.

Jules shook his head, then turned to his bedroom. No. No. Mabon was his guard. Before he could close the door behind him, Lem was through it, right at his heels. He shook his head, shoved the man away. No. Lem stepped back next to him.

“I am your bodyguard, whether you wish it or not.”

“My bodyguard is Mabon.” His voice was destroyed, raw.

“I am sorry, sire. Truly.”

“Go. Please.” He needed peace. Silence. Mabon.

“I cannot.” Lem stood, hands at his sides, back straight.

Jules crept back into the shadows, curled into the bedding, and hid. He would stay in his nest, lest he burned anyone else. Lem moved to stand next to his nest, silent and tall.

The only safe space in all the world was gone.

Nonetheless, silent and still, Lem remained.

Lem was worried about the prince. Jules didn’t sleep. He didn’t eat. He didn’t do anything but lie in his bed. Lem knew how to defend Jules from outside threats. He did not know how to defend the prince from himself.

The little prince was never cruel. He barely spoke, he barely moved. Lem had been told that Jules used to spend most of his time reading, staying in his suite with his bodyguard Mabon.

Lem, of course, knew Mabon—all the bodyguards knew each other by sight—but not very well. The strong dragon had been older and had had more training than Lem currently did when he’d been called to the prince’s side almost two hundred years ago.

Lem knew they were very big wings indeed that he had to fill. He also knew, without question, that the blame would fall upon him should Jules die. And rightly so. He was the prince’s protector. He just wasn’t sure how he could protect Jules from himself, for surely that was what the danger was at this time. It made Lem think. What would Mabon have done?

There was a private courtyard off of Jules’ rooms, meant solely for the prince’s pleasure. Lem knew that no one else was allowed back there, not even gardeners. The area was completely cut off from the rest of the castle by high, windowless walls, and the only entrance was through the door in Jules’ quarters. Perhaps a little air, a change of scenery would be good. Decided, Lem went to Jules, the prince still curled up in his nest as he had been earlier this morning. And yesterday, and the day before that, and the week before that, since Lem had been here.

“Your Highness, let’s go out to the courtyard. I can hear the fountain, but have never seen it.”

Jules looked at him for a moment, the green eyes beautiful, if so sad. One slender hand waved as if to say, “go.”

Grunting, Lem girded his loins against his own training, which said he didn’t do this, that he was never to touch the prince if he could avoid it. He bent, picking Jules right up out of his nest.

“What?” Jules sputtered.

Dragons needed sustenance, sunlight. They needed it. Lem clung to that thought and stayed the course.

“We are going to the courtyard.”

He didn’t put Jules down. The prince would probably curl back up in his nest, or possibly find a nook or cranny to hide in, and Lem was not having that. He was taking his prince into the sunlight, even if it meant he was disobeying his prince’s wishes. His job was to protect and defend.

When Lem pushed through the door into the courtyard, he gasped as the sunshine touched his skin. It had been days. Days. He could feel it, energizing him, warming him. He had been so busy worrying about the prince, he’d forgotten his own need for the warm touch.

He wanted to close his eyes and bask, but he didn’t. As private as this space was, that didn’t mean impenetrable. There was still the air, and he was no longer guarding the door from Jules’ quarters. So he kept his eyes open, stayed aware, and walked toward the lovely fountain that had pride of place in the center of the surprisingly roomy courtyard.

“Can you feel the sunshine in your bones?” he asked even though he knew Jules could, the dull sheen on Jules’ skin already beginning to warm, to take on a hint of vitality.

It was obvious to Lem that he had done the right thing. Master Anselle had always told him to follow his gut. Worried as it had made him, he had. He sent a silent prayer of thanks and love to his teacher. Every lesson, no matter how strange or hard or simple, was proving to be useful in the guardianship of his charge.

Prince Jules lifted his face to the sun, the motion simple, instinctual. It gave Lem his first real look at the prince’s face.

Unlike the thickset, heavy dragons that made up Lem’s caste, Jules had the delicate, gentle features of the ruling class. Perhaps the most beautiful features Lem had ever seen. The sadness in them did not dim Jules’ beauty in the least.

Lem let himself memorize the fine cheekbones, the long, slender nose. He imagined Jules’ dragon would be quite small, but perfectly formed. He’d never seen a royal in dragon form, but had heard that their scales were impossibly beautiful.

Moving to the fountain, he took in the form of the tree that was in the center of it, water pouring from its boughs. Such wonderful magic!

“My mother formed this for me.” Words, actual words, offered freely. This was indeed a magical spot.

“It’s beautiful. Is the water healing?” Lem asked as he sat on the bench that wound its way around the fountain.

Jules nodded. “But it cannot heal me.”

“Why not?” Lem would not touch the water until he was sure it was not poisonous, and he would only then taste it to make sure that it would not harm his prince.

“My heart is broken. They killed my friend.” Jules’ words were so softly spoken.

“I am sorry, my prince.” Lem would take all of Jules’ pain on himself, if he could. After all, it was because of him that the Graithen had breached the palace’s safeguards.

“It’s all my fault. All of it.” There was such pain in Jules’ voice.

“No, my prince.” Lem hung his head. “It is my fault.” He hadn’t been fast enough in sounding the alarm. He hadn’t been strong enough to keep the intruders from the castle.

“They came for me,” Jules insisted.

“But I didn’t figure it out soon enough, what the buzz was. I was too slow to sound the alarm.” Lem would not let his prince take this upon himself. Perhaps neither of them could hold their heads up.

Lem held onto Jules tightly. He would not fail again. No one would hurt his charge. Never. He would defend Jules for an eternity.

Reaching for the water, he cupped his hand and let it fill. It tasted sweet upon his tongue, and he knew that it was pure and safe. So he refilled his hand and held it to Jules’ lips.