The Fire Prince (The Cursed Kingdoms Trilogy Book 2) (23 page)

Yasma brought the Horned Lily root. They both took a bite and chewed. It was sweeter than Britta had expected. She swallowed and counted to one hundred. Her palms were damp with nervousness as she picked up the perfume vial. “Yasma, you count the seconds.”

Yasma nodded.

Britta took a deep breath. She raised the vial and sprayed All-Mother’s Breath in the armsman’s face. “The sun rose backwards in the sky today...” The scent of vanilla filled her nose. She saw Karel’s nostrils flare as he inhaled, saw his pupils dilate, saw the tiny muscles in his face stiffen. “...and the sea was pink, not blue.”

The armsman’s hand rose from his side, he took a half-step forward. His lips parted.

“Birds flew upside down and—”

Karel fell, suddenly and solidly, not putting out his hands to catch himself.

Britta crouched hastily. “Karel?”

The armsman lay utterly still. He didn’t move when she touched him, didn’t move when she and Yasma rolled him over. His body was stiff, rather than limp. His eyes were half open.

“Karel, can you hear us? Can you see us?”

Breath came from his half-parted lips, his pulse beat at his throat, but he made no sign of awareness. His eyelids weren’t blinking.

Britta carefully closed them.

“K
AREL
? K
AREL
!” I
T
was an anxious voice, faint, at the edge of his hearing. A voice that he thought he should recognize. “Karel, wake up!” His eyes wouldn’t open. His thoughts were turned in on themselves, coiled tightly in the deepest darkness of his skull, like a hibernating bear.

“Karel!” Someone took his jaw, opened his mouth, pushed something inside, closed it again.

Time passed slowly. Awareness came, creeping as unhurriedly as a glacier. There was something on his tongue. He tasted sweetness.

“Swallow it, Karel.”

His mind sluggishly considered this request.

“Karel!” A slap on his cheek, but he felt no pain. “Swallow!” The edge of desperation in the voice stirred a vague knowledge.
I must protect her
.

The substance on his tongue was wet, pulpy.

The slap came again. “I order you to swallow, armsman!”

Obediently, he tried to follow the command. But the muscles in his throat didn’t work. The pulp caught at the back of his throat.

“He’s choking! Roll him over, Yasma. Quick!”

Hands grabbed him, rolled him.

The ability to breathe returned, and with it, a little more awareness. Karel tried to open his eyes.

“Is he breathing?”

“Yes.”

“His eyelids moved. He’s waking up.” There was a relieved sob in the voice.

Karel managed to blink his eyes open for an instant. He glimpsed a blue silk cushion.

The pulp was still in his mouth. He tried to swallow it again. This time his throat muscles worked.

Someone rolled him back over.

Karel blinked and saw two anxious faces. His eyes shut again. He forced them open and stared up, trying to find names for the young women. One fair, one dark. Both with tears in their eyes.

The fair one pushed something gently against his lips. “Eat this, Karel.”

He opened his mouth, chewed, swallowed. Gradually more awareness returned, a prickling tingle in his numb limbs, and then a flood of memory.

Princess Brigitta and Yasma. All-Mother’s Breath. Horned Lily root.

Karel groaned, rolled onto his side, pushed up to sit as slowly as an old man. His head spun. He squeezed his eyes shut.

“Are you all right, Karel?”

“What time is it?” His voice was slurred, hoarse.

“Less than an hour until midnight.”

He groaned again and rubbed his face with hands that didn’t feel as if they belonged to him.

“Karel, here...” Yasma knelt beside him, holding a cloth. She wiped his face with it. Wet. Cold.

The headache eased, but his thoughts were still slow, sluggish.

“Would you like more Horned Lily root?” the princess asked.

Karel took the piece she gave him, chewed, swallowed. The pins-and-needles tingle in his limbs faded. “Did it say in the scroll to use it to wake people?” His thoughts were too fuddled to remember clearly.

“No, but we couldn’t think of any other way to rouse you.” Her gaze was bright, anxious. “Can you stand?”

With both girls’ help, he managed to get to his feet. They sat him on the settle and hastily cleared everything away—rugs and blankets and cushions, blue glass vial and Horned Lily roots. The princess brought him a goblet of water. “How do you feel? Can you walk?”

“I have to,” Karel said grimly. “Torven will be here shortly.”
What a fool I was to suggest this
. But when he stood, the room didn’t spin around him. He was drowsy, a little shaky, but he wasn’t going to fall over.

Karel walked slowly across the parlor and back. “I’m fine. You’d best get to bed, both of you.”

“Dress, first.” The princess held out his breastplate.

The straps defeated his clumsy fingers. Yasma fastened them, then buckled his sword belt at his hip.

“How do I look?” He felt half-asleep.

“Not as neat as you normally are,” the princess said. “And a bit dazed. Your pupils are dilated.”

Yasma twitched his scarlet tunic, straightening it, and reached up to tidy his hair with her fingers. “Will you be all right, Karel?”

“All I have to do is eat and sleep,” he said, trying to reassure himself as much as her. “I’ll be fine. Now bed, both of you, before Torven gets here.”

“Be careful,” the princess said, gripping his hand for a moment.

The midnight bell rang less than ten minutes after the bedchamber door had shut. Torven arrived as the last note sounded. His expression was sour. “The duty commander wants to see you.”

K
AREL HALTED OUTSIDE
the duty commander’s door. His limbs shook and his eyelids were heavy. He wanted to lean his head against the wall and doze. He blinked hard, took a deep breath, knocked.

“Enter.”

Karel’s heart began to beat faster. Sweat sprang out on his skin.
Don’t make a mistake
. He obeyed the command, saluted, stood at parade rest. “You wished to see me, sir?”

The duty commander leaned back in his chair and looked at him. Would the man notice that his pupils were dilated?

“Princess Brigitta is leaving Osgaard shortly. You’re to go with her—but you already know that, don’t you, armsman?”

Karel blinked, feeling a flicker of panic.
Was
he meant to know that? Yes. Jaegar had told the princess within his hearing. “Yes, sir.”

“Then you know the details—a Fithian ship, hunting for Prince Harkeld?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Your orders are to obey the Fithians in all matters. The retrieval of Prince Harkeld’s hands and blood is of the
utmost
importance. More important than the princess’s well-being. The Heir-Ascendant believes she may prove difficult as the hunt draws to its close. You have his permission to manacle her, if that’s the case.”

Karel’s wits were too slow to hide his shock. He knew the duty commander saw it on his face.

“If such measures are necessary, you won’t be punished, armsman.”

Karel tried to speak stolidly. “Yes, sir.”

“Be ready to leave at dawn, the day after the coronation. The quartermaster will issue you with a traveling kit. Here’s a note for him. Dismissed.”

Karel took the note, saluted, and exited the room. He stood in the corridor feeling groggy, sweaty, confused.

H
E ALMOST DOZED
off twice in the line waiting for food, almost dropped his plate when he sat at the table, almost spilled ale down his front when he tried to drink. Thank the All-Mother the meal was fish stew, not something he had to cut. Even so, he had to concentrate on getting the food to his mouth.

Undressing was even harder than eating. Unbuckling his breastplate and sword belt, untying his boot laces, were almost impossible tasks. Finally his uniform was off.

Karel crawled into his bunk and slept.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

H
ARKELD APPROACHED INNIS
cautiously. Was his imagination going to cooperate tonight?

Innis cast him an unsmiling, unfriendly look and went back to examining the water lilies. A dragonfly hovered like a bright jewel over one of them.

“All right,” Harkeld said crossly. “I’m sorry.”
Can we have sex now?

Innis didn’t respond to the apology. She stared across the pond.

“What?” Harkeld said finally, frustrated by the silence. “What do you want from me?”

“You could go away.”

He glared at her. “This is
my
dream. I’m staying.”

“Then I’ll go.”

He caught her elbow as she turned away. “Is this still because I tupped that girl in Gdelsk?”

She pulled her elbow free. He heard her
What do you think?
in his head as clearly as if she’d opened her mouth and spoken the words.

“What?” he half-yelled in exasperation. “What was wrong with that? She enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. How was that wrong?”

Innis folded her arms tightly. The emotion leaking from her was outrage.

“You think I’ve been unfaithful to you? Is that what this is all about?” Harkeld laughed, a loud, flat, disbelieving sound. This dream was even weirder than he’d thought. No, not weirder.
Stupider
.

Innis’s lips tightened. “You think it’s funny?”

“Not funny.
Ridiculous
.” Harkeld waved at the pond, the high, clipped hedges, the blue, cloudless sky. “This is a dream! It’s not real life. We’re not betrothed. We’re not married. You’re something my imagination made up. Whether I’m faithful to you or not is irrelevant! So can we stop all this offended
I’ve-been-betrayed
horseshit and get back to what this is all about?”

“Sex?” She said the word like it left a bad taste in her mouth.

“Being happy. That’s the point of these dreams, isn’t it?”

Innis didn’t answer. Her expression was unreadable.

Harkeld sighed. What more did his mind want from him? “Being with you makes me happy, whether or not we have sex. All right?”

Her lips pressed together. She conceded this with a tilt of her head.

Harkeld held out his hand. After a moment’s hesitation, Innis took it. Her fingers were cool, slender. “But I’m not having sex with you tonight.”

Harkeld decided not to argue. Right now he’d settle for the contentment of holding her hand.

H
E WOKE AT
dawn when Justen unfastened the tent flaps. “Still raining,” the armsman said. He reached back for the naked sword he always laid between their bedrolls and slid it into its scabbard.

Harkeld grunted and sat up, rubbing his face. “I’ve been having the strangest dreams lately.”

“Good or bad?”

Harkeld considered this while he combed his hair with his fingers. “Frustrating,” he said finally. “Confusing. Bizarre.” He rubbed his face again. Stubble rasped beneath his hands. “Maybe I’m going mad?”

Justen snorted a laugh. “Ach, I doubt it.”

“Don’t laugh,” Harkeld said wryly. “It’s possible.” He shrugged aside his blanket and peered through the open tent flap. Tree stumps. Mud. Rain. “In fact, if we don’t get out of this landscape soon, it’s inevitable.”