The Royal Wizard (25 page)

Sir Arnaud caught Stardust’s reins as she dismounted, saying, “I’ll care for the mounts.”

Nia, holding on to the tree to keep upright, could only nod ascent.

By the time she could stand unaided, the others had gathered wood and tended the mounts. They only waited for her to join them and light the fire. The provisions the dragon had given them were laid out and ready to eat and Nia’s mouth watered for the bountiful offering.

But she was too weary of sitting to join the others. Instead she lit a fire for them, took up her staff and an apple and went for a stroll to stretch her legs.

The dragon’s words wouldn’t leave her. Could Saeran be in trouble? Needing to get away, Nia had closed herself off from him completely, rendering even his calling spells useless. He could not have reached her, save by a messenger, and he would not have known where to send one. She’d left him completely stranded, without counsel or aid.

Regret stabbed at her, and she lifted the magical veil she’d cast over herself the day they rode out.

All at once her blood turned to ice and her head swam. Saeran’s calling tolled like a massive bell inside her, amplified each time it had fallen on deaf ears. It wrenched her out of time and space in a mad swirl of colors and darkness. Red for danger. Blue for cold. Black for oblivion.

Saeran was dying. She felt it as she spun end over end in a void where not even her voice would carry its frantic call.

When she started falling, she braced herself, but even so her cloak tangled around her and she fell in a heap on the cold stone floor of Saeran’s bed chamber.

A soft gasp.

Hurried footsteps.

Then delicate hands grasped her arm to help her stand. Nia was disoriented and dizzy and the entire chamber, with its dozens of candle flames dancing, spun and dipped around her. And all the while her heart thudded in her chest for herself as well as Saeran. Even with her hearing focused on the sound, his heartbeat was almost too weak to find and his breaths came too slow, too far apart.

“You come,” the woman said in a heavily accented voice. The girl, the queen, was holding her upright. “Finally you come.”

Nia made every effort to steady herself and slow her heartbeat. She wanted to ask what was wrong with Saeran, but her jaw was clenched against a wave of nausea.

The queen told her without being asked. “He fell ill with fever, but is not fever.” When she couldn’t think of the right words, she began speaking in frenzied sentences in her own tongue. Nia understood her perfectly. “He’s cold as ice. We cannot warm him, and he will not wake. He called for you!” The accusation rang with despair and the small hands on her arms clenched as if to shake her. “He called all the time, and you would not come. You are supposed to help him! So help!”

Nia took a deep breath and reached out to something, anything, to steady herself. Her staff lay by the window, too far to reach. She didn’t need it. The queen helped her to the bed and she sat heavily on the soft mattress. Next to her, Saeran didn’t move. His breaths were shallow, and each was a sigh—her name. Tears stung her eyes. How many times had he called out to her and met with emptiness?

You know what to do,
the dragon said in her mind, his voice banishing the dizziness. At last, Nia was able to look up without the world spinning around her.

Her gaze fell onto the queen’s young face.

The girl was beautiful, with dark skin and big round eyes. She wasn’t wearing a veil and her thick, raven hair fell to her hips, plaited through with golden adornments. She looked as if she’d been crying for days and hadn’t slept for weeks. Her lips were bloodless and dry, not a good sign, especially with the babe in her womb already crying out for nourishment.

Nia’s heart sank for the girl, and the child. She couldn’t help either. “Eat something,” she said.

The queen drew back in surprise at hearing her native tongue. “I cannot leave him,” she said. “He needs me.” In the small moment of silence that followed her words, Nia was pulled into the girl’s thoughts and memories, and she came to understand how much Queen Mari had changed in the months since her arrival. The shy, fearful young maiden was gone. In her place was a true queen. She stood tall now, when before she had cowered. She spoke up, when she hadn’t in the past, and she had ruled the kingdom during Saeran’s illness. She’d done it well. So well, in fact, that nobody, save those closest to him, knew that Saeran was ill, maybe dying.

The queen squared her shoulders with steely resolve. “He needs you more. You will make him better.”

Nia wasn’t so certain.

But when the queen made her exit, she had no choice. 

CHAPTER 26

The door closed.

Nia shook all over, too scared to look at Saeran; scared she would see only a withered shell of the strong man she knew. Scared she wouldn’t be able to heal him. Even now, listening to everything around her, she knew this was nothing she had ever seen before.

The candles sang their sorrowful melodies.

The walls mourned the dying king.

The wolf’s pelt pulled tighter around her, as if in encouragement.

Steeling herself against the stab of pain she knew was to come she turned her eyes on Saeran and sucked in a sharp breath at the sight of him. His hair was soaked with sweat, his eyes swollen and red, closed and still. He looked frozen, his skin pale and his lips blue. His beard had been shaven, revealing a gaunt face once so handsome. Blanket upon blanket covered him from the neck down, but she knew what they hid; a skeleton covered with skin.

“Saeran,” Nia whispered, unable to believe this was the man she loved. She laid a shaking hand on his brow and gasped at how cold he was.

The noble king breathed in a true breath, his brows twitching as if he sensed her presence. Even his heart answered the touch, beating a little stronger.

Nia bit back her tears, struggling to her feet so she could examine him. She drew all but one blanket down to his waist, feeding magic to the hearth fire when he started shivering. Then she laid a hand on his chest and closed her eyes, Seeing with her essence into his.

Breath left her when she found the source of his illness. He was ensorcelled! There was a ball of sinister darkness, like a coiled spider’s web glowing in his core, sending out tendrils that stretched into his entire body. It was in his heart and his mind, racking his body with pain and his thoughts with terror. He was too weak already to fight it much longer.

Nia drew back and opened her eyes. The spell was a powerful one, borne of several essences entwined together. How could that be? Who could wish such a thing on the king? And how could Nia have missed it?

 It was too strong now, too deeply embedded in Saeran for her to draw it out. She would kill him in the process.

You know what to do,
the dragon repeated, his voice revealing an uneasiness that frightened her.

The pendant won’t be enough to banish this,
she replied.

But it will allow me entrance.

Nia sniffled and squared her shoulders, pulling the pendant from her pocket.

You do not hesitate? Even knowing what you will need to do, what it will do to you?

She lifted Saeran’s head so she could put the chain around him.
I will keep him with me. Do what you must.
When the chain was in place, she removed the blankets, leaving him in nothing but his night shirt and the pendant. He hissed when she opened his shirt and placed the pendant in the center of his chest over the infection, his icy skin turning red around it as if burned.

Are you ready?

Nia took a deep breath, laying one hand over Saeran’s brow, the other over the pendant. She closed her eyes and drew on all the magic she possessed, the dragon’s power, and the light of her very soul. She held nothing back, pouring it all into Saeran to entwine her essence with his as tightly as she could, surrounding him. The cold, dark taint inside him made her shiver but instead of pulling back, Nia held on tighter, determined not to let him slip away. She nodded when she was done, knowing the dragon would see.

My blood will protect you, but not completely.

Do it now.

Very well,
the dragon said after a small pause.
Do not let go.

She felt the first wave of heat like a tendril of smoke winding around her and Saeran. It was no stronger than the heat of a hearth fire, but already Saeran bucked and she winced. The smoke twined around them until it created a cocoon from which the infection couldn’t escape. Nia’s hands shook, but she planted her feet and refused to move.

In the next instant, fire blasted the cocoon, blue and hotter than anything even Nia could conjure. It came rushing in through the smoke and became trapped inside it, just as Nia and Saeran were. Both screamed, and Saeran arched on the bed, every muscle in his body tight. His soul bucked, tried to escape her hold, but she wouldn’t let it. He screamed and raged against her hold, begged and pleaded to be released from the scorching flames. Nia hardened her heart against his cries and held on.

And all the while the infection squealed like a living thing, burning like embers in a dying flame. Its tendrils pulled back into the mass at its core, giving it strength, and the fire intensified, determined to scorch every last bit of it.

Nia felt her flesh burning, giving way, but she would never show a sign of this torment on the outside, just like Saeran. Already his body was filling out, reclaiming the strength the infection had leeched from him. In a pained spasm, his hand shot to cover hers on his chest. She thought he might try to pull it away, but his fingers curled around hers, his magic mixing with hers, and he held on to her, gaining more strength and courage as the infection grew weaker and smaller.

The fire swirled around them, inside them in a vortex of blinding heat that drowned out their cries with its roar. The infection sparked and lashed out, trying to find another place to hide, to seed and grow anew. There was nowhere to hide.

Do not fight it,
the dragon told her.
Give yourself up to the fire or it will burn you alive.

Nia opened her watering eyes to squint through the flames at Saeran. His eyes were like mirrors, reflecting the blue fire, and for a moment she recognized in them that which had always been part of him—dragonblood. She managed a small nod and saw him grit his teeth. He squeezed her hand, then closed his eyes and did as the dragon had told them. Nia followed suit. She let the fire in, let it do with her as it pleased. The white hot flame cut off her cry, burned her tears away before they could fall. It embedded itself in her core, the place where the dragon’s blood had merged with her life’s essence.

But instead of searing her, it fed her strength. The burn turned to warmth, the transition so sharp that it weakened her and her knees almost buckled beneath her. She’d felt this before with the dragon’s blood, knew what she had to do, but Saeran hesitated, refusing to accept it completely. It trapped the flame in his body, but outside of his soul, and it could do nothing but burn him.  It was killing him as surely as the infection, and Saeran was frozen in uncertainty.

Let it in!
she wanted to tell him, but couldn’t make herself heard. Saeran was beyond hearing anything. He clutched her hand, fighting the terrible draw pulling him away from her, but it wasn’t enough. He was slipping.

Nia cried out. She climbed onto the bed to kneel next to Saeran.
Please. Please do not fight me.
Then she leaned over him and pressed her lips to his, forcing the fire that had become part of her into him through a kiss. The door it opened was small, but it was enough. She felt Saeran gasp against her lips as the flame bonded with him completely. As if awakened from deep slumber, his own fire flared and joined the dragon’s, and together they burned brighter, hotter, searing the infection until nothing remained but ash, and then not even that.

The dragon pulled back as soon as it was safe to do so, leaving Nia and Saeran shaken and cold without the fire’s heat, but safe. Nia sat on her heels to keep from falling on top of Saeran. Head swimming, eyelids heavy, she was moments away from passing out.

Faint voices intruded, guards and healers entering the chamber. Though her eyes were open, she couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing. There were only colors and lights dancing before her, making her dizzy and tired.

Something brushed her cheek.

Someone said her name.

Strong arms closed around her and then everything went black.

Nia collapsed against Saeran and for a moment the shock of waking up to see her there turned into blind panic that the fever had passed from him to her. But Saeran felt her breath puff against his skin, heard her heart beat.

He clutched Nia to him, his heart thudding in his chest as it hadn’t done in weeks. His limbs were weak, his body still stinging with the memory of fire, but there were no scars on his skin. He felt stronger than he ever had in his life, and knew it had little to do with the fire the dragon had lent him. How Nia had managed to find a dragon, let alone persuade him to help Saeran, he would never know and, at the moment, didn’t care. She was back in his arms, and this time he wasn’t letting her go.

His hands were clumsy, but he managed to pull on the ties of her cloak and take it off her shoulders. The wolf skin left her with a caress as if it still lived, and it stayed on the bed when the cloak slid to the floor.

“Your Majesty,” one of the healers said, breathless, as if he couldn’t believe his king’s rapid recovery.

“Leave,” Saeran said, surprised at the strength of his own voice.

“But your Majesty—”

“Now.”

They left. The door closed again, shutting out the murmurs and grumbles and outlandish rumors being born while the chamber filled with the soft music of candle flames and whispered secrets, a lullaby to ease Nia's slumber.

Saeran smiled down at her sleeping in his arms. He arranged the pillows behind him so he could sit against them, then settled back with his beloved wizard in his lap and laid his cheek against the top of her head. In the morning, he would ask her what happened, where she’d gone, and how she’d gotten back. He would ask about the dragon and her quest, and the chain he now wore about his neck.