Her voice attempts a teasing tone, but the tears are still too thick to pull it off well. “I would never leave you, Snow-boy, the Fates themselves couldn’t part us. Something happened while you were healing. The Fates have granted us a miracle.”
His eyebrows bunch together as his eyes start to focus, the elixir continuing to work its magic in aiding his body to heal and the clarity in his face growing as each moment passes by.
Airlie looks up at me and reaches out for her son, and I step around the pallet to gently place him back in his mother’s arms.
When his gaze falls on his infant son, Roan's eyes don't just widen in disbelief, they grow until they seem to take over his entire face. He stares at the small bundle, the same awed disbelief radiating from him in waves just like Airlie when she’d stared at her newborn son on the birthing bed. The desperate hope he was too afraid to put into words shines through his eyes too, even as the young baby wakes and begins to mewl, eager for his next meal.
Airlie whispers, tears heavy in her voice, “He's alive, Roan, we did it. We broke the curse, and our son is here, just as the Fates promised us.”
Stepping away from them both, I turn my back to give them some privacy, and I look out the window for a moment. As the sun breaks over the horizon and the first rays of morning filter into the healer’s quarters, I feel the Fates begin to sing under my scars.
It's a magical moment, filled with the simple wonders of the kingdom around us, and I never grow tired of such a thing. There were many mornings when I worked surrounded by the injured and dying in the Northern Lands that I thought it might be the last time I saw a sunrise. For many of those I tended to, it was.
Prince Soren dismisses Tauron to get some rest, the two of them careful not to disturb the reunion of their closest kin. Tauron never breathes a word about his failure to stay awake on his guard shift, an offense punishable by death in the Sol Army—he just walks out of the healer’s quarters and disappears to his own rooms.
I get back to my preparations, moving the cuttings I gathered from the healer’s garden at Ravenswyrd and setting them out on the large window sills for cultivation. My magic seeps into the water and fuses with them, strengthening and giving them life as I eagerly plan out the garden to ensure a plentiful crop.
I couldn't take cuttings of everything; there weren't enough leather satchels for that, and some plants are far too delicate to travel in the satchels, but I chose the plants I thought would be most useful to the people of Yregar and the victims of this war that find refuge here.
Wounds from the battlefield, pain management, and everything a newborn baby could possibly require to thrive through his first year, the months ahead ticking through my mind. Babies grow so quickly, moving through many different stages, and I want to be sure to see him through them as gently as I can. The ordeal of the curse that haunted him as he grew in his mother’s belly has opened up a soft spot within me for the baby, not just that he survived it all, but some sort of penance for the evil acts of my kind.
“When can Roan come back to our rooms? I want to tend to him there—our bed is far more comfortable than this cot,” Airlie says a short while later.
When I look over, she’s cradling her squirming son to her chest as he begins to fuss for his food in earnest. There’s no good option to host her down here, but I can’t have them moving Roan quite yet either.
Glancing at the maid standing at the door, I ask her, “Can you bring the princess a more comfortable seat, please?”
The maid ducks her head and scurries off, clearly eager to leave my presence, and I walk around Prince Soren to gently guide Airlie to a roughly carved wooden seat for now. My gaze drops to Roan’s prone body, finding him asleep once more, the loving reunion and joyful news having wiped him out of his small reserve of energy.
“He’s going to need one more dose of the elixir, and then I’ll reassess his condition. You’re welcome to stay in here with him for a few more hours this morning, and we’ll move him up to his own bed once he wakes. The walk will be good for him.”
Airlie sighs in relief, her body deflating as all the tension that she held inside rushes out of her at once. “Thank you for the elixir, Rooke.”
It's the first time she’s used my name, at least to me, and the melodic sound of it is different to the way the Seelie high fae had spoken it, different even than the Goblin King, with his very particular accent. It sounds the way my brother says it, the way my family once said it, and I nod my head to acknowledge her courtesy as I turn away, a lump growing in my throat again that makes it impossible to speak.
The maid brings down a more comfortable chair, as I requested, plush and with plump pillows spilling from it as the maid struggles to carry it. As she gets it placed close to the cot, Airlie murmurs a thank you before she sits to finish feeding her son, singing a quiet melody under her breath as she watches me work.
Prince Soren squeezes her shoulder before leaving as well, barking orders to the soldiers as he goes, and I sigh and busy myself with preparing more tinctures as I shove the thoughts of him out of my mind once more. My efforts this time will be focused on pain relief and shortening fevers, the two most likely ailments to be brought to me.
I don't attempt to make conversation with the princess, but she doesn’t seem bothered by my silence, minding herself and her son as she leaves me to my work. I smile at the pretty tones of the song she sings to her son and husband, the old language falling from her lips in the sweetest of melodies, a beautiful sound on its own.
The song is ancient, a lullaby about the way that the Southern Lands look in the winter and the provisions it’s required to bring forth during the equinox. It’s a timely reminder of the rites we should be preparing for and, as I hum along quietly under my breath, I find myself puzzling over Airlie and her folk.
If the high fae have forgotten such things, why does the princess know the words to this ancient rhyme?
* * *
Stumbling and supported by two of his closest friends, Roan walks to his own chambers later that afternoon to finish healing under the watchful eye of his wife and in the presence of the miracle that is his son. The next morning, I wake before dawn and begin moving the jars of plant cuttings outside with me, placing them in the planter to map out my garden.
It’s an important task to ensure there's enough space for each of them to thrive. There's no way I will be able to convince Prince Soren to escort me back into the Ravenswyrd forest anytime soon, so I have one opportunity to get this healer’s garden growing as it needs to.
I can't let something as simple and avoidable as root binding or conflicting growth patterns ruin this.
One of the maids comes looking for me midmorning with a tray ready for Princess Airlie’s morning cup of tea, and I prepare it for her as well as another for Prince Roan.
The maid scowls at it as though presenting the Snowsong prince with a remedy is a difficult task, and I warn her, my voice stern, “He must drink it if he wants to continue his quick healing, otherwise he will be stuck in that bed for weeks to come and will be a burden on the castle should we be attacked.”
She dips her head and carries the tray carefully from the room, and I curse under my breath as I watch her go. I chose my words with care, knowing exactly which ones would itch at a high-fae male’s ego, and when she returns hours later with an empty tray, I note he’s consumed it all.
