“But I still need to see Veteria…” I trail off.
Aren stops and turns toward me, a look akin to pity overtaking her striking features. I must look pathetic.
“I told you—” she starts to say.
“She will only be found if she wants to be. I know,” I interrupt, feeling utterly sorry for myself and my doomed situation.
Aren stares unblinking at me until she throws her hands up in the air in frustration.
“Fine!” she says in a huff. “I’m not supposed to do this.” She wags a finger at me.
She twirls around, but the bottom of her skirt is so caked in heavy mud that the fabric tangles around her boots. “Veteria! We need your help!” she hollers at the wind. “He might be royalty, but he’s not entirely awful!”
What a ringing endorsement.
“Please!” she pleads with the gray sky.
“This is useless.” I brush past Aren and begin to walk toward what direction I believe will lead back to town when an old woman draped in animal pelts, her eyes as white as pearls, blocks my path. She holds up her hand, and I’m suddenly thrown backward through the air. I land flat on my back in the mud, and everything goes black.
…
The first thing I feel is pain. My body aches, my muscles stiff and sore. Light glows through my closed eyelids. As I wake, the pain sets in deeper, rousing me further. Slowly, I crack open my eyes and see a roaring fire. I’m lying on a warm cot, covered in soft furs.
“You’re alive,” a craggy voice says, and I nearly jump out of my own skin.
“Sadly,” says a familiar one.
The old woman from before, her hunched form barely distinguishable from a pile of furs, sits stooped near the fire. Her milky-white eyes peer sightlessly at the flames. Aren is next to her holding a mug of some steaming beverage. Somehow, my clothes are clean and dry instead of wet and covered with mud. Veteria is a small woman, which means that Aren helped disrobe me. I can’t help but blush at the thought.
“I don’t care for uninvited guests,” Veteria says, her head tipped to the side. “I don’t know your intentions.” She says the second part with an eye toward Aren, who shamefully stares into her mug like she’s being chastised by her mother.
“Madam, I mean you no harm, I assure you,” I say. I watch her carefully, wondering just how much she can see, whether she’s truly blind. She continues to stare, unblinking.
I take a moment to get my bearings. I’m in a one-room cabin, the fire the only source of light. Rain batters the window behind heavy curtains drawn tight against the glass. There are little tables covered in jars and pots. Covered containers of fruits and vegetables line the shelves. Dried herbs hang in bundles from the exposed wooden beams, and a leaning bookcase sags under a wealth of dusty tomes. A fresh loaf of baked bread sits steaming on the table, hot out of a cast-iron skillet. My stomach growls, betraying my hunger.
It’s just the three of us except for a black-and-gray cat curled up at my feet. It opens one orange eye, studies me, then closes it again and goes back to sleep. I look again at the great variety of dried herbs. They can’t all be local. Someone has spent a great deal of time gathering them and has the resources to procure rarities from afar.
Veteria puts another log into the flame and stirs the fire. Her silence has me on edge.
She finally speaks. “I have seen you in my visions. You are the cursed prince of Loegria. The one who is doomed to death, and all of Albion with him.”
Chapter Twelve
Dietan
I draw the blanket tighter around me. The Rings hum at the mention of my curse. “That’s why I’ve come to ask for your help,” I say. “I heard you might be able to…” I clear my throat and steal a quick glance toward Aren. “…fix me.”
“Fix you?” Veteria laughs, shaking her head.
I visibly pale, like a scolded child. Aren notices immediately. It’s bad enough that she knows I’m cursed now, but for her to know the rest? Gods, forbid.
Aren shifts uncomfortably back and forth on her feet. I clear my throat to break the awkward silence—a cue, I hope, for Aren to excuse herself. She looks to Veteria, then to me, and then back to Veteria. Veteria gives her a knowing nod.
Aren pulls her, now dry, cloak from the chair and throws it over her shoulders.“I’ll be outside while you talk,” she says as she opens the front door and beelines for a wooden rocking chair on the covered porch. Once the door shuts, the tension rachets.
“Why ever would you think that I couldfix you?” Veteria accuses.
“Because you’re a healer, a fabled one,” I say, thinking that some brownnosing may help me.
