Koque made a choked sound and stumbled forward, wrapping her arms around her son. They both fell to the ground, their knees hitting the stone floor. She cooed, stroking her fingers through his hair.
I glanced at the servants, all staring in different directions, giving the Empress as much privacy as they could. I cleared mythroat then made a gesture of dismissal. They took the excuse, closing the door to the Empress’s quarters behind them.
Koque made a hushing noise. “You’re fine, my love. I’m here now. I’m here.”
“Don’t ever leave me,” Hallu said.
I frowned. Was it one of the blood monks? They had been keeping their distance from Prince Hallu at Tallu’s request. He had been afraid of frightening his already traumatized brother.
“I can’t sleep or he’ll come, that creature. I can feel it in my chest.” Hallu coughed violently, his chest racking as he spit up blood onto his mother’s silk dress. “It hurts.”
His whole body twitched and convulsed, moving uncomfortably. “Mother.Mother.”
I crouched down next to Koque and Prince Hallu, where they were wound around each other like snow clinging to the wide branches of a pine tree.
“Prince Hallu, I must ask you some questions. Can you try to answer me?” I kept my voice soft, the way I might speak to a wounded wolf who didn’t want to let me near.
When wolves were injured, they held their paws close, whimpering and whining and snapping at anyone who dared to try to help. Hallu looked at me from under his lashes, his face still tucked against the empress’s chest. He moved his head in what might have been a nod.
“Is it the voice of Centipede or just an echo of it?” I asked. His illness alarmed me, but if he was still host to Centipede, we needed to prepare for a fire dragon attack.
Prince Hallu turned further into his mother’s chest, but she pushed him back. With a quick motion of her hand, she told him something that I couldn’t quite translate, but he immediately straightened, sitting on his legs with his hands positioned politely in his lap.
He raised his chin, his back a straight arrow. When he spoke, itwas with perfect diction, each word precise. “I know it’s not real. But I hear what he said. He said… he said he could save me and mother. He said that he could save me from my brother.”
“The horror of that creature was almost too much for me to bear, and if I were able, I would also wish to forget what it whispered to me.” I tried to smile. “And your health?”
Prince Hallu turned his face into his mother’s chest. “I am well.”
“Areyou?” I asked quietly. “Are you truly well?”
“I’m fine,” he said sharply. “You don’t need to worry, Mother.”
Koque crooned wordlessly, stroking her fingers through hair that curled like Tallu’s even if the shade was lighter. She looked at me, helplessly. “I have known Tallu and he was never like this.”
No, but he hadn’t started suffering the effects of the curse until later. Was Hallu’s curse so virulent because of his youth? Had it even been at work in Koque’s womb?
“What does the doctor say?” I asked. The only doctor nearby was an elderly man who made compresses from dried leaves. Neither Iradîo nor I had a high opinion of him after he’d diagnosed the smoke inhalation she’d suffered as “a woman’s hysteria.”
“He has not seen Hallu,” Koque said. She stroked her son’s hair again. “We require discretion. Such an illness in the emperor’s heir would only create chaos if it became public knowledge.”
And that was the Imperial Court all over.
“Prince Hallu, if you will allow me, I might be able to help. I’m not sure anything can help with the nightmares, and the cost of what Centipede did to us is something you and I will both have to pay, but I might be able to help with the physical illness you have.” I waited for Hallu to nod.
It would be fine. I had been practicing with Naî, although I was not nearly as good as her yet. Perhaps it would be better to wait and ask the dragon to come do it herself.
No. I could do this myself. I could.
Leaning forward, I touched my hands to Hallu’s small chest,calling on ice. When I drew it to me, the thrum of lava hit me suddenly, a vibration under the palms of my hands. Fire magic was always waiting, and it was a great temptation to let it out, let all of my emotions free.
Instead, I called unfamiliar ice, remembering how Naî had taught me to use its healing abilities. I reached out with the ice, wrapping it around Hallu, inside and out. I could sense the fractures inside of him, like cracks in a sculpture.
And there, ever present, were the thin threads of fate, the curse the blood monks had given him and Tallu. Those, I couldn’t do anything about.
But I imagined the ice flowing into Hallu, patching the broken spots, finding the holes in his lungs and filling them. Water would flow into any spot available, filling in cracks. If the ice froze it, then even a broken surface could be as smooth as glass.
The healing began to work, the ice layers going on more smoothly with each repetition. Hallu’s chest expanded, and he gasped deeply without a cough. When I opened my eyes, a thin sheet of ice covered him.
