I can’t tell if this is a threat or a plain observation. I’m aware I’m not immortal—no being on this Earth is—but will my life run its full course?
He raises his fingers to the uppermost hoop on his right ear and rubs a stone as translucent and yellow as tree sap until his fingertips come away coated with a salve that he presses onto my wound. The contact makes me jerk.
As he heals me, his eyes shut and his chest pumps with breaths as strong as the swells that foam and break against the cliffs bracketing Monteluce. I’ve never sailed around the continent but have heard tales from fishermen, who keep close to Lucin shores in order to avoid paying the excessive tithe imposed by Glace for sailing through their calmer waters.
Perspiration forms along my upper lip. I lick it away, focusing on everything but the agony thrashing through my veins.
“Almost done.” The silver-haired Fae must catch the moisture laminating my skin because his tone is soothing.
I swallow.Almostturns out to be another full minute. Did it take him this long to heal Dante or does my body darn itself slower because I’m only part Fae? Probably the latter.
When Lazarus lowers his hands from my arm, my skin is smooth and unblemished. Only dried blood remains, but he makes it disappear by gloving my entire arm with his Fae-fire.
I jolt anew. “Was it truly necessary to roast my arm?”
His whiskered chin dips. “Yes, child.”
My heart, which had settled inside of my throat when he’d run his nose along my knuckles, squeezes itself between my tongue and palate and palpitates there.
Is it the crow’s scent or the iron infusing my blood that he scented?
If he tells my grandfather about the former, he’ll be condemning me to death. I’d deny his claim of course, but what happens once my home is searched? Even if the crow can transform into fumes, they’ll catch him. After all, they caught him once with those spikes.
“What was it about her blood that so unsettled you, Lazarus?” My grandfather’s voice springs me out of my mind’s ramblings.
The healer’s gaze roams over me one last time before rising to Justus. “I thought I smelled turmeric and wondered why in Luce she’d treat an open wound with a blood thinner.”
“Probably Ceres’s doing. She so loves concocting natural remedies.”
Although his comment irritates me, Lazarus’s lie irks me more, because the healer knows one of my secrets—perhaps both—and like Antoni mentioned, secrets make for dangerous weapons in our world.
What will he do with mine?
Twenty-Seven
Bracketed by the general, commander, and six soldiers, I travel down the concentric islands that make up Isolacuori. Unlike in Tarecuori and Tarelexo, the strips of land here are curved.
Every time the narrow road bends, I ready myself for a grand vista, but I’m met with more foliage and more blooms. It’s only when we reach the canals between the islands that my scope grows, and yet instead of looking forward or around, I survey the limpid water that flows beneath the golden bridges.
Dante once told me grates are welded into the underwater foundations of the Isolacuori, effectively keeping out serpents and boats, thus turning the waterways into bathing areas reserved for the royal family and high-ranking members of society. He even told me the water is treated daily with a chemical manufactured in Nebba that thins out the salt density.
If only they could make our canals safer but Gods forbid the high Fae do anything that could benefit the lower echelons of society. Come to think of it, serpents need salt, so it’s probably best they don’t pour whatever mysterious Nebban solution on our side of the channel.
Lofty bushes dotted with exotic blooms turn into clipped hedges, and edifices begin to appear. The first is a giant pillared work of marble—the Holy Fae Temple. Although we have two places of worship on our side of the channel, neither is as immense or as blinding as this one.
Sure, the Tarecuorin temple is splendid and vast, but the stone is veined and dulled from years of exposure to the salted spray. As for ours, it’s modest and narrow, constructed from wood painted to resemble stone, with chipped benches and exposed beams.
Even though my entourage doesn’t lead me through the temple, I catch a glimpse of its glass roof—a single pane that stretches over the immense expanse, a feat of magical architecture.
Remembering this isn’t a social call, I return my attention to the road ahead and to the low whisperings of the guards surrounding me.
“Cato handled the situation,” Silvius explains to my grandfather.
The general’s mouth thins. I take it he’s not a fan of Cato, which increases my fondness for the generous white-haired Fae. “Is he still sniffing around Ceres?”
“I have it on good faith that she hasn’t accepted any of his advances.”
Goosebumps slosh over my skin like wet paint. Do they realize I can hear all they’re saying? Are they speaking freely in the hopes that I can? I cannot imagine the general or commander carrying out conversations meant to be private in public, which tells me they’re hoping I’m eavesdropping, but why? To display their reach? With the current state of my luck, they’ll find out about my crow before I can unearth the four remaining ones.
