Short of breath and in complete hysterics, I somehow managed to convey that the prince was dying in a dungeon cell.
Guards rushed off to find him. At the same time, someone removed the sword from my hand—I’d forgotten I was holdingit.
A firm pair of hands tightened around my shoulders and ushered me forwards. I vaguely heard a deep voice telling me I needed to be seen by a healer.
Then, my legs were moving.
I was walking. Walking down a brightly-lit corridor that smelled like burning candles. But I barely noticed it. It was as if I was in a bubble that no external force could penetrate. Outside of it, all sights and sounds faded into the background.
This wasn’t the first time I’d encountered a Borealis at death’s door. I might have been reminded of the night of the shipwreck had I not been in total shock. Instead, I continued to float in my bubble, unable to comprehend anything except one singular thought.Please don’t be too late.
Chapter 26
Sitting on a wooden bed in a familiar, brightly-lit room with books, herbs and strange instruments on the shelves, I could hear talking. One person or many, from inside or outside the room—these were things I could not tell.
I looked down to see a blood-stained hand.Myblood-stained hand.
“Drink this,” came a faraway voice.
I didn’t protest as the person behind the voice brought the fluid to my mouth and compelled me to drink. It was sweet and velvety with a subtly spicy aftertaste that ignited my throat.
I coughed at the burning sensation, but, almost instantly, a calm swept over me.
“Brandy always does the trick,” said Marta, the healer I had met when I first arrived at the castle. “How are you feeling?”
“Better. Thank you.”
The bubble had burst, and with that, my senses had mercifully returned. Enough to notice that my face was damp with unexpected tears. To accept the wet cloth she handed me so I could clean my hands. And to give voice to the question I was terrified of hearing the answer to. “How is Prince Hugo?”
A dark shadow crossed her kind face. “The prince is being tended to by a team of healers. I’ve no news of his condition, I’m afraid.” The somber tone of her voice was not lost on me, neitherwas the fact that her eyes failed to fully meet mine.
I’d never seen someone so close to death before, and the experience had rattled me to my core. Despite the way Hugo had treated me, I didn’t wish this upon him. He may have been a royal prick, but he didn’t deserve to die. Not like this.
There was a knock on the door. It was Ingrid, followed by a man I recognized as the captain of the Royal Guard—Hansen.
“I’m glad to see you’re unharmed,” said Ingrid, in a voice I supposed was kindly by her standards. “Captain Hansen has a few questions for you, then you may retire to bed.”
Fighting off a groan, I inclined my head in polite agreement. Answering questions—talking—was the last thing I felt like doing, but I couldn’t exactly tell them to get lost in a kelp forest. Not when it would make me look like I had something to hide.
Ingrid and Marta promptly excused themselves, leaving me alone in the room with the captain. I took a seat at the small desk littered with quills and paper, a small wooden figure of a skeleton, and what appeared to be a chunky medical journal.
“We have not met, but I’m Captain Hansen,” he said in a gruff voice.
I studied the man who took a seat in the chair behind the desk. Everything about him was neat and meticulously groomed, right down to his perfectly symmetrical gray mustache. His eyes reminded me of a bird of prey—sharp, piercing, evaluating. Something told me this was not a man who would tolerate nonsense.
“Please explain, as succinctly as possible, what happened this evening.” Though he’d said “please”, his tone conveyed that it was not a request.
As comprehensively as I could, I told him everything that had happened, leaving out the part about Hugo in my bedchamber. I also omitted that I had been in the tunnels to flee the castle—the last thing I needed was awkward questions.
His keen eyes did not leave my face while I spoke, his expression unreadable. He waited for me to finish before speaking. “What were you doing when you heard the scream?”
“I was about to go for an evening walk around the gardens. I was having trouble sleeping,” I lied.
It was the wrong thing to say.
“Having trouble sleeping? Even though, according to my guards, one of them had escorted you to your bedchamber not twenty minutes prior? That’s a considerably short time to be tossing and turning, wouldn’t you say?”
Shit.I willed myself to remain cool despite my blunder. “What I meant to say is, I anticipated I would have trouble sleeping. I was feeling distressed at the news of Prince Tarben’s hasty departure for the border. Worried for his safety.”
