I finally had a kiss like the ones the great bards describe in their most storied tales.
I learned that I have to be much,muchmore careful around Kaelen.
And I almost came in my pants.
My face heats, and I look down, so neither Neville nor Kaelen can see my red cheeks.
“One good thing?” the prince asks.
“Yes. After her demonstration, our cover story is secure. They’ll tell the tale of the pretty young poisoner up and down the road for weeks. Hiding in plain sight.”
Kaelen laughs. “You’re a natural, Soli Graymind. When this is over, maybe you can take to the stage.”
“Maybe.” I shrug. “Or maybe I can become a poisoner in truth.”
This time, both men laugh, but I wasn’t entirely lying. Was I?
Yes. Yes, I was. I could never deliberately kill someone …
My mind serves up the memory of the dead Fell with my blade in him, and I flinch. If I live through this, I can decide what to do with the rest of my life, but I know one thing.
No part of it will involve murder.
The study of Gray Mind is significantly impeded by different subjects’ recalcitrant refusal to consistently describe their symptoms or the causation of same. Whilst one sufferer may claim to experience a “gray fog” in times of despair, another may claim to encounter the same feeling of grayness even when the subject’s life is going well. This is clearly impossible and leads to several authorities in the field positing that so-called Grayminds falsify symptoms and are, in fact, malingerers.
These same experts prescribe any or all of the following as cures: Hard work, physical exercise, regular beatings, and/or, if the subject is somewhat important to the family responsible, exposure to sunshine in daily doses until the condition is resolved.*
—Disorders of the Mind and Humours, Volume III, edited by High Inquisitor Stangbolt
* The sunshine cure has been long since debunked
—Apprentice Scribe Muevver (handwritten note in Royal Library of Pyrrh copy)
CHAPTER TEN
By the time we reach the designated camping spot—camping, I’m going to camp beneath the stars and moon, my tired brain babbles at me—I’m so, so very ready to get down off the horse. The prince gracefully dismounts and lifts me down before I can protest or try to do it myself. When his hands linger at my waist for a few moments longer than seems strictly necessary, I’m almost too exhausted to notice.
I do notice, however, when the horse turns his enormous head to stare at me, and I freeze. Admittedly, fatigue and slowly draining adrenaline pushed aside most of my fear of the animal during the ride. And now, looking into his eyes, he seems kind and curious instead of crazed and vicious, which is how I remember the horse who killed my mother.
Then again, I watched that blood-spattered day with a child’s eyes. The accident probably scared the poor horse into hysteria, which looked like rage to a terrified little girl. It still hurts to look back at that all-too-vivid memory, even from an adult’s perspective, so I pack the accident way down deep in my mind and heart, like I always do when it tries to bubble up, raw and desperate and horrible.
Like I always do.
I suddenly realize I perpetually try to smooth the path of my present by suppressing the jagged parts of my past. And while that felt like the key to survival, I’m starting to wonder if it also keeps mestuck, unable to get beyond the memories that haunt me.
I put it away to think about later. And Iwillthink about it later.
I refuse to help anybody put me back in that box.
The horse snuffles in my ear, snapping me out of my dark and hopeless thoughts, and I can’t help but laugh at my instinctive flinch. Even I can tell he’s nosing at my shoulder because he smells the apple in my cloak pocket, not because he wants to murder me with his giant teeth. I give him the apple and we become, if not friends, at least friendly.
Like most of my relationships in this company.
My thighs and bottom, though, consider the horse their mortal enemy. I’m aching in places I barely realized I had muscles.
“Massage helps,” says the prince.
“You want me to massage the horse?” I look around and see that most of the others appear to be doing just that, or brushing, feeding, and watering them. Makes sense. Take care of the horses first, then ourselves.
