By the seventh time we’d run out of all my initial ideas for blending magical ingredients with my own tinctures. Every medicine had a shelf life, and nothing lasted long enough for me to fully eradicate Zota’s sickness. I even visited the library after one of my failed attempts to snagA Collection of Rare FloraandSloan’s Guide to Curses and Poisonsin an attempt to brew something entirely unheard of. Orin sent Vora to retrieve the rare herbs and ingredients, and it took her a week by ley line to acquire what I needed. After, Orin and I worked together to craft a thick salve that stuck to my body like a second skin.
The blight destroyed it within minutes.
Throughout it all, I hardly saw anyone else in Fernglove outside of my brothers. But everyone else I avoided out of an abundance of caution. I went straight to my quarters to bathe myself after each attempt at threadmending and bagged my soiled clothes. If I was too weak to handle it immediately, Orin would cast a layer of glamour over me to keep any traces of it from spreading. The last thing I wanted was to unintentionally infect an attendant.
While the Ferngloves weren’t at risk, I still didn’t see them. I suspected that was intentional—Orin’s way of making sure I was free to work as I pleased—but I found myself missing the sharp, scrutinizing looks from Seville. The laughter of Amalyss and Tasia. Even Rorik’s incessant teasing. Instead, my days were full of Orin and his words of encouragement. The warmth of his touch, the soft feeling of his lips against mine, the steady reassurance I felt each time I gripped his hand tight. It was enough to keep me going. The only other person I saw was Vora. She visited after I was clean to slather on medicine and grumble about lasting repercussions.
She wasn’t wrong, either. So far, I couldn’t see any hints of sickness marring my appearance, but I could feel it. There was a sluggishness to my actions as if I were forcing my limbs through mud. A perma-fog had crept over my brain, and I often found myself reading the same lines in my books over and over again before fully understanding the words. I was beginning to wonder if this was what happened to my aunt. I had Vora bring her journal to my bedside and reread it every night, feeling more kinship with her stilted language as my mind began to wane. While none of her entries compared to the poems she used to pen, there was adistinct shift in quality from her early days to her last. Everything became blunt. Harsh. As if she had energy only for the facts and nothing else.
But I had to keep going. I didn’t have a choice. It was as if the blight knew I was coming, too, because it’d started to eat away at my brothers with more fervor. I didn’t notice right away, but after visiting several nights in a row, I started to spy new wounds forming along their arms and necks.
Time was running out.
After my tenth failed attempt at healing Zota, something changed. Not in me, but in Orin. He’d endured so much, watching me try again and again, only to bottle up his hope and bury it back down each and every time. I saw his disappointment in the way his eyes fell when he stared at my trembling fingers. Felt it in the hollowness of his touch. It must’ve been agonizing for him to watch on levels I couldn’t begin to understand.
“This is hopeless,” he muttered as he sat beside me, not touching my sweat-soaked body.
I ached to feel the warmth of his embrace. “I’m close. I know it.” I couldn’t tell if it was a lie or a truth or if it mattered at all.
Orin looked away. “Am I failing you?”
“What?” I straightened, ignoring the pain that came with the sudden action. At least that was one-sided. Zota remained largely unaffected by our sessions and often ended up resting on the ground with his head propped against a hay bale, like he was now.
“Have I pushed you too far?” Orin sighed as he shook his head at nothing.
I scooted toward him so our hands were touching. “Orin, you have nothing to do with this.”
“You’re not holding back just to spite me, are you?” He met my gaze, and I saw fear in his eyes. Rubbing his jaw, he studied me as if he’d forgotten about all our moments together. About the heat that had blossomed between us. About the unnamed emotion thatdrove me to consider saving his life. The fact that he questioned all that . . . A painful tightness settled in my throat.
“How can you even ask that.” It was meant to be a question, but there was no inflection to my voice.
“No one wants to die.” He dropped his gaze to our hands.
“That may be true, but if I fail you, then I also fail my brothers.” Slowly, firmly, I threaded my fingers with his. “And I don’t want you to die, either.”
Silence enveloped us. For a long moment he said nothing, and then he heaved a sigh that carried with it the weight of the world. Pinning his chin with my fingers, I angled his face so I could force him to meet my gaze.
“Orin, I...”
I didn’t know what to say. If I told him I cared for him... that Ilovedhim... My insides squirmed. There were too many other things in the way. The length of my quickly shortening life. The blight all around us. My brothers. His family.
Gently, I kissed him. “I’m close. I promise.”
Finally, he smiled. It was soft and hardly the wide grin I’d grown accustomed to, but it was a start. He dragged his thumb over my cheek. “I didn’t mean to doubt you. I just wish there was some way to make this easier for you.”
Speak it into existence and it just might happen.
There it was again. That damning, tantalizing thought. Would it be so bad to share my power with him? Would he balk at sharing his magic with me? I didn’t think so.
The sound of footsteps met our ears, and Vora rounded the corner of the stables before coming to a halt several feet away from Zota’s stall. She didn’t look my way once.
“Sorry to interrupt, but Ossanna is here. She requests your presence.”
Orin sighed as he stood. “Ossanna? Why?”
“She didn’t say,” Vora said. She brushed stiff hands along herapron as she glanced back toward the manor. “You know her. Always angling for something.”
Orin’s eyes narrowed. “Indeed.” Then, to me: “Don’t tax yourself anymore today. You deserve a break.” Leaning down, he trailed his fingers along my jaw before kissing me deeply on the mouth. Relief bloomed in my chest at the feel of his lips on mine, and I nodded with a smile as he and Vora returned to the manor.
