Flamecaster (Shattered Realms, #1)(85)

“Careful, healer,” Karn said with icy calm, though one hand found his amulet. “Don’t lose your head and do something you’ll regret. I needed to question Jenna today, because I’m . . . it was now or never. She may be your patient, but she is our prisoner.”

“But I’ll get the blame if she has a relapse.” Adam sniffed the air, then took another good look around the room. “What’s burning?”

“One of the torches went out,” Karn said, shooting Jenna a warning look as he relit the torch and set it back into place.

Ah, Jenna thought. The lieutenant doesn’t want the healer—or the king—to know what he’s been up to. Well, then. Her da always said that when somebody offers an unexpected gift, it was bad manners not to take it.

“Don’t be too hard on the lieutenant, Wolf,” Jenna said. “He came to tell me that he’s arranged for a bath, some books, and a transfer out of the dungeon into an actual room.”

Jenna couldn’t say who looked more surprised, Karn or Adam.

“Really,” Adam said, looking at Karn narrow-eyed. “That’s . . . difficult to believe.”

By then, Karn had his sharp’s face back on. He smiled crookedly, acknowledging the deal. “The bath and the books are no problem. But the transfer may not happen until after I get back.” Karn scooped up the dagger and got off a bit of a bow. “Jenna. We’ll speak again.” With that, he went out the door.





30


SOLSTICE CELEBRATION


As soon as Karn walked out, Adam pulled the door shut and swung back around. “Are you all right, Jenna?” he said, his eyes glittering in the torchlight.

“I’m all right.”

“He didn’t hurt you? When I walked in, I could’ve sworn that Lieutenant Karn was threatening you.”

Jenna decided not to share the part with the torch. She saw no good coming from it. “No,” she said. “Not really. Karn seemed eager for answers, but he didn’t get rough, if that’s what you mean. Maybe he’s been told not to hurt me.”

“It’s hard to imagine King Gerard coming up with a rule like that,” Adam said, claiming the stool.

Jenna hesitated. “I got the feeling that Karn was down here on his own account, like the king didn’t know he was interrogating me and . . .” She trailed off, distracted by a delicious smell. “Is that food in there?” she said, eyeing the healer’s packages.

Adam nodded. “I brought you some from the Solstice celebration. Do you feel up to eating?”

Jenna snatched up one of the parcels and sniffed at it. Roast beef. Sharp cheddar cheese. Freshly baked bread. She was practically drooling on it. Ripping away the cloth, she took a large bite.

The healer stared at her, surprised, then loosed one of his rare smiles. “You seem to be feeling much better,” he said. “Better than I could have hoped, considering the way you looked yesterday.”

Jenna nodded, not wanting to talk with her mouth full. She swallowed, then said, “I am much better. I’ve always been quick to heal, but you—you work magic.”

“Maybe,” he said, hunching his shoulders like praise made him uncomfortable. “I’ll want to take a look at that wound in a bit.” He watched her eat for a while then said, like a dog returning to a bone, “What kinds of questions was he asking? Karn, I mean.”

“That’s what surprised me. He said he wasn’t here about the Patriots.”

“Patriots?”

“The ones in Delphi fighting King Gerard. I thought that was what it was about—that they thought I was doing spying and setting fire to things. But, no, he kept asking me about an empress.” She watched the healer carefully, to see if he knew about the empress already, but he looked as ambushed as she had been.

“What empress?”

“Someone named Celestine, from Carthis. Or the Northern Islands. Have you heard of her?”

He shook his head. “No. All I know about Carthis is, you know, pirates. And that wizards—mages, I mean—came from the Northern Islands. Besides the pirates, the storms are so bad on the Indio these days that we never get ships from there anymore.”

“Karn said this Celestine was hunting me, and he wanted to know why, and what the magemark on my neck meant, and all about my family. He seemed tweaked that I couldn’t help him.”

Adam mulled this over. “Does he think you’re the empress’s long-lost daughter or what?”

“Karn doesn’t know what to think. He knows more about the dagger than he let on, though. He says it’s the kind carried by the . . . by the bloodsworn warriors who serve the empress. He said that nobody survives a cut from those blades.”

“I knew it was magicked, I just wasn’t familiar with the enchantments.”

By now Jenna was licking her fingers, having finished off the meat and cheese. “Do I smell a peach?” She looked pointedly at Adam’s bag.

Smiling and shaking his head, Adam pulled a ripe peach out of his bag and held it out to her. Jenna snatched it and bit into it, the juice running down her chin.

“Merciful Maker,” she said. “We never get these in Delphi.”

“Save room,” Adam said. “I brought sugar cakes and wassail, too.”