Brightly Woven(36)

I’m not sure how long I knelt there. My first ridiculous thought was that the foot was just black with soot and grime, but not even the water from the room’s small basin could wash the color away. The entire foot was solid black, right up to the ankle. North was practically kicking me with it now. Somehow, even in his sleep, he knew that I had unwittingly unwrapped one of his secrets. And he was powerless to stop it.

I lifted his other foot, noticing for the first time the edge of black on the two smallest toes. I pulled away his thick gloves and threw them across the room. The little finger on his left hand was black, and the next two were tinged a marble gray. His right hand was still—mercifully—his own, with spots of mud and dirt beneath his nails.

I brought his hands to my forehead and released the breath I had been holding in a low sob.

“So now you see what’s been before you this entire time.”

Lady Aphra came to kneel beside me, setting down a bowl of clean water. She took one of North’s limp hands in her own, her thumb running over his exposed skin.

“No wonder he never took those stupid boots off,” I choked out, trying to swallow the lump in my throat. “What’s wrong with him?”

“It’s a curse,” she said. “I don’t quite understand it myself, but I do know that the man I see now bears very little resemblance to the boy I knew.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“After his father died and his mother sent him to be trained by Pascal, he was sullen, as any boy ought to be after losing someone,” Aphra said. “But after a year with Pascal, he was happy, clever, a smart aleck, and a complete monster when he wanted to be. Then the curse struck him, and he’s never been the same. His old smile and humor come in flashes, but the pain he feels and his anger toward the curse steal them away more and more as the years go by. This war has put him in an even worse place than before.”

“Is there a cure?” I asked. “Some way to ease his pain at least?”

Aphra placed North’s hand in my own. “No, Miss Mirabil, there is no cure. Wayland has spent his life looking, as his father and his grandfather did. Pascal refused to take on more apprentices in order to search for a way to help him, but there was nothing to be found.”

“And so, what? He’ll suffer from it his entire life? He’ll drink his pain away, or rely on sleeping drafts?”

Lady Aphra shook her head. “He’ll die long before then.”

I gripped North’s hand. “You’re—You can’t be serious.”

“His father died at the age of thirty-five, while serving as the Sorcerer Imperial,” Aphra said. “Pascal still hasn’t recovered from the loss of him, and the thought of losing Wayland the same way has left us all helpless.”

I looked down at North’s face, still young and handsome in sleep, free of any sign of discomfort. He looked like a different person to me, and the thought alone was enough to bring tears to my eyes.

Lady Aphra stood, her knees cracking from the effort. She smoothed the hair back from my face.

“The curse only affects the sons in the family line, probably with the intent of ending the family line entirely,” she said. “But you’ll need to get the full story from him.”

“Is there really nothing I can do for him?” I asked. “Nothing?”

Aphra turned in the doorway. “Love him,” she said. “For someone who has grown up hating himself and fearing that there’s nothing for him in this world but pain, there is no greater gift. Do you understand?”

I nodded, but I didn’t say another word. Not while I tucked the blanket up around his chin, not while I brushed his hair from his face, not while I relit the fire. Lady Aphra’s words echoed in my mind, but I forced them out and focused on nothing but the way the shadows played across North’s face.

I had half of North’s story now, but I knew the other half of it wouldn’t come as easily. The secret of his pain ran deeper than I could have imagined. Who was Wayland North, I thought, and how many layers would I be forced to peel away before I actually found him?

I was fairly ravenous by the time one of the older girls brought in dinner. It was only sandwiches and milk, but I was so hungry I practically inhaled the contents of the plate. When I finished my own, I drank North’s milk as well, surprised to find it still so cool after being next to the fire.

I thought about mending the threadbare fabric of his cloaks, but the events of the day had relit my desire to complete the single one, still unfinished on the loom. North deserved so much better than his ugly, battered cloaks—I wanted something to show the story of his life as I had seen it, without the gaping holes and tears that constantly ate away at him.

As I wove near the fire, its flickering light cast moving shadows over my loom. My eyes drifted over to North, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest. It was useless—I couldn’t focus on the strands of blue that I was binding together; and I could hardly pay attention to each drop of rain I was forming around the shape of the dragon. When I looked at my hands again, the blue yarn seemed to glow in my hands.

I dropped the yarn and pushed myself away from it. The entire cloak seemed to blur in my eyes, a mass of color and light.

Falling to my knees again, I took up the spool of red thread and began blending it haphazardly with the blue. As the fire of the dragon came to life, so did the fire in the hearth. It crackled and hissed, billowing out for a moment. In his sleep, North began to mumble.