Flamecaster (Shattered Realms #1)(94)
He crossed the room to her and gripped her shoulders, his eyes darkening to the color of the deepest lakes. “I promise you, Jenna,” he said, his face fierce with purpose, “this is not it. I will find a way to—”
She pressed her hands against his lips. “No promises, healer.” She pulled his head down and stopped the promises with kisses.
33
PLAYING THE KING’S GAME
Was the king burning his “gift” of living silver or not? That was the question. For all Ash knew, the vial he’d given the king was rolling around in a drawer somewhere. He’d shot his poison arrow into the air, but he didn’t know if it would hit a vital spot, and whether it would be soon enough to allow him to keep the promise he had tried to make to Jenna.
He’d reviewed the telltale symptoms in Taliesin’s leather-bound book. Tremors, mental and emotional impairment, skin changes. Montaigne didn’t need to die from it—only feel poorly enough to call on Ash for treatment so he could finish the job.
Though he watched the king carefully, he saw nothing promising. Montaigne remained astonishingly, annoyingly healthy.
Meanwhile, Ash kept adding to his arsenal of easily hidden, easily deployed, easily explained assassin’s tools. Fortunately, many of the medical tools in his healer’s kit were dual-purpose. Shivs, scissors, scalpels—these were all edged weapons that could be used on either side of the line. A garrote was threaded through the hem of his tunic. He still had the sting under his collar, ready to deploy, if the opportunity presented itself.
All he needed was the smallest of openings to make sure of him, but the multiple attempts on the king’s life had put him on his guard, and it was challenging to get anywhere close to him. Ash wished the competition would either succeed or get out of the way. At least there hadn’t been any more tries since the wassail incident—that he knew about, anyway. Give it another year or two, and the king might grow careless again.
That was a problem. He didn’t have a year or two, he had a day. Now it was the Feast of Saint Malthus, on the fourth day after Solstice, and the king’s meeting with the empress’s emissary was scheduled for tomorrow. He toyed with the idea of killing the emissary instead, but the Carthians stayed on their ship, out of reach.
Instead, Ash found himself in the queen’s bedchamber, trying to prevent the king of Arden from undoing his hard work. He’d been called in because Queen Marina had wilted while her attendants were trying to dress her for the annual Saint’s Day dinner. She lay back in bed, dark hair spread across the pillows, her usually dusky skin nearly as pale as the sheets save for the places where blue veins showed through.
She’s skin and bones, Ash thought. She has no reserves.
Montaigne paced back and forth, ablaze with all the badges of his office, his boots clicking on the stone floor. He was in a dangerous mood, even for him. “Can’t you give her something, healer, to get her through this? Every thane in the kingdom is here. Rumors are flying that the queen is dead. They need to see her alive and well.” He paused. “Especially now.”
The low flame that had burned inside Ash ever since his father’s death blazed up.
This is the man who declared war on the Fells when my mother refused to marry him, Ash thought. They’d been at war ever since. She’d paid a high price. They all had. But it could be Raisa lying here, being dithered over like a side of beef with no agency of her own.
No, he thought. She wouldn’t have lasted this long. One or the other of them would be dead. Ash was beginning to recognize just what his mother the queen had accomplished in keeping this southern tyrant out of the Fells.
“There’s just one problem, Your Majesty,” he said through his teeth. “The queen is alive, thank the Maker, but she is not well. What she needs is rest, and quiet, and good, nourishing food. Not a public ordeal.”
“We cannot have people think it is a simple matter to murder a sovereign. That would send the wrong message.”
“What kind of message would it send, Your Majesty, were the queen to collapse during dinner?” Ash said in a barely civil tone. “If tongues are wagging now, that would only make matters worse.”
“It’s your job to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Montaigne said.
“Never mind, healer,” the queen said. “The king is right, of course. I need to be there.” She propped up on her elbows and nodded to her ladies, who carried several dresses to the bedside for Marina to choose from.
Ordinarily, when the queen was indisposed, as she often was, Lady Estelle would step in as hostess. The king of Arden saw no reason to keep his mistresses hidden away. But Estelle was dead—killed for the crime of hosting an assassination attempt on the king. Wittingly or unwittingly. Hence the current crisis. The king needed to make show.
“I want my queen by my side at dinner,” the king said. “Why is that so difficult to understand?” He ripped a dress from the hands of one of the queen’s ladies and thrust it into Marina’s face. “Put this on. And drink a measure of rum, if that’s what it takes to put a little color in your cheeks. Our guests are already seated, and I don’t like to give them time to conspire together in my absence.”
The queen sat frozen in her bed, holding the dress up like a shield.
“I told you to get dressed, you stupid slut of Tamron. Are you deaf?”