The ride back to the Dragon’s Crossing was a subdued one. Outside, the summer sun set cobblestones aglow, glittering with specks of last night’s stardust. Townsfolk and tourists alike had shaken sleep from their company. They edged down the crammed thoroughfare, turning to hoarse yells of merchants on both sides of the road toting their wares. Children streaked through the quagmire, arms aloft with flimsy toys that would barely last them through the Fest. Laughter, music and song. Sighs of sappy young lovers and tuts of frustrated parents.
Meya wondered how they could be so blind, so carefree. So cruel as to mock her with their cheer. Didn’t they know her dream was shattering, her love was dying, her path was ending?
Baron Kellis was consoling Baroness Sylvia on the bench across from her. He patted her hair as she sobbed silently into the side of his neck, pressing his nose—then his lips—onto her forehead.
Meya didn’t know if it would actually be worse if Coris were forced to flee straight away. Five more days with him still within reach, yet unable to meet, seemed more of a torture.
“Meya,” Kellis’s deep, melancholic voice pulled Meya from her thoughts. She tore her gaze from Sylvia, answered him with her hollow glowing green. Under his frown, his blue eyes were straining against grief.
“He will return. I promise,” he said heavily. Meya shook her head, her welling tears washing away the image of him.
“When, milord?”
Kellis lowered his eyes to his lap, and her heart writhed in disappointment, even as she knew the answer—or lack, thereof. He steered away,
“Your family will be fine. Arinel won’t leave you destitute. She’ll find a post for you, treatment for your father. All you must do from now is what you always have. Stand for Greeneyes.”
Meya clenched her hands atop her knees and hung her head, her cheeks burning in shame. Yes, she knew, but how could she explain why she wasn’t content, wasn’t grateful? How could she let them know that now she’d seen what could be, she couldn’t return to what should be?
She couldn’t forget the gold-gilded carriage, the milk baths strewn with rose petals, the trays laden with mounds of meat and platters of pastry, the dresses of silk and satin trimmed with silver and padded with lace, the goose-down mattress and pillows, the bustling servants, the rolling carpet cushioning her footfalls, the lightness of never having to worry about tomorrow’s bread and bed. And she couldn’t let her family live and die nameless, faceless, forgotten, without ever having a taste of these riches.
What’s the point of fighting for a better life for Greeneyes, if you can’t have the life you dreamed of, too?
Their carriage veered onto the courtyard of the inn, slowing to a stop next to another poised to depart. Before its ajar door stood an old man with bushy tufts of white-gray hair and an equally tangled beard. He was dressed in flowing robes of violet silk. The golden thread embroidered onto his sleeve flashed in the sun as he examined the contents of his satchel, tossing bundles of herbs and flowers onto the overflowing arms of his apprentice.
Her heart skipped a beat. Meya flung the door open and tumbled down the steps, dashing to the wide-eyed man and boy.
“Master Healer! Master Healer, sir!” She latched onto his arm, gasping, “were you here for my father? Mirram Hild? How is he?”
At Dad’s name, the healer blinked, and a gleam of recognition came to his eyes. He raised his free hand. Meya feared he’d brush her off—she’d mostly known doctors who were ill-tempered—but he patted her hand, weary.
“His spine is crooked and withered,” he said, keen blue eyes peering through tangles of white eyebrows to her, then shook his head. “Happens eventually to all men who toil. No cure for it but rest and time. Herbs may dull his pain, but it will never go away.”
His words sunk like claws of ice into her heart, robbing strength from her arms. Her hands slid and fell lifelessly to her side. Meya gawked at him, disbelieving.
“He’ll never walk without a cane? He’ll always be in pain?” she whispered. The healer nodded, his face grim.
“And he must not work.”
That was not the problem, of course, but it was disconcerting. Ever since she could remember, Dad had always worked. Dad…worked. That was what he did. All he did. Then, suddenly, he was never to do so again.
He’d never trudge off at sunrise again, cramming his fraying straw hat on his head, Mum’s lunch bundle swinging from his fist. He’d never walk through the swishing wheat to the tavern at sundown again, grumble about Meya to Draken until both their pints dried. He’d never barge through the door at dinnertime again, sweep a squealing Mistral off her feet and into his arms. He’d be an old man confined to the warmth of the hearth, teetering over his old-man stick.
No! She balled her fists, protesting to Freda. He ain’t even fifty! It ain’t even his time! She couldn’t take that. She wouldn’t take that!
“Isn’t there a way to cure him at all? Set his spine straight? Rebuild it?” Meya pleaded. The words tasted insane even on her tongue, but she couldn’t overlook even the slightest glimmer of hope. The healer closed his eyes and shook his head again.
“Not even with Nostran medicine, I’m afraid.”
He sighed, then reached out a veined hand and grasped her shoulder, pinning her with his keen blue once more.
“You take good care of yourself, lass. That’s all he needs.”
After a few hard, reaffirming pats, he released her and clambered onto his ride. The carriage bore him off to his next patient, leaving Meya alone as cold reality crushed her.
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“Dad! Dad, how you doing? Does it still hurt?”
Meya fell headfirst through the door, propelled by leftover energy from taking the stairs three steps at a time. Dad was sprawled on his belly on their room’s only bed, shirt halfway up his back. Mum knelt beside him, throwing her whole weight onto her thumbs to knead out the knots in his tense flesh.
“I’m fine!” He barked, his voice muffled by the pillow, then groaned and gritted his teeth—Mum must’ve hit an old sore spot. Meya rushed in.
“Did you pay the healer? How much was it?” She panted, forcing her hands under Mum’s so she’d retreat. Dad blew a long sigh, soothed by the heat of her burning palms.
“It’s alright, Meya, I took care of that,” said a hoarse voice to her left before Mum could answer. Meya whipped around, eyes bulging. In her haste, she’d breezed right past Lady Arinel standing just beside the bed. Her eyes were red and swollen nearly shut, her blonde curls frayed and tangled.
She stood reading a piece of parchment, still in the dress she wore to see off Zier, rumpled by uneasy slumber. Without even looking up, she strode to take Meya’s hand and pulled her back to the door.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“The healer left a recipe for painkillers. You come help me forage,” she said, her voice lifeless.
“My lady—” Mum lurched after them, but stopped at Arinel’s command—
“You keep him company, Alanna. I must keep busy.”
For a blink, Arinel’s restraint gave way. Her voice trembled as her hand tightened around Meya’s, pleading for mercy, clinging on for hope. Meya was torn. Her heated hands worked better to sooth Dad’s pain, but poor, heartbroken Arinel needed a friend who knew her plight to commiserate with.
Meya looked to Mum, but of course Mum would nod, desperate to repay Arinel’s kindness as she was. So Meya let Lady Crosset lead the way, biting back her sigh so as not to trouble her good friend.
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Under normal circumstances, the nearest hospital was but a short carriage ride from the inn. However, the multitude of festival-goers had extended that time by tenfold, so Arinel and Meya chose the quarter-hour walk instead.
The crowd thinned as they left the square. Falling silence tempted conversation to break it, yet the girls were content with letting it reign.
Meya didn’t know how to begin. Unlike her and the Hadrian boys, Arinel had none to gain and everything to lose from all this. This wasn’t even her cause, her duty, her people. She shouldn’t have to suffer simply because she loved Zier, because Meya was her friend.
Meya opened her mouth to apologize, but then a shadow swallowed her. She glanced up and found the hospital’s sandstone column looming tall behind a gate of wrought iron. Scrape scrape went the rake as the lone young nun tried her best to weed out fallen leaves from among the grass.
The nun looked up at the creak of the gate, saw the basket Meya had slung on her arm, and instantly understood what they came for. She led them through the heavy wooden doors into the hospital’s main hall.
Meya’s nose was the first to react to her new surroundings. The musty smell of decay, mingled with sour notes of blood, vomit, piss, shite and other foul combinations of the humors. Close second were her ears. The rustle of robes, the murmurs of monks and nuns, the groans of the old, the ill and withering. Faint screams of a woman giving birth echoed from another chamber somewhere. They compelled her eyes to roam, seek out the source of these horrors.
The noon sun streamed in through tall windows, tinting the scene in bleak yellow-white. Two rows of hay mattresses sat along the walls, all occupied. Most weren’t sick—just ancient and worn thin by the years. Some were sleeping. Some sat glassy-eyed and mouth ajar, staring at dust motes dancing in the light, hairless, toothless and shirtless, as the nuns cleaned them. Some stood leaning heavily on their canes, staring jealously at Meya and Arinel walking past with their straight backs and flowing dresses.
Meya faced their ogling eyes. Mum and Dad’s faces glared back at her wherever she turned. This could be their future, only difference was they’d crumble away at home, as Meya witnessed the true toll of her dream.
Meya glanced at Arinel, but her eyes were fixed on the knot of the nun’s apron, blind and deaf to all else. Her grief left no room for pity, and Meya didn’t begrudge her. She’d soon suffer the same fate. No, she already was. Dad’s plight and Coris’s departure had drove Greeneyes almost clean from her mind.
Yet, with Graye’s help, she could save all three.
They filed out through a side-door to a stone path lined on both sides with herbs of all sizes and shapes, from sparse, reed-thin stalks to close-set, stout bushes. Some had wide leaves like flatbread covered in fine hair, some were decorated with sharp needles. Some bore fruit, some stopped at flowers.
The nun left them with a sweet smile and an invitation to pluck as much as they need for old Farmer Hild. Once the door had closed behind her, Meya sidled close to the listless Arinel, touched a few nervous fingers to her arm.
“Milady, are you dealing alright?”
Arinel whirled round and threw herself into Meya as her reply. Meya wrapped her arms around her and squeezed her tight. So cold and lonesome she must be, to not jolt at Meya’s burning heat and absorb it like a bone-dry sponge.
“I’m proud of him,” she blubbered into her shoulder. “He’s grown so much. Just wish it could’ve been—a different way.”
Meya nodded and smoothed her hand down her shivering back. Arinel drew several deep, shaky breaths, then stepped back and raised her eyes to catch Meya’s.
“And you?” Meya blinked, confused, so Arinel obliged, “the twins brought me up to speed. How’s Coris? Are they treating him well?”
Somehow, the mere mention of the name she should love lit a fire under Meya, heating the writhing chaos within her to a simmer. She let the calming cool of Arinel’s hands on her arms reach her heart. Eyes on her shoes, she shrugged.
“He was cold, but he’ll be fine. Fooled the king into giving him five more days, hidden away someplace safe and comfy, while they round up wise men to judge if he’d be fit to agree with surgery. But of course, it ain’t happening. Gillian’s still gunna break him out and he’ll flee for Everglen and never come back—”
“Of course he’ll come back! He must’ve promised to. Zier did—” Arinel cut in. Her naive hope as she defended Coris snapped Meya’s fraying patience.
“Well, he dinnae!” she burst out, throwing Arinel back. Guilt overwhelmed her at the sight, and Meya turned pointedly away, breathing heavy. Her heart pounding in her head, chiding her.
“Baron Graye made me an offer, you know,” she said at last, her voice quiet. “He’ll make me Baroness. Make Dad walk like he’s twenty again. Make Mum sing like a bird again. Set all my siblings free. Send them all to school in Damerel if they want to. Then no-one will speak bad of me when I focus on Greeneyes next.”
Arinel’s eyes widened as her cheeks drained. With a sardonic smirk, Meya raised her arm and jabbed her finger at the faraway palace.
“And he dinnae even stop me if I were to go,” she laughed bitterly. “All he fears is I dun tell him about The Axel, that’s all. All he cares is his duty, his honor. Said I should know Graye’s rotten to the core. He thinks I dunno that? But what about me dad? Me mum? Me whole family? Me babe? I can’t turn him down just because of that and leave them all poor! When I can change that if I just…forget meself?”
Her words came out a whisper in the still air, as her eyes widened in remembrance and dawning realization, drawn to the cracked, mossy stone statue of a veiled, faceless woman with hands clasped in prayer, covered almost whole by the undergrowth in a forgotten corner of the garden.
All Remember She Who Forgets Herself.
Yes, it was a choice. ’Twas always a choice, but it never was between her family and Greeneyes. It was between herself and all she loved.
So what if Graye’s aim were to punish Coris? If he knew from the beginning, what he knew shouldn’t hurt him. So what if Graye would discard her after one use? So would she, once she’d gotten what she needed from him. Nothing hung in the balance but her body, and it was virgin no more. She’d done it once with Coris, and she’d awaken victorious with the dawn.
So, why did the mere thought of another man’s touch on her skin still scare her as much—or even more—than death itself?
Arinel’s eyes followed her lead to the statue. She faltered as if cowed by the sheer force of conviction Meya radiated, but she then regained her ground. She clenched her snowy fists, shaking her head.
“Meya, that’s not what forgetting yourself is,” she said in a trembling voice that swelled and rose as she went, “it’s sacrificing your comfort for countless others. Upholding honor and duty even if it means abandoning your dream. Betraying your own kind so innocent lives will be saved. Giving up your titles, your riches, your legacy, your life for what is right. Like your ancestors did. Like you did! In Hadrian, in Jaise, in Hyacinth! It’s not prostituting yourself to an evil man, just so you can say you’ve repaid your parents!”
“Easy for you to say! You’re all rich nobles! You dunno what ’tis like to be a peasant!” Meya rounded on her, arms flailing, unleashing all the resentment festering inside her—
“You think we all deserve the lot you’ve given us? Think you lot have the right to decide who gets to be rich and who has to toil for every scrap from your table? And be satisfied with it? You think you have the right to preach of honor and dignity, while you lay on goose-down and clothe yourself in silk? So dun you dare judge me, Arinel! I am not a prostitute!”
Silence fell. Arinel stood speechless, lips parted, eyes wide over bloodless cheeks. Rivulets of tears trickled down them, but just when Meya thought she’d cinched victory, she pursed her lips and nodded heavily.
“You’re right. I don’t have the right to decide,” Arinel shook her head. Her whole body trembled, but still she stood proud and tall. “And I’ve come to realize it’s not fair for us to live in excess when so many of you are lacking. To be born worthy, while you fight tooth and claw just to be seen. And we’re trying to change that, but it takes time. And we blunder. And we fall. Then we try again!”
She cried, pleading to Meya’s stony, unwavering cold, then concluded in a whisper,
“That’s why Coris took you under his wing. That’s why he stands for Greeneyes. That’s why he and Zier are leaving us. And I don’t know if that’s the best path, but I do know the easy way out is never the answer.”
It’s unfair. It’s hard, but when is there ever honor in what is easy?
Whispered Baroness Sylvia in her ears. As Meya stood petrified, gripped by dilemma, Arinel sagely nodded to herself. She stole the basket from her slack hand.
“Let’s split. I’ll find wormwood and henbane. You take lavender and peppermint. If you feel sick, let me know straight away.”
Meya could only watch as Arinel plodded up the garden path, wiping her eyes as she bent to pluck ripe sprigs from their mother shrubs, struck dumb with guilt. Suddenly, voices echoed to her from deep within that forest as the sun was setting, where she and Arinel stood against one another, faced the same choice, and again walked down opposite paths.
Life or honor. Must it always be this choice?
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