Cole
Late afternoon sunlight drifts through several open windows overlooking my desk. I scan the notes I took on Misty’s injuries, written in untidy, looping scrawl. A physician’s handwriting. My mom always said I was going to be a great doctor based on my handwriting alone.
Four two-inch lacerations just below the wrist on her right arm. Twenty sutures. I’d used 5ml of sanitizing solution, one roll of medical grade, sterile gauze. If she were an actual patient, I’d see her back in five days to remove any sutures that hadn’t dissolved. And, based on the nature of the injury, I would have ordered antibiotics…. Yeah, antibiotics, a ten day round, just in case.
It hadn’t mattered. When she’d burst into the meeting last night, snarling at everyone and going as far as to point her manicured nail at Richard like she was about to put a spell on him, her bandage was gone, and all twenty sutures were fixed on skin that had healed completely.
I close my notebook and slide it into the lower drawer in my desk just as the door opens, and Declan leads Luke Abernathy into my office.
“We’ve got two hours before the guards do their rounds in the dungeon,” Declan says, his hood casting shadows over his profile.
Luke looks around the room with a mix of curiosity and fear lighting behind his eyes. I watch him grip the top of a chair with his good hand, the other arm fixed in a poorly wrapped sling. I sigh, standing and rounding my desk, motioning for him to sit.
“He won’t be returning to the dungeon. If anyone mentions him to you, tell them it was by my decree. I’ll deal with Richard.”
Declan nods and leaves the room, closing the door firmly behind him.
Luke sits but says nothing as I walk around him, locking the door. “I’d like to examine your shoulder.”
“I–the healer already did.”
“She works for the order.” I walk to his side and begin unwinding the sling. He doesn’t move. I can sense his heartbeat rising, however. “Try to relax. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Why are you doing this?” he murmurs under his breath, his eyes briefly flicking to mine.
I exhale through my nose, leaving his gaze to look at his mangled shoulder. The injuries are completely internal. His shoulder popped out of joint, and based on the bruising, it took several people to try to jam it back into place before they gave up. “You’re going to need surgery when we return to Oasia.” I gently prod the swollen muscles, grimacing when he winces from pain. “Torn ligaments. This is a major rotator cuff injury, Luke. There’s nothing I can do for it now, but with surgery, and a few months of physical therapy, you’ll have normal function.” I hope. I hope by the time I get him out of this hellscape, there’s still time to fix the damage that’s been done, mentally and physically.
Fear has a way of tearing people apart–slowly. Methodically. Until nothing is left but a shell of who they once were. I’ve seen it happen. I saw it rip apart a royal court until nothing was left.
I continue my examination of his shoulder, mentally mapping the injuries so I can jot them down later in preparation for when we return to Oasia. Misty could probably heal him if I can get the shoulder back in the joint. That would be the best case scenario. I saw first-hand what the powers of her grandmother could do while I studied medicine in Crescent Falls. Her tears were used infrequently, kept for the most horrific and hopeless situations.
If Misty has even an ounce of those powers, she could help Luke.
But not me.
He swallows hard and jerks his arm away from my touch. I ignore him, making quick work of putting his arm back in the sling–correctly this time. He has to be in so much pain right now.
I round my desk and sit down again, careful not to brush my back against the chair.
Luke’s face is flushed from pain, but he does his best to hold my gaze as I give him a once over, checking for other injuries.
“My dad said you had to leave your residency,” he says under his breath.
“Two years ago,” I confirm, scanning his face before reaching into my desk. “My father was sick.”
“But he wasn’t actually sick, was he?”
I pause before reaching for the strange, egg-shaped piece of iron rolling around in the bottom drawer. It’s the reason I brought Luke, the son of one of my father’s commanders, here today. It’s one of the reasons I’ve been able to keep him alive, and so far, out of Richard’s clutches.
“He was very ill toward the end,” I murmur in reply, setting the useless artifact on the desk between us. Luke doesn’t even look at it. His eyes hold steadily on my face, trying to decipher the emotion behind my eyes. He won’t find anything there, even if unlocking secrets is his specialty. I’ve had two years to hone the art of making myself look completely neutral even when the world is crashing down around us as we speak.
“There’s a rumor that you killed him,” Luke edges, his voice a whisper against the breeze coming through the window.
“I did,” I confirm, meeting his gaze. This time, he looks away. “I brought you here to make sure your shoulder was at least on the mend. It’s not, and I’m sorry for that. I should have seen to you myself when you arrived. Obviously, I’ve been unable to do that until now.”
“Because you’re working for the order?” There’s a touch of a growl in his voice that doesn’t go unnoticed.
“One faction, yes.”
He narrows his eyes.
I continue. “Like I said, when I return to Oasia, you’ll travel with me, and your shoulder will be mended. You’ll be reunited with your parents, but you’ll remain in the castle while you recover.”
This surprises him. “Reunited with my parents?”
“Of course. Your father is beside himself with worry. I’ve made it clear that you’ll be coming home.”
Luke looks around the room. “What’s going on around here?”
“A coup.” It’s the simple answer. The long answer is much, much more complicated. Instead of explaining the danger all of Eastonia is in, I flick the iron egg in his direction. It rolls across the desk and falls into his lap. “What is it?”
He jerks back, surprised by the shockingly heavy object falling onto his legs. “This?”
I nod, crossing my arms over my desk and resting my weight on my elbows as fresh pain flutters through the lacerations across every inch of my back. “Do you know what it is and where it came from?”
He shakes his head. I tilt mine toward the egg in a silent command to look at it a little closer. I watch him examine it, prodding the clefts and archaic buttons, smoothing his thumb over the symbols I can’t interpret.
I studied medicine. Modern medicine. Not midwifery or witch medicine like Princess Kenna. I didn’t study history or archeology like Misty. I know nothing about cryptology.
But it’s Luke's specialty.
“Where did you find this?” he asks, shocked. “Do you realize how old this is?”
“What is it?” I grind out, already feeling impatient.
“It’s a cryptex, obviously.” He murmurs a remark under his breath like I should know this already. “These are Talisenne symbols. This language predates the Firestone language by over a thousand years.”
“Well, open it.”
“Open–open it?” he chokes, his eyes growing wide. “I can’t open it. I can’t read the symbols–”
“But you knew what they were–”
“I know they’re Talisenne, but I don’t have a lot of experience translating–” he sucks in a breath and holds it, then lets it out slowly, like he was getting overexciting and decided he needed to calm the fuck down to think rationally. “If the order hadn’t destroyed the library in Serpentia, I could have deciphered this for you in a matter of hours. As it stands, I have nothing to reference.”
“The royal library in Oasia might have something about the Rosetta people. Talisenne was their language, anyway,” I murmur, dropping into thought as I mentally scan the shelves of a library hundreds of miles away. “But you could decipher it?”
“Yeah. It wouldn’t be that hard. Uh, Misty could help.” He straightens a bit, and I realize what he’s about to do. “If you could like, I don’t know, keep her alive for a while?”
“What makes you think I want to kill the princess of Crescent Falls?”
“Are you using her as bait or something?”
I clear my throat, keeping an eye on him. I can tell he’s preparing to plead for her life, to offer his services to me in exchange for freeing her. Again, it’s not that simple.
“Misty is safe with me and will remain so. She is not the property of the order. She is mine.”
He chews his lower lip. “She’s really smart. She’s great, actually. A lot of people don’t like her, but I don’t think they get her, you know? Maybe you don’t know what I’m talking about but…”
“She’s loud and opinionated? Used to getting her way?” I add with a small smile.
Luke nods. “We were on an expedition together this summer. At that temple, the one they pulled us off of. It was supposed to be a three month long internship, but we made it a month before the administration nixed it and sent us home. She was furious. Her team had just uncovered an entrance into the temple and had plans to unseal it. Then we were pulled off, and last I heard, the entire place was paved over… for that highway project.”
“That’s not what happened.” I lean back as far as I can without my back touching the seat.
Luke eyes me for a moment. “Something was found there, wasn’t it?”
“How did you know?” I ask quietly, curious, more than anything.
“That place didn’t feel right. All those old temples, you know, they’re just creepy. Smelly…. Old. We joked sometimes about the temples being haunted but this one… it was more than that. Everything went wrong. Our instruments stopped working or gave us weird readings. It just had a vibe about it that set everyone off. Those who could shift said they felt the need to do so all the time while we camped around the temple, like they wanted to crawl out of their own skin and run away….” He tapers off, meeting my eyes again. “So, is this what was found?”
“No,” I breathe, rising as Declan’s voice echoes through my head in warning. Misty’s being taken from her room. Nathan is leading her here.
I’ve been trying not to think about what tonight will be like. If I’m going to take her to Oasia with me, this is the only way. It’s the only way, short of forcing her into marriage, that keeps her out of Richard’s clutches and safely in mine.
“Does the word Baetyl ring a bell?” I ask Luke as I pull on my cloak.
He stares up at me in disbelief. “You’re joking. The Baetyl is a myth.”
“Unfortunately, it’s not.” I motion for him to rise. “Come. You have new quarters nearby.”
“Wait–” he rushes out, standing and turning to follow me out of the office. “You can’t be serious. The Gate of the Gods doesn’t exist.”
“It does, and TU students inadvertently led the order right to it.” I look over my shoulder at him as I unlock the door. “Do not say a word about this conversation to anyone else. Do you understand?”
“If the order is somehow able to open the Baetyl, it would be disastrous. At least, based on the legends.”
“I know,” I grind out, motioning to the iron egg–cryptex still in his hand. “That’s why you’re going to figure that thing out for me, understand?”
He nods, but he’s pale as he sets the cryptex back on my desk.
Within moments, Declan is shuffling Luke out of my quarters. I follow closely behind him until we reach a point where several hallways converge into one. Declan leads Luke down one corridor just as Nathan appears, his face red and puffy around the four nail marks Misty bestowed on him last night like the good girl she is.
In another life, I’d reward her for that.
Right now, though…
“You’re late,” I say, even though I had no idea when this was going to happen tonight. Nathan glares at me as another set of footsteps follow them down the hallway, echoing off the walls.
Richard appears, grinning like a madman.
“You’re not invited to this show, Richard. Only him.”
I don’t dare look at Misty, but I can feel the pressure of Nathan's grasp on her forearm. He’s squeezing her to the point of pain. I grit my teeth to stop from grinding them.
“I just wanted to ensure you’re going to do this the right way, Your Highness. I told Brother Nathan if you fail, he can have her instead.”
My blood boils as Misty flinches, but she turns and glares at Richard over her shoulder instead of cowering with her eyes on his feet.
“Can we get this over with?” she sneers.