Her delicate hands were placed over her abdomen as if she was dead. However, despite appearances she only rested in a state of waiting . . . waiting for me, if Celestine was to be believed. I searched around the tomb for any clues as to how I was supposed to save her, to undo what had been done.
There were not many details to go on from the woman before me. She looked like she had simply laid down and let them put her in there without a fight.
I wouldn’t have done that, just let them hide me away while they all suffered or died. I would have fought for the people. But I also wasn’t a princess who had a whole kingdom expecting me to protect it. There were many scenarios where I say I would act one way, and unless I was actually living it, there would be no real way to know how I’d respond.
A shimmer caught my eye from her torso. She wore four pieces of jewelry. First, a bracelet of turquoise blue gems set in small circles wrapped gently around her right wrist. Second, a simple brown ring with golden stripes was on her marriage finger. It was a simple band made out of an unfamiliar material, which was not gold or silver. Third, although her crown was exquisite, it was what I’d expect a princess like her to wear. Last, she wore a simple silver chain around her neck that ran down past the bodice of her dress to where her resting hands lay. She hid something beneath them, but I couldn’t see beyond those delicate fingers.
My thirst to know more about the mystery object outweighed the desire to clean. I grabbed the rag and used it to protect my hands from getting sliced from the crystals, then started to climb. I briefly looked at the guards but neither of them said anything, although they watched me intensely. They knew I couldn’t do anything to the princess, but if I impaled myself on one of these crystal spikes, they would have some explaining to do.
Reaching over, I took a step to the right and up one spike. I saw a small silver hoop attached to something dark, like a stone or a rock.
There had to be a better view than this.
The sun was hot and the crystals were heated as I tried to climb to the top, settling between two projections. The object was a blue, jagged, non-polished stone. I didn’t know what it meant or if her jewelry was anything to obsess over. I did find it odd that a princess who was in a hurry to be set in this tomb looked completely at peace on the onyx-covered altar. Her hands gently rested over a blue stone the length of my middle finger like she had all the time in the world to get comfy before they encased her.
A cough from the guard echoed around the room, and I got the message: Get down and get back to my job of cleaning. Using the rag, I took one step at a time and my hands held onto the stone for balance. I heard the rip before my mind registered what the sound meant. Pain sliced into my hand, causing me to release my grip and I fell backward toward the ground. Another point of onyx sliced into my thigh on the way down.
I cursed and groaned in pain. Hot blood soaked my pants. I hoped the gash wasn’t deep, but it still hurt like hell and was bleeding very badly. My head turned to the guards for help, but they hadn’t moved an inch, their faces stoic. Great. Groaning, I twisted as best as I could toward the cleaning supplies to see if there was anything I could use to bandage the wounds. Beyond a bucket of water and a dirty torn rag, I had nothing.
I needed to get to my room or to a healer’s place—somewhere I could clean the wounds, maybe stitch them up, and bandage them.
Gritting my teeth to hold back the pain-filled cry, I rose to my feet, trying to balance without touching my right foot to the ground. My bleeding left hand curled into my stomach, hoping the shirt would stop the blood from falling to the floor. No use in creating another mess I’d have to clean up once I was healed.
A mixture of hissing and hobbling became my rhythm on the way out of the room. The guards watched me, not moving, their focus darting back and forth between my wounds and the blood.
“I’ll be back.” I’d hoped my words sounded confident and less like a whimper. Sweat broke over my brow from the pain searing through me. They didn’t stop me or call for assistance. They simply closed the door after I passed.
“Cold Fae,” I cursed on a strangled breath.
My shirt was soaked from my hand, and my pant leg wasn’t any better. The empty throne room was beginning to spin as I kept my limped walk toward my room.
“You’re done. Good. They need you in the kitchen.” Rune’s voice echoed from behind me. As I spun to see his harsh face, the world slipped out from under me and I collapsed to the ground. The throne room and Rune turned to black.
Chapter Nineteen
“General, we are doing the best we can. She needed blood, which she has, and now she just needs time to rest.” A sweet female voice rang through the darkness in my mind. My eyes fluttered open to see a wood ceiling above me. I blinked over and over, my eyelids feeling heavy. The desire to go back to sleep was tempting.
“I’ve seen wounds like that inflicted by Verin’s swords, and the soldier was walking around an hour later,” Rune growled, and if I my weak body could, I would have rolled my eyes.
“She’s only human general, not Fae. If you’re going to be a mother hen then you can go outside to your coop and wait for her. This is a healer’s space, and your aggression doesn’t help her heal any faster.”
Whoever this woman was, I wanted to give her a high five. I didn’t hear the door slam like I thought I would but heard a grunt and then a chair moving against the stone floor beneath us. My body didn’t seem right. I tried turning my head to look at Rune and the healer, but nothing wanted to move.
“Are you fretting over me, Rune?” I meant to break the silence of the room with a joke. Mere seconds after I spoke, his blue-eyed face entered my line of sight with the blond-haired healer pushing him out of her way. She had a sweet face. Her pointed ears and canines gave her away as Fae, if her aging beauty didn’t signal her heritage first.
“How are you feeling, dear?” she asked, her hands moving to touch my forehead, then my cheek softly.
“I can’t really feel much. Am I paralyzed?” My stomach clenched at the thought. Hopefully that meant I was OK.
“No, you will be able to move in another thirty minutes. I gave you an herb to numb the pain while I fixed you up. The crystal that cut your thigh hit an artery. But all is fixed and you just need to rest. I’ll have a salve for you to put on the wounds to help with healing and any scar tissue.” She lifted my cut hand into my view. It was stitched up and clean with a green paste over it. I assumed it was something to ward off infection.
“If he bothers you, feel free to kick him out.” She winked at me, then left my view.
Rune was there in an instant, his scarred face a sight for sore eyes.
“Why were you climbing on the onyx?” he asked, his tone rushed, like he’d been waiting to ask me for hours.
“To look at something.” I wasn’t sure if what I saw was worth mentioning or not. I’d barely had time to think about it before I fell.
“Don’t do that again.” His words weren’t harsh, like he was watching his tone with me. He almost appeared concerned, for once.
“I won’t,” I promised, and it was the truth. I had no interest at all climbing to my potential death again.
“How did I get here?” I asked, while attempting to look around for anything familiar.