“I have a heart,” I protested weakly, then wondered at my lapse. I’d resolved not to speak to the wizards, not to give them the least thing. Anything they took from me had to be wrested away. It didn’t stop them, but at least I had pride to cling to.
He began prying my ribs apart with the blade. “Allow me to demonstrate. I know Your Highness is a student of sciences, and thus fond of empirical evidence.” With a crack! my ribs gave. The wizard clucked in satisfaction. The smell of fetid swamp water rose up, tinged with algal bitterness. “If You will observe.”
The red wizard gestured, and the wizard in black stepped up, bowing to me. “Your Highness is looking most lovely today.” He held up a mirror the height of a man, with an ornate frame and a perfectly liquid silver reflective surface. My ladies used to do that—hold up the full-length mirror so I could approve my appearance for court.
I gazed unwillingly at the image of myself. A gnarled oak tree, bark knobbed and ancient, limbs broken and leaves wilted, stood cleaved nearly in two with a vertical hole running down the center of its trunk. A gaping cavity oozed blood and entrails, green water gushing out, leaving the interior hollow and depthless.
“That’s not Me,” I protested, but my voice was small. I tried to make it louder. “That’s not Me. I have a heart.”
“But it is You. Demonstrably so.” The wizard in the blue robe stepped up beside the large mirror. Using a slender wand, he indicated the leaking hollow of the tree. “Observe the rotting interior, the lack of turgor pressure in the limbs. Death lingers at the core.”
The black wizard took the wand. “Death is merely a transition. By removing the vestigial flesh and other animal artifacts such as blood from Your Highness’s corporeal form, we’ve revealed a refined, more pristine version of Your true self.”
“No. I have a heart. I’ve felt it.”
“But have You?” The wizard in purple robes came into view, Merle perched on his shoulder. The raven croaked a hello at me, bobbing his head in greeting. “If Your Highness had a heart, then people would actually love You. And You would be capable of love, which You clearly are not.”
“Tertulyn could never have betrayed Your Highness, in that case.”
“Con couldn’t have sacrificed a woman he truly loved simply to win a battle.”
“It was all a lie.”
“Do You see now?”
“I have a heart!” I protested, forcing the words past my numb lips. “I do! I’m not dead. That isn’t Me.”
The oak tree in the mirror flailed, wilted orchids falling like rain to shower onto the swirling green water that rose around the base of the trunk. The tree began to lean to one side, the orchids a sodden mass of dying petals, pale rose and violet, sinking into the current that swirled in a huge whirlpool of ravening hunger.
“No, please—that isn’t Me.” The dark maw of the starving sea drowned my words. “That isn’t Me…”
“Lia.” The whirlpool called my name, night-dark voice hoarse as the growl of a wolf. “Lia. Come to me.”
“I won’t.” I pushed at it. “I won’t go!”
“Lia!” The sea lashed waves of black, unyielding, demanding. “You come back to me right now. Wake up.”
“No no no no…”
“Do it, Lia. I’m not giving up on you.”
A sharp pain made me gasp. Flesh and blood. I had a body, a living, flesh-and-blood one. Furious golden eyes pierced me, Con’s pitted face contorted with blazing anger. I lifted a hand to my stinging cheek, the twig fingers tapping a light pattern against my skin. Not flesh, not entirely. “You slapped me.” I meant to sound imperious, indignant, but it came out a soft cry of distress.
Con gripped my shoulders, searching my face, then his fierce expression relaxed, and he pulled me into his arms, wrapping his strength around me. “I know. I’m sorry, Lia, please forgive me.” He buried his face into the crook of my neck and shoulder. “You were raving in your sleep. Then you stopped breathing and I couldn’t get you to wake up. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“The wizards had Me again.”
“No, Lia. No. It was only a dream. A nightmare.”
“They were … experimenting on Me.”
“No.” Con said it firmly, lifting his head and cupping my face in his hands. “They weren’t. They’ll never have you again. I promise you that. It was a dream, nothing more.”
A dream? Scraps of images came back. The hollow tree. The rain of dying orchids. My dreams had always been of the future, not the past. “Some promises you can’t keep, no matter how hard you try,” I whispered, the heart I didn’t have feeling like it might crack apart at the haunted look on his face.
“I failed you before, Lia,” he replied, voice creaking like old floorboards, “but I will keep this promise. Believe that, if nothing else.”
“Where is Ibolya? I distinctly recall commanding her to keep you out.”
“Yeah, she tried. No luck there. We’ll discuss that later. Right now I’m here and I’m not letting you die again, no matter how much you might think you want to.”
I gazed back at him, aghast. “I don’t want to die.” I might not want to die, but death was reaching for me. The orchid lay limp on my arm, like the sodden orchids falling from the dying oak tree.
“Good.” He let me go and went to the lantern on the bedside table, lighting it with the clicker there. I hissed at the sudden brightness and he glanced at me, assessing, then continued on, lighting all the lamps until the room blazed with light. He paused, surveying the table laden with food, all untouched. “Here’s an easy place to start. You need to eat, Lia.”
6
I fought the immediate revulsion at even the thought of food, barely managing not to gag. “I can’t.” Instead of snapping out imperiously, the denial came out with a hint of a whimper.
He eyed me, the stubborn wolf in his gaze. “Can’t? Or won’t?”
Dizziness swamped me—did I imagine the odor of fetid swamp water?—and I lay back against the pillows, weak as a wilted petal. Orchids can’t live on their own …
“Lia, answer me.” Con had started to fill a plate, clearly intending to force me to eat. He probably would, too, even if he had to hold my nose and cram food down my throat. How charming that would be.
“You don’t order Me, wolf,” I replied archly, though my voice was thready and weak.
He smiled, showing his teeth. “Fair enough, blossom—but you don’t order me, either. If you don’t give me an answer, I’ll take matters into my own hands.”
“Can’t,” I said flatly, managing enough certainty to make him pause. “I tried. I really did. I couldn’t keep it down. Ibolya had to clean up the mess. I’m so hungry, Con. I really did try and—” I had to stop talking lest I start weeping.
“Shh, Lia. I believe you.” Abandoning the plate, he came to sit on the side of the bed, enfolding my good hand in his with infinite tenderness. Under the concern, fear lurked. Not for himself, but for me. “Ambrose is coming. He can give you more of that elixir. That helped you before. Just remember that, when he gets here, you have to ask him for it.”