Kingsbane

“Begging your pardon, Lady Eliana,” said the first healer, clumsy and bowing. “But the medicine you brought us… I don’t know where you found it, or how, and I don’t care. It was bizarre, my lady. A clear tube, a silver needle—the strangest mechanism! Angelic, I assume? But, no matter. My lady, it has worked. It has worked.”

He gestured at the bed, but Eliana was already there, barely restraining herself from flying into Navi’s arms.

“Navi, are you…” Her voice fissured. “Is it really…” She shrugged, laughing. Joy held her immobile. “Navi, can I—”

“I am myself again. Weak, hungry, and myself.” Navi smiled tiredly up at her. Dark tendrils still faintly framed her face, foreign and cruel under her fuzzy cap of black hair, but her eyes were clear and sharp and her own. Some of the rich golden-brown color had returned to her previously wan skin. She gently dismissed the nurse fussing at her side.

“If you don’t come here at once,” Navi said, holding out her arms, “I will banish you to the Kaavalan Passage, and you’ll have to hunt seals and penguins and sew a cloak out of bear pelts, and your teeth will rot and fall out, one by one.”

Eliana laughed. Carefully, she curled up beside Navi, wrapped her arms around her torso. Her throat tightened when she felt how thin her friend had become. She said Navi’s name again and again, and then, like a tower of children’s blocks stacked too high, the tension held in her chest gave way. She began to cry, her limbs heavy with fatigue, though she didn’t recognize her own tears until she felt Navi’s gentle fingers stroking her braid.

“You’re so dramatic,” Navi said kindly. “I’m the one who should be crying. Oh, my dear Eliana. My dear, my dear.”

Navi scooted farther down into the pillows, held up the edge of her soft gray quilt as the healers and nurses left the room. Eliana crawled beneath the blankets and cradled Navi against her, cupping her shorn head as she would a child’s. She kissed her forehead, her cheeks and temples.

“I missed you,” she whispered, and then they said nothing else, legs and arms locked together, warm and cocooned. Sleep came for them gently.

• • •

They fell in and out of sleep for days, waking only to eat and talk, to stretch their limbs on the terrace outside Navi’s rooms, and then returning to bed once Navi started to tire, which happened quickly.

Eliana was content to hide there for as long as Navi required. No one dared bother her, holed up in Navi’s rooms as she was. Not even Simon.

Then, on the evening of the fourth day, Remy finally arrived.

A soft knock announced his presence, and even before the guards outside spoke, Eliana knew him by the sound of his knuckles against the door. Stiffly, she climbed out of Navi’s bed to stand at the nearest window, her body clenched tight from toes to shoulders.

Navi watched her, eyes soft. “He will forgive you, Eliana.”

She could not find it in her to reply. When Remy entered and rushed merrily across the room toward Navi’s bed, his arms full of books, Eliana’s heart recoiled in its cage. She was suddenly all too aware of her fleshiness, her obviousness. How impossible it was to hide herself, no matter how rigidly she stood.

Even so, Remy didn’t notice her until he had lowered the stack of books onto the floor and embraced Navi, his face bright and open.

Then his eyes met Eliana’s, and everything about him—the spark in his eyes, the verve of his skinny limbs—closed and diminished.

They stared at each other across Navi’s bed. Eliana regretted skulking near the curtains like a caught thief. She stepped back into the light, unsure of her own tongue.

“Hello,” she said. “It’s good to see you.”

She cringed even as the words left her lips. It’s good to see you? As if he were a mere acquaintance. But the distance between them, the days of silence, had left her unsure of how to talk to him.

“I didn’t know you’d be here,” he said, his voice hollow. “Simon didn’t tell me you’d be here.”

And yet Simon must have known she was here. She wasn’t sure whether to feel grateful or annoyed that he had staged this little reunion.

“Well,” she said stupidly, “here I am.” She waited a beat, then dared to add, “I’ve missed you, Remy.” Another beat. A drawn breath, clenched fists. Bracing herself. “I’m so sorry.”

He frowned, considering her. There was a seriousness to his face, a gravity that had not existed before he had learned the truth of Rozen’s death. It was as if he had aged months, even years, since learning the truth—faint shadows under his eyes, a hard thin set to his mouth.

“You didn’t tell us where you’d gone,” he said, his words clipped. “You’re always doing that. You’re always leaving and not telling us where you’ve gone.”

“There’s a market underground,” she began, unsure what else to say. “They call it the Nest, and it’s in the heart of Vintervok, deep beneath the mountains. They have—”

“I know what you did, and where you went. Harkan told me. He told me about Zahra too.”

Eliana’s hand flew automatically to the pocket of her tunic, where the box containing Zahra rested.

Remy crossed his arms over his chest, folding into himself. “Can I see it?”

She withdrew the box from her pocket, held it out flat on her palm.

He crept closer, examining it—and maybe, Eliana thought, examining her casting as well. She hardly dared breathe; he was closer than he’d been in days. Her eyes filled. She wanted to reach for him, draw him into her arms, bury her face in the soft, hot tangle of dark hair on the crown of his head.

“Is it hurting her to be in there?” he asked quietly. A moment of silence passed before he looked up at her, his gaze bright.

Eliana shook her head. “I don’t know. I hope not.”

Remy’s mouth wavered. He hesitated, swaying a little, as if ready to meet her halfway and end this horrible stilted vastness between them. Eliana’s breath caught in her throat.

Then he moved away, turning his back on her.

“I have to go,” he said, shoulders drawn up tight. He gestured at the books. “Navi, those are for you.”

Eliana started forward. “Remy, wait, please—”

But he hurried out of Navi’s apartment, not looking back. The bedroom was quiet until Navi said quietly, “Come here, Eliana. You look like you’re going to fall over.”

But before Eliana could catch her breath, or even think of moving—for if she moved, she would shatter, her tears would erupt and leave her empty of all light—a deep-throated roar exploded across the mountains outside Navi’s windows.