My Beloved Queen

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

xxxvii. the knight and the soothsayer

fate
// destiny stands forever triumphant, the judge and maker—the cause and its end. there is no room for error and no time for hesitation. there is only that which must be, that which cannot not exist.

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The augur boy had crumbled like sand—like a corpse, suddenly empty and dead—but there he was, on the floor, writhing and twitching. Edite had spoken through him; she'd turned all of his body into an instrument, but the augur was not made of metal or wood. He had flesh and blood and brains. What would happen to all of that? What was happening to it, to him?

Gods. Edite, why?

Isil's hands were raised, but they had no place to settle, so he touched the queen's shoulder and waist. Fire was spreading up his fingers, and an itch had settled in his palms, but his attention was twisted, and he did not dare let the queen go.

Edite had freed the queen's hair, and now it fell in childish locks about her face—wild and careless, unfettered by time or duty. She was not a queen at all; she was a girl frozen by horror, made helpless by the very goddess she adored.

The echoes lingered: Edite's voice, surging above the augur boy's—speaking through him and over him and twisting his tongue as though it was her own.

There came a sound from behind, and Isil turned his head. The caretaker was approaching; the old woman's gaze was set high, and her eyes settled first upon Isil. Her eyebrows were raised, and concern darkened her face, but confusion was what lined her lips, and when she spoke, her tone was gentle and inquisitorial.

"What seems to be the matter?" she asked, and Isil glanced immediately at the queen, but [Name]'s gaze was fixed upon the augur boy.

Isil leaned toward her, and despite the burning in his hands, he squeezed her shoulder and murmured softly into her ear, "[Name]."

The queen started and turned, and though there was a tremble in her arms, when her eyes found the caretaker's face, she set her jaw. "Caretaker Druasis." Her tongue did not shiver, and she swallowed a short, shaky breath of air and ushered the caretaker over. "Over here, quickly. Molevri is... He's not well."

Immediately, the caretaker's eyes widened, and she hurried to them. Isil stepped back to allow her space, but he kept a careful watch and did not move his hand from the queen's shoulder. The augur boy's seizures had all but diminished, and once he'd completely stilled, the caretaker knelt down beside him and touched his face and throat and wrists. The old woman's hands were gentle, but her motions were awfully practiced, and after a few minutes of examination, she glanced back at Isil and the queen.

"He must be brought to a bed," she said, and her tone was gentle but firm—practiced, like her hands. There was no surprise in her eyes, no shock or horror at the aftermath laid bare before her.

How often had this happened?

Isil stepped forward, and as he knelt down to pick up the boy, Caretaker Druasis added, quickly, "Careful with his head."

For a moment, Isil paused, and then, with great, delicate care, he hooked one arm beneath the boy's knees and wound the other about the augur's upper back, and when he brought Molevri to his chest, the boy's head lolled almost like that of a corpse. Molevri was light—awfully so. He was a dead weight, a sack of feathers tied up in a burial shroud, and the slow rise and fall of his chest was nothing but a trick of the eye.