The Midnight Storm (A New Dawn #2)

Chapter 46 - Nick

"So which plant is this?" Prince River asked, mumbling.

Nick inhaled sharply to drown out the previous scent he had guessed correctly—trailing arbutus or Charity's flower. While his companion was growing tired of the game they had been playing every day for precisely five weeks and an afternoon, he found it the perfect way to pass the time on the road and keep his mind and senses sharp. He sniffed again. The riddle came in the form of an earthly scent with a sour after-smell, as though the Prince had lifted his mud-stained socks from his boot and was waving them into Nick's direction. He opened his right eye, squeezing it halfway shut again to endure the sharp light—Prince River's vague outlines revealed he was sitting bent over, the reins clutched in one hand and a bottle in another.

He took a sip, then said, "You're slow, Nick."

"The son of Sloth reborn," Nick murmured in thought. He shuffled sidewards on his blanket as the horse slowly clip-clopped along an incline. He set his hand not to lose his balance. The aroma of the plant was oddly familiar, and not just because it reminded him of dirty and sweat-filled socks. "Is it the same flower as the one we passed right outside of Nether Wallop?"

"Upper Wallop," the Prince said. "No, not orchids. Think smaller and higher."

"Now you're making it difficult."

"As will your future teachers when giving you an assignment. Not all information will be relevant."

"But plants smelling of feet are?"

A short-lived snort. "That's your call to make."

"I think it is," Nick thought out loud. "Smelly, yet something useful that you want me to know. A plant higher than an orchid—smaller is irrelevant because subjective. That can almost only be valerian."

"Val-what?" asked the Prince.

"Valerian, to cure all sorts of pain and help the sleepless sleep, with except for King Thomas— he's a lost cause."

Prince River hummed. "Valerian is such a mouthful. In Ice, we call it All-Heal."

"That's a strange name. Isn't the plant toxic in large amounts?"

"Yeah, but nothing a good bout of vomiting can't cure."

Nick scratched the valerian off his mental list of methods to kill the King of Ice undetected.

At the back of the waggon, the last remaining raven cawed and fluttered its wings. Four there had been when they had left Sunstone. One had been sent to Bigtown right after crossing the border into Silvermark, the second when they had been stuck in a shed for more than a week to hide from pouring rain turning the roads into either swamps or rivers of mud, or both. And a third not long after when a rumour floated around Redbury that King Ariel and Prince Felix had been killed.

Nick had cheered in silence, but not for long. The death of one king meant the coronation of another, not a son wanting to honour his father's name but a younger brother trying to outshine his older sibling. History had taught Nick it would be no halt to the state of semi-war with The Greenlands, and it was a big question how Prince Caracal would react to the Icians attacking from the north if his eyes were fixated on the south. What if he allowed the Icians to take the boreal lands to gain Sunstone Castle? Who he even consider that?

Nick's head spun. His mind filled with more ifs and maybes as a thud landed on his right. Paws retracted their claws, a tail flicking against the crates. Water trickled down. Little puffs of breath approached fast and brought the strong aroma of a pup who had spent many hours playing in the rain, running through the forest, never losing track of the waggon.