The Broken Kingdoms of Osvolta (Kingdoms of Osvolta #1)

53. Give and Take

Chapter fifty-three

Give and Take

B ells chimed the early hour as partygoers filtered through the castle gates back down the winding hill to their homes. Solveig remained in vigil at the prince’s side.

Watching.

Waiting.

For any sign that her dark magic had harmed him.

“We should get you cleaned up, ma’am,” Teris said.

“I’m fine.”

“Commander Bleeker will send for us if the prince’s condition changes. I need to check your wounds lest they become infected.”

“I said I’m fine.”

“Your Highness, if I may…” Wrenn tried.

“No, Lady Bleeker, you may not. I have to know I didn’t cause any lasting damage.”

“You saved his life.”

“With dark magic.”

A hand landed on her shoulder, but Solveig flinched away.

“Your Highness, whatever means you used, you saved my prince’s life tonight. My country owes you a debt of gratitude.”

Solveig didn’t look at her. “You should have your ship readied, Commander. Torrelin is no longer safe for you.”

“I’ll have a message delivered to the port at first light.” Solveig only nodded as she watched the rise and fall of the prince’s chest.

Dawn teased its way across the horizon, and still the princess sat in the cold. Her head resting on the prince’s lap, breaths slow and even. She was dozing when she felt the hand in hers twitch. Her head flew up as she blinked away the haze of sleep. She glanced toward the head of the bed, where the warm gaze of the Prince of Elithiend stared back at her. Healthy and whole.

“What are you doing here?” His brow creased as he raised a hand to brush a wayward lock of her raven hair behind her ear. His gaze falling to her ruined gown.

“What happened?” He tried to move, to rise from the bed, but grimaced with pain, falling back against the mountain of pillows Solveig had laid behind him in the night.

“What do you remember?”

His lips quirked with a ghost of a smile. “If you’re wondering whether I recall spinning you around the dance floor. Declaring how little I hate you? Those memories are intact. It’s afterward that’s hazy.”

Solveig’s eyes dropped, a light blush creeping across her cheeks at the impossible memory of his words. “Please, I’m lying here feeling as though someone dropped a pile of boulders on me and there you are, dress torn, stained and bloody. What happened?”

“Honestly?” she worried her bottom lip between her teeth as she stroked the back of his hand with her thumb. Emmerich tracked her movements. “I’m not sure. I wasn’t there when it happened.”

“Yet, you’re here now? And I’m guessing you were there for part of it, too?” Solveig nodded solemnly.

“I was with Gabriel on the balcony when I heard a crash back in the ballroom. I ran to see what had caused it and found you lying on the floor, unmoving, not breathing, and then you shook, and your mouth frothed.” Her words were like vomit now. “No one came to help, though there were plenty of Hydromancers in the room.”

Her eyes fell to the bandaged wound on his neck then, as a tear tracked down her cheek. Emmerich removed his hands from hers to wipe it away gently with his thumb. All the warmth that had been missing in his touch last night now returned, sending shivers through her body.

“Whatever it is, Princess. Just tell me.”

Solveig took a deep shuddering breath before taking his hand again, laying it atop the bandage on his neck. “I sensed the poison, and I had to help you the only way I knew how. I had to drain it from you. From your blood. I’m not a healer. I don’t know how to pull poison from the blood, I only know how to drain fluid itself. Even if it meant killing you faster. I—I had to try.”

Her head fell in her hands, shoulders shaking. Emmerich sat up, despite the pain, pulling them away.

“Look at me,” He demanded. When her gaze remained on her hands in her lap, he placed two fingers beneath her chin, and brought her face up to his slowly. She found his eyes full of nothing but wonder.

“However, you did it. I’m alive, because of you.”

“But I—”

“No.” He placed a finger against her plush mouth. “No buts.” He lowered the finger slowly, directing it toward her heart between them instead. “You saved my life.”

“What will it cost me?” she gasped, shoulders still shaking. Emmerich took both her hands in his, trying to warm the ice that had dug its teeth into her whilst he slept.

“Something that wasn’t worth having.”

A wry smile crossed her mouth at his statement.

“I guess I was wrong.” He mused after a beat.

“About?”

“You did have the guts to cut my neck after all.” He laughed, and Solveig couldn’t help but join in.

They were silent for a moment. Watching each other. Their movements mirror images as they pretended they couldn’t sense the crackling energy that surrounded them. Couldn’t feel the warmth spreading through their blood from where their hands touched and didn’t let go.

“Did you clean those wounds yet?” Emmerich asked suddenly.

“What?”

He nodded toward her legs. “Those wounds you’ve got from crawling over broken glass to save me.”

“No,” she gulped.

“Bloody reckless fool. Grab the kit, I’ll do it for you.”

“Do what?” she exclaimed suddenly, pulling her hands from his.

He gave her a sardonic look. “Clean your wounds. You saved my life. It’s the least I can do.”

In a daze, Solveig stood from the chair, wobbling slightly on aching knees from being sat for hours. She grabbed the meagre kit from the adjoined bathing room and a small bowl of water before returning to the prince’s bedside.

Emmerich had adjusted the pillows behind him in her absence, sitting fully upright now. His sun lightened curls sticking every which way from sleep, revealing the scar on his temple. The white shirt that Wrenn had dressed him in gaped open at the neck, revealing more of his warm brown skin. Her eyes lingered for a second too long when she heard a gruff chuckle from across the room.

“Eyes up, Princess,” he jested, but she didn’t meet his gaze. The blush on her cheeks deepened slightly as she approached him, slowly setting out the supplies on the bed before returning to her seat beside him.

She heard him chuckle before slowly patting his lap. She looked at him, mouth agape, as he raised a brow in return.

“I can’t very well clean your wounds with your legs all the way down there now, can I?”

Solveig swallowed audibly, as she slowly lifted each leg onto his lap, the angle forcing her to lean back on her chair. The torn skirt of her dress falling to mid-thigh as she did so, needle sharp heels long since discarded.

“Shame,” he tsked with a slight shake of his head.

“What is?”

“Those shoes would have been exquisite on these sheets. Another time, perhaps.”

“If you’re trying to charm me, Prince, I’m afraid to tell you it isn’t working,” she huffed, folding her arms across her chest to hide the rapid rise and fall.

“Liar,” he replied with a smug smile. Reaching for a piece of cloth from the kit, dowsing it in cleansing alcohol before looking up at her again. “This is going to sting.”

“Just do it.”

Gently, Emmerich dabbed at the small cuts that littered her knees and shins. He wiped away the remnants of blood and glass, gaze resolutely focused on the task before him. Solveig tried desperately to calm her racing heart.

Next, he reached for the treatment solution, containing everything from Nyteberry seeds to honey. He placed a single drop over each cut before massaging it in. The wounds weren’t deep enough to require bandages, and his caress felt like magic. His hands drifted from her shins to the back of her calves, where he kneaded the tight muscles there. Solveig’s eyes fell shut as the pain relief properties in the solution took hold. Soon all she could feel were the shockwaves traversing her veins as the prince continued his self-imposed task.

A soft sigh escaped her lips as her body relaxed beneath his ministrations. She couldn’t hide the blush that travelled from her cheeks down over her neck and chest. With the sound of her breaths hitching slightly, his hands suddenly fell away. She cracked an eye open to find him staring at her, the blush of her cheeks, the arch of her throat, where her head and fallen back against the chair.

“What?” she whispered.

“Nothing,” he surmised, with a small shake of his head. Yet his eyes betrayed a blazing fire. Hot enough, she was sure he could set her aflame in both the best and worst way. He gripped the torn and bloodied edges of her dress, his eyes meeting hers as he reluctantly dragged it back down her legs. Covering her thigh holster that he’d wondered about as they’d danced. He swallowed; mouth suddenly dry as the dessert as he dreamt of what it would be like to drift his fingers tips over her smooth skin. Would she tremble under his touch as he removed the weapon, she held dear as they undressed each other. In another life perhaps. If things were different, if she cared for him as he did her. If they weren’t on opposite sides.

“Will I live?” she quipped, breaking the silence, desperate to sound unaffected.

“I’d say your chances are high. Shame about that dress, though.” He fingered the cool, blood-stained fabric. “I doubt even the most talented laundress could get all this blood and dirt out, never mind repair it.”

His words should have elicited more shivers. It was yet another compliment, something he was becoming all too comfortable giving her. Instead, it jostled through her mind, dragging a memory from the depths of an ice-blue velvet gown that had been damaged similarly. On a night not too dissimilar to last.

Except for the blood staining that gown had been Aldrik’s, this blood was hers and Emmerich’s. And she had sensed the poison in Emmerich’s long before it had ravaged him, without even knowing it. There had been no scent on Aldrik, nor Xanthe.

Just as Emmerich hadn’t coughed. Hadn’t choked on his own blood, chest rattling desperately for air, yet all three were supposedly poisoned. And she had killed the latest culprit, not even a day ago.

“What is it?” Emmerich asked, his voice on edge as he leaned forward, searching for an unseen threat.

“I… I have to go,” she stammered, surging to her feet so fast she almost tripped.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yes. Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Then tell me why you’re running out of here, as though I asked you to marry me.”

Solveig stilled at his words, turning to face him. “I have something I need to take care of.”

“Are you going to tell me what?”

Her head dropped; shoulders bent inward.

“I’ll take that as a no,” he muttered.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. You don’t owe me anything, Princess.” But she could hear in the bite of his words that she’d wounded him again, this time without meaning to.

Solveig desperately wanted to confide in him, but something stopped her. She couldn’t. Not until she was sure. Different poisons had different effects. There was no use concerning him without proof. There was a simple explanation for all of it.

There had to be.