“I didn’t think you’d stay put either way. You wouldn’t have listened to me. Not after last night, after what you said during the training session. I was hopeful we wouldn’t run into trouble.”
Drek finished wrapping Karmuth’s arm in bandages and looked from him to me with a raised eyebrow. He didn’t move away from Karmuth to put the ointment back to where he took it from or make any unnecessary noise to be able to eavesdrop on the whole conversation. He also didn’t interrupt or ask questions. I’d be curious to know what I’d done to the forest or how was I the one to save us, Karmuth being the obvious choice, if I hadn’t been there to see it for myself.
“We did, though. We ran into trouble, and now I’ve—” I thought back to the feeling of not being able to sever the connection to the forest and lost my composure. “I’ve… I’ve…Oh gods.”
Gulping for air I couldn’t manage much more than short frantic breaths. I heard his chair creak as he stood up, but it was a distant sound. What was he expecting to do, anyway? He crossed the room and stood in front of me, his undamaged hand twitching as if to reach out. He knew better.
“Take deep breaths, Isay. It’ll be alright.”
“You don’t know that. The king will—”
“No one else has to know,” Karmuth repeated my words from the morning he caught me in the kitchen.
“Kar?” Drek finally stepped in.
The warrior locked his firm gaze with Drek’s. “I am not telling King Grath about this. I’ve been to him once already this week. We’re going to bury this here and now. This never happened.”
“Kar, you know you’re like a brother to me, but I can’t do that. I need the king’s favour. Ronya doesn’t have long left. This could get us the ecos that she needs to pull through.”
Open mouthed I observed as Karmuth’s eyes closed and his head fell back while his hands formed fists at his sides. Then he ran a hand over his face, looking pained while doing so.
“May I see her?” he finally asked.
Drek gave a curt nod and crossed the living room to the door which I knew held the other fae behind it. She hadn’t come out during the whole exchange. There must’ve been something seriously wrong with her.
The door opened to a small bedroom. A woman laid on the bed, hair black as night but skin so pale, she was almost see-through. Her arm twitched as if to raise it in greeting, but it didn’t move any more than that.
“I would sit up and greet you properly, my princess, but I stopped being able to do that a week ago,” Ronya said, her soft voice but a whisper. Her grey eyes held warmth I didn’t think death fae possessed, and despite her words she smiled at me before looking at Karmuth. “It’s always nice to see you, Kar. I’m sorry about the circumstances.”
“Not your doing, Ro.” Karmuth’s face softened, too.
She chided, “Don’t look like that. It’s my time to go; you can’t fix everything. Drek will see it soon, too.”
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked, unable to keep quiet. She barely moved, and her chest rose and fell with difficulty as if held by a mountain on top. The only responsive part of her was her face, and the twitching hands if you could call that a response.
“Hilitris is a sickness attacking the ecos of a fae. It’s most common in us since we’re unable to freely feed,” Ronya explained softly. She didn’t ask me how old I was, nor how I had not heard about it before, just accepted it as a fact. I liked her.
Her simple acceptance made it easier to keep asking questions. “Is there a cure?”
She shook her head, if you could call it that at all. A slight movement, rather than a full shake. “You can’t help me, Princess.”
She’d also accepted death by the sound of it. “Drek seemed to think there was something he could do? Can King Grath help you?”
“He’s not going to. I matter little to the big scheme of things.”
“You don’t know that!” Drek intercepted. “I have to do something, Ronya. Don’t you understand?”
The couple kept on arguing, but it sounded like something they’d talked about before. I looked to Karmuth for an explanation.
His lips were pressed tight, a faraway look in his eyes. His throat bobbed as he swallowed hard. This family meant something to him. He wanted to protect them, and he was made to choose between me and what he held dear.
“What could Grath do? If he chose to,” I asked. I had to know if the punishment that surely awaited me if he was to find out what I’d done was worth a woman’s life. I had to know.
“It takes an immense amount of life force to restore someone sick with hilitris, Isay,” Karmuth said quietly.
Already before I’d decided to help Ronya my stomach dropped. A despair hollowed out my insides making room for numb admission. Grath couldn’t help this woman, or even if he could, Ronya was right in saying that he wouldn’t. But I could.
Karmuth must’ve seen the resolve on my face, because he kept me back. “No, Isay. You don’t know what will happen, you lost control the last time. It is not safe.”
At that moment, the rabbit decided to squeak.
“No,” I whispered. My ‘no’ was completely different from Karmuth’s. While his was wary, mine was filled with grief.
I knew what I had to do, but I was conflicted. We didn’t sacrifice one life for another. We did not make that decision. I’d already decided to kill a part of the forest today.
It was not my place to interfere with Ronya’s life, but the sombre atmosphere in the room broke through my defences. I knew that if I didn’t do something then Drek would go to King Grath and tell him whatever he thought happened in the forest, and me and Karmuth would have to answer for it. I also knew that if there was any other way to help, I would have. But there wasn’t, and I couldn’t.
So I did the only thing I was able to and placed the rabbit on Ronya’s chest, watched her eyes widen and hands twitch just enough to reach for the terrified animal, and then I watched the life of an innocent slip away and into the fae.
It had to be enough.
Chapter 12
KARMUTH
I WAS UNABLE TO STOP ISAY. PART OF ME KNEW THAT I SHOULD have tried harder, that whatever that darkness in her eyes meant would take a part of her away that I admired.
There was another part, one that wanted Drek to be happy, one that wanted Ronya to be healthy, and that part hoped that whatever Isay did undid the hilitris curse and gave my friends their lives back.
