Delia Prance's Arc

Chapter 21 of 59

The three roots lay on Delia's table, pale and thick. She had named the illness and found the cure. Now she had to decide the dose, and a wrong measure would kill Arden as surely as his sickness. She turned the roots in her hands and did not trust herself alone. When the cottage door opened and Nick stepped in, mud on his boots, she was glad she had waited. Nick set down his gloves and looked at the roots. He knew what they meant. Delia had told him of his brother's secret bargain, though the two men had not spoken in years. "You found it," he said. "I found it." She pointed. "This root dries the lungs. It answers what's drowning him. But it's a poison too. Too little does nothing. Too much stops his breath." Nick pulled a stool close. "How much is too much?" "That's the danger. I don't know his weight or how far the illness has gone." She pressed her thumb to the root. "If I give a healing dose to a body already weak, I could push him over. If I give too little, he coughs another week and dies anyway." Nick was quiet. When he spoke, he did not soften it. "So you might be the one who kills him." "Yes." She held his eyes. "And if the court learns I dosed the king's first son with poison and he died, they take everything. The field. The ledger. Maybe you." "Then start small." He said it plainly. "Give the least that could work. Watch him. Add to it only if his breath eases and his color holds. Never leap." Delia let out a slow breath. It was the answer she had circled all evening but had feared to trust. "Small, then wait. Small again." She nodded. "It's slower. He suffers longer." "He's suffered years. A few more days won't undo him." Nick reached across and closed her hand around the root. "You measure. I'll be there when you carry it to him. You won't do this alone." She felt the weight lift a little. Not the danger, but the loneliness of it. She wrapped the three roots in cloth and set them in the cool cupboard where the light would not reach. "Tomorrow I grind the first dose. The smallest one." "Tomorrow," he agreed. Delia banked the fire. Outside, the river ran low and steady past the flower border. Nick took off his boots by the cedar bed and turned back the blanket with its blue flowers. She lay down beside him under the pink sheets, and for the first time in days her hands were still. "You'll save him," Nick said into the dark. "Or I'll try, and know I tried right." She closed her eyes. The decision was made. In the morning she would begin the smallest dose, and either the root would heal a dying prince or prove she should never have taken his bargain. She slept.