Delia Prance's Arc

Chapter 22 of 59

Delia woke before dawn and ground the first dose small. The problem was not the powder now. It was where to give it. Arden was the king's first son. If a servant saw him sick in her open field, the court would learn of the bargain. She needed a place private and warm, where he could sweat and shake through the poison without a stranger's eyes. She had one idea. Nick had brought her plans for a large house Arden promised to build for her practice. She would tell the court Arden came to help lay it out. A prince inspecting a gift. No one would think to look closer. He came at midday on a gray horse. Broad-shouldered, blonde, green eyes gone dull from the cough. He dismounted slow, one hand pressed to his chest. Delia's white horse lifted his head from the flower border but did not spook. Only she rode him, and he watched Arden the way she did, careful. "Show me the plans," Arden said. No greeting. He unrolled a wide sheet across her table and stabbed a finger at it. "House goes here. Big enough for forty beds. I keep my word." He coughed into his fist. Blood flecked the cloth. He folded it away before she could speak. "The court thinks that's why you came," Delia said. "Let them. But the plans are real. When you're well, you'll build it." He looked at her flat. "You think I'll be well." "I think you'll try, and I'll try with you." She banked the fire higher until the cottage went hot. She drew the shutters. "In here no one sees. You'll be sick before you're better. I need you warm and hidden for that." Arden sat on the cedar bed. For a moment the hard set of his jaw slipped. "My father never gave me a warm room to be sick in," he said. "He gave that to Nick." Delia said nothing to that. She measured water and stirred the powder in. "Small dose. Then we wait. If your breath eases, more tomorrow." She held out the cup. He took it without pause and drank it down. He grimaced at the taste. Then he lay back on the blue-flowered blanket and closed his eyes. Delia sat beside him through the afternoon. His breath rasped, caught, then eased a fraction. His color held. No worse. By dusk he slept without the wet drag in his chest she had heard at his arrival. The smallest sign, but a true one. Nick came in from the field and stood in the doorway, watching his brother sleep in the warm dark. "It worked?" "The first dose held," Delia said. "He's hidden here as long as it takes." She looked at the plans still spread on her table, the forty beds drawn in ink. The house she wanted was on that page. To finish saving Arden was to earn it. She had a warm room, a hidden prince, and a start.