Delia Prance's Arc

Chapter 33 of 59

The letter said only that the king wanted them both. It gave no reason. Delia rode beside Nick to the palace with the words turning over in her head. She thought of the workers she left mixing draughts, of the beds full behind her. Then she thought of the poisons in her ledger, of Arden, of the secret three people now held. Any one of them could have reached the king's ear. By the time the towers rose ahead, her hands were cold on the reins. She did not know what she had done wrong. She only knew a summons like this meant she had done something. Rowan Rider waited in a hall with tall windows. He was heavier than Delia remembered, his beard streaked pale, a crown pushed back on blonde hair. He did not rise. He looked at her the way he looked at a field he meant to survey. "You married my son," the king said. "Nick is a prince. That makes you a princess. You have not lived like one." Delia's breath came back. This was not about the willow, or the poisons, or her blood. "I live like a healer," she said. "You live like a woman with a cottage." Rowan folded his hands over his belly. "That is finished. A princess learns the court. The seating, the seasons, the names of every house. You will be taught. You will attend. My steward will bring you the lessons." Delia stood very still. "And my house? My patients?" "They wait," the king said, "or others tend them." He did not soften it. "There is more. A prince needs heirs. You will give this line as many as you can. That is your duty now. It is not a request." The hall went quiet. Delia thought of the child she had lost on her wedding day, of the ground she had wanted to give the sick, not the crown. She heard Nick shift beside her. "No," Nick said. His voice was flat and even. "She heals. That is what she does. You will not put her in a schoolroom and call it a duty." "She is bound to this house," Rowan said. "She takes its name and its burdens both." Delia lifted her chin. "Then I will learn your court," she said. "I will sit where you place me. But my door stays open. The sick still come to my field, free, every day. Bind me to the crown and the crown gains a healer, not a broodmare. I will not close the house." The king studied her a long moment. "You will learn," he said again, once. "The first lesson is tomorrow." He rose and left them in the tall light. Delia knew her answer now. The court would try to pull her from her field. She had a title she never asked for, and a garden that still needed her. She would have to serve both, or lose the one she built.