Delia Prance's Arc

Chapter 35 of 59

The next morning's lesson ran long. Delia sat in the flower-draped healing house while the steward drilled her on court bows. Her mind stayed on the field. Every hour spent here was an hour stolen from a patient, and she felt each one like a splinter. She kept sliding out of her seat to check the beds, then sliding back before the steward looked up. She was healing on stolen time, and both crown and patients felt the theft. Nick stood in the doorway. He watched the field, not the lesson. "He's back," Nick said. Beyond the porch, a rider in palace colors pulled up hard. The man carried no scroll for Delia. He carried news for the whole land. The rider read it out plain. The king had made his choice for the throne. Whichever son gave him a grandchild first would be named heir. The words hung in the warm room. Delia set down her folded hands and felt the floor shift under her. "He's turned it into a race," Nick said. His voice went flat and hard, the way it did when the stakes were his. "An heir for a crown." He did not look at Delia. He looked past her, to the ornamental bushes crowding the window, blue and purple blooms she had planted for beauty and nothing else. Delia understood at once what the decree bought her. Not peace. Arden. "Your brother wants two things now," she said. "He wanted me before. Now he needs a child to be king. He'll come here for both." Nick's jaw set. "Then he'll come." "Let him." Delia rose. She crossed to the window and looked over the beds where patients waited. The lessons had stolen her mornings. This decree would steal her house, if she let it become a nursery for princes and their claims. She would not. "I made my healing bigger than my two hands," she said. "I can make it bigger than my body too." She turned from the window and faced Nick. "The king wants an heir race. I won't run it. My field feeds the sick, not the throne." She reached for the green reference book on the shelf and pressed it flat with her palm. "Whatever Arden brings when he comes, I answer as a healer. Not a broodmare. Not a prize." Nick crossed the room and stood close. "He'll try to make you choose." "I already chose," she said. "You. And this house." He held her look a long moment, then nodded once. Outside, the steward gathered his scrolls and left early. The decree had bigger business than her bows. Delia watched the palace rider ride off to carry the news down every road. The morning was hers again, at last. She walked out to her patients, and behind her the blue and purple bushes trembled in the wind, waiting for the storm the king had just set loose.