Delia Prance's Arc

Chapter 42 of 59

A week later Delia rode to the palace to fetch a case of tonics Nick had promised the court healers. Nick had gone north to settle a dispute over the steward's survey. She did not expect to find him gone, only the case waiting by the gate. She carried it through a garden thick with blue and purple blossoms, past a house draped in flowers. She had not walked this ground alone in months. A boy had cut his arm on the garden's iron fence. He sat crying near the flowering bushes, blood down his sleeve. Delia knelt at once. She pressed her palm to the wound to steady it and reached for cloth. But her own hand caught the sharp latch as she moved. A cut opened across her thumb. She wrapped the boy fast and sent him to the kitchens. Then she looked at her own thumb. The blood had already stopped. The skin drew shut while she watched. She turned her hand over and told herself to move. "You bled," a flat voice said behind her. "Then you didn't." Delia turned. Arden stood at the edge of the path. Nick's estranged brother, the king's first son, the man who had once wanted her and once lied to save her secret. He had not been here since he accepted her refusal and left. His green eyes moved from her hand to her face. "I cut myself on the latch," she said. "I'm fine." "I saw the blood." He stepped closer. "I saw it stop. Your skin closed. Roots don't do that, Delia. People don't do that." Her stomach dropped. Arden already knew she could grow plants from bare ground. He had lied to his father to hide it. But this was more. This was her own body. "Say nothing," she said. "Please." "My father set my brother and me against each other for the throne." His jaw stayed hard. "A wife who cannot be hurt is worth a kingdom to him. You know that." "I know." She stood and faced him. "That is why I hid it. You saw what the crown did with the plants. Imagine what they do with this." Arden was quiet. He looked at the house full of beds, the garden she had built for anyone who came. Then he looked back at her. "I told him a lie once for you," he said. "I'll keep this one too." He paused. "But four people hold your secret now. Me. My brother. You. And whoever gets me talking when I'm angry." "Then don't get angry." "I'm always angry." It was almost a smile. He turned to go. "Send Nick to me when he's back. Some things are safer said between brothers than kept alone." He left through the blossoms. Delia stood among the beds she meant to fill and knew the danger had widened again. Her secret was no longer hers to guard. It now depended on the goodwill of a man who had every reason to want the throne.