Delia Prance's Arc

Chapter 43 of 59

Nick rode back from the north two days later. He found Delia at the flower-draped house, sorting dried leaves into her embroidered satchel. She had not slept well since Arden left. Her hands moved slow. Her face showed everything she tried to hide. Nick set down his bag. "Something's wrong. Tell me." Delia looked up. She had meant to wait, to find the right moment. There was no right moment. "Your brother came while you were gone. A boy cut his arm on the fence. I cut my thumb helping him. Arden saw it close." Nick went still. "He saw you heal yourself." "He knows what it means. A wife who can't be hurt." Her voice dropped. "He said four people hold my secret now. He said to send you to him." Nick sat across from her. He did not soften it. "My father made us fight for the throne. If he learns you can't die, he owns you forever. Arden knows that. So do the nobles." "I know." Delia pressed the satchel flat. "Every secret I keep, someone finds. The plants. My blood. Now this. I can't hide fast enough." Nick was quiet a long moment. Then he leaned forward. "Stop hiding. Get above them." "What do you mean?" "The crown uses you because it stands over you. It can order you, sell your work, take your child. But it can't take from itself." His eyes stayed on hers. "If we are the crown, no one uses you. There's no one above us to obey." Delia set the satchel down. "You mean the throne. King and queen." "The people already want it. Your patients say it every week. They love you, not the nobles." He counted it plain. "My father set us against each other. Arden will fight for it either way. If we don't take it, one of them rules over us and everything you built." Delia stood and walked to the window. The garden spread below, blue and purple, full of beds she had filled for anyone who came. This was the sanctuary she wanted. She had told herself she only wanted to heal. But she could not heal freely under a crown that could seize her. "If we rule," she said slowly, "I keep the door open. No one closes it. No one takes the ledger. No one takes me." "No one," Nick said. She turned back to him. The fear that had sat on her for two days shifted into something harder. "Then we stop defending. We take it." Nick reached out. She took his hand. "Arden fights for the throne. So does my father's court," he said. "We start now, before they see us coming." Delia looked once more at her garden. She had built a place where the wounded came free. To keep it free, she would have to sit above the men who wanted it. She nodded. The decision settled in her chest, heavy and certain. "We become the crown."