Solon said it before the courtier could send Neris back into the corridor. His ribs caught on the words. He pressed his left arm against his side and kept his eyes on the narrow table in front of him, where a physician had laid out clean cloths for the blood he might cough up again.
The courtier glanced at him. “You should be resting.”
“You brought me here to answer questions.”
“We brought you because you collapsed.”
“And now she has something to say.” Solon looked at Neris. “Go ahead.”
She stood near the door, her healed arm held close to her body. The palace servants had offered her a chair; she had refused it. When the courtier moved to block her, she looked past him to Solon.
“You saw him after he healed the prince,” she said. “He was coughing blood. His ribs hurt. His arm was worse than before. You all watched.”
A few of the people around the table shifted. The courtier’s expression tightened.
“That is not in dispute,” he said. “The prince’s physician has already reported the healer’s condition.”
“Then why are you asking whether he can go downstairs?”
The room went still. Solon felt the effort of standing in the ache beneath his ribs. It had settled there like a weight that belonged to someone else. He kept his face level.
The courtier tapped one finger against the table. “The question is whether Master Solon is fit to continue his duties.”
“His duties,” Neris repeated. Her voice shook on the first word. She steadied it. “You mean healing people.”
“We mean what the kingdom requires of him.”
Bramel stood behind Solon’s chair. He had not spoken since they entered. His hand rested on the back of the chair, close enough to catch Solon if he fell. Earlier, that touch had felt like help. Now Solon could feel the expectation in it, too: stand up, answer them, let the next thing happen.
Neris faced the table. “When he healed me, my arm was crushed. It stopped hurting. Then he could barely use his own. When he healed the prince, he got sick in front of you. You know what happened.”
The courtier’s eyes went to Solon. “Is this what you told her?”
Solon looked at the bandage around his hand. The white cloth had already picked up a small red mark. “She saw it.”
“Did you tell her that the injury was transferred to you?”
“No.”
Next
Will Solon protect Neris from the crowd's blame, or will doing so cost him the first boundary he has managed to hold?
Neris’s jaw set. Solon saw her fingers curl against her skirt, then open again. She had come here ready to challenge them; she hadn’t come to be cross-examined by a man who could dismiss her with one word.
“It’s what happened,” she said. “He healed my arm. He hurt afterward. He healed the prince. He hurt again.”
The courtier turned to Solon. “Is it true?”
His answer could still be gentle. He was tired of making it gentle.
“Yes.”
No one moved. The silence held long enough for the physician to lift the clean cloth and refold it in his hands.
Solon put his palm flat on the table. “When I heal someone, I take the pain and damage they would have suffered. The prince recovered. His body is no longer carrying what I took.” He paused when the room blurred at the edges. “Mine is.”
A noblewoman drew in a sharp breath. Someone at the far end of the table whispered, “How long?”
“Years.”
Bramel’s hand came off the chair.
Solon didn’t look back. He knew Bramel had seen him exhausted. He knew Bramel had seen him stumble after a healing and put a hand to his ribs. He had never given his friend the words that joined those pieces. The court had them now. So did Bramel.
The courtier leaned forward. “You have never reported this.”
“I have healed people.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It’s the one I have.” Solon felt the old habit rising in him, the instinct to make the room easier for everyone else. He could offer an apology. He could say he would explain later. He let the words stay unsaid.
A servant opened the side door. “Your Highness is awake.”
The prince appeared with his mother at his shoulder. He looked pale, and each step seemed to cost him, but he was on his feet. His gaze found Solon’s bandaged hand, then the blood at the healer’s mouth.
“Was that for me?” he asked.
His mother touched his arm. “You need to sit.”
He didn’t. “Did I do that?”
Solon wanted to tell him no. The prince hadn’t ordered the healing. He had been sick, and afraid, and unable to choose what the Crown demanded for him. Solon could not find a sentence that wouldn’t erase what had happened.
“You needed help,” Solon said.
The prince lowered his eyes. His mother’s hand tightened around his sleeve. For the first time since the healing, the room held more than the fact that he was alive.
The courtier cleared his throat. “The healer’s condition is now known. We will arrange for him to rest and have the physician assess him. Until then, no public discussion of this—”
“No,” Neris said.
The courtier turned to her. “You have been heard.”
“Then let people hear the truth.” She glanced at Solon, as though checking that he still meant it. “The village blamed him for helping me. They’ll blame him again if you hide this.”
Solon heard the scrape of a chair. A man at the table muttered that the kingdom could not afford panic. Another asked how many people knew. The words piled up, each one reaching for a way to make the truth smaller.
He pushed himself upright. Pain flared across his ribs; a cough rose in his throat. He closed his mouth until it passed.
“I won’t heal anyone else tonight.”
The sentence sounded simple. His body had made it true long before he said it aloud.
The courtier’s face hardened. “There are people waiting.”
“I know.”
“Some of them have been brought from the lower ward.”
Solon looked at the man. “I said I know.”
The crowd outside the doors had heard enough to gather. A palace guard reported that villagers and soldiers had learned Solon was back. They were asking for him. One of them had carried a boy in from the road; another had a bandaged hand pressed to her chest. The guard spoke as if naming a queue, a task waiting to be done.
The physician took a step toward Solon. “You can’t stand without support.”
“I can stand.” Solon shifted his weight to prove it, and his left arm buckled. Bramel caught him beneath the elbow. For one brief second Solon leaned into his friend’s grip. Then he straightened again.
Bramel’s voice dropped. “Let me go out first. I can tell them you need time.”
“You can tell them I said no.”
Bramel’s mouth opened. Whatever practical answer he had ready failed to arrive. His hand stayed at Solon’s arm, but his grip loosened.
Neris stepped to Solon’s other side. She didn’t touch him. She made room for him to move.
The courtier ordered the doors kept shut. Solon saw the guards hesitate, waiting for the Crown’s word to settle the matter. He could have let them obey. The crowd would go away angry, and the palace could say he had been too ill to come down.
He pulled free of Bramel and walked to the doors.
The guards opened them.
A murmur rose from the people packed in the entrance hall. Faces he recognized turned toward him. A man whose son Solon had treated last winter looked from his bloodstained mouth to Neris at his side. The woman with the bandaged hand took one step forward.
“Please,” she said. “It’s getting worse.”
Solon’s arm throbbed. The cloth around his hand stuck to his skin. He looked at her, then at the faces behind her, people who had trusted him enough to bring their sick and expected him to be ready every time.
“Not tonight,” he said. “I can’t.”
A man near the back swore. Someone else called him selfish. The woman with the bandaged hand lowered her eyes. She didn’t accuse him. That hurt more.
Then the man who had been looking at Neris pointed toward her.
“She’s the reason,” he said. “He had strength enough before she got her hands on him.”
Neris went very still. Solon saw the crowd turn to her, and felt the old demand gather again—this time with her standing between it and him.