Chapter 2 of 3·6 min read·That same night, from the journey to the palace through Odran’s recovery
The Price of a Prince
Bramel had already started down the palace steps when Solon stopped at the bottom and said, “Neris comes with me.”
The guards looked to Bramel. Bramel looked back at Solon, at the girl standing close to his good side, and lowered his voice.
“They won’t want her in the prince’s chamber.”
“Then they can tell me that themselves.” Solon’s left arm throbbed under his sleeve. He kept it tucked against his ribs. “She stays where I can see her.”
Neris watched him, not Bramel. She had heard the strain in his voice. Solon could tell by the way she shifted nearer, careful not to touch his arm.
Bramel rubbed a hand over his jaw. “All right. But don’t make this harder than it is. The prince may not last the night.”
He said it like a practical fact, not a threat. That made it worse.
Solon followed him through the gates.
Inside, servants hurried past with folded linen and steaming bowls. A physician met them at the corridor to the prince’s rooms and looked past Solon to the girl.
“She can wait outside.”
“She stays,” Solon said.
The physician’s mouth tightened. “This is a royal sickroom.”
“And I’m the one you sent for.” Solon held his gaze. “She stays.”
The physician glanced toward Bramel. Bramel gave a tired little shrug, as if the matter were an inconvenience already spent. After a moment, the physician stepped aside.
Neris entered with Solon.
Odran lay beneath a light coverlet, his face damp and colorless. His breathing came unevenly, each inhale catching in his chest. A woman stood by the bed with both hands clasped so tightly her knuckles had gone pale. Solon didn’t know her. He didn’t ask. The physician began listing what they had tried, and the woman flinched at every new failure.
Solon listened. He watched Odran’s chest rise, then stall. The prince’s hand lay open on the blanket. His fingers twitched once and fell still.
“How long?” Solon asked.
“Since the afternoon,” said the physician. “The fever has been climbing. His breathing is worse.”
Bramel came to Solon’s shoulder. “You can help him.”
It was the same voice he used when a village had run out of clean water, when a soldier’s wound had turned dark, when someone needed Solon and there was no one else to ask. Solon had always gone. Bramel had always known he would.
Next
Will Solon let Neris tell the court that his healing makes him suffer the damage he removes from others?
Solon glanced once at Neris. She stood with her arms crossed, her attention fixed on him. He could still take her out of the room. He could tell them to wait. Odran’s next breath hitched and did not come.
Solon went to the bedside.
“Clear the space,” he said.
The physician moved at once. Bramel stepped back. The woman caught the bedpost to keep her balance.
Solon set his right hand on Odran’s chest.
The prince’s body seized under his palm. A sound scraped out of him, and the room filled with the sharp, wet pull of his next breath. Solon felt the same pressure close around his own ribs. His left arm jerked against his side. Pain punched through his shoulder and down to his fingertips, fierce enough to blur the bed and the faces around it.
He kept his hand in place.
Odran’s breath loosened. The catch left it. Color returned slowly to his lips, then his cheeks. The fever sheen on his skin eased. His fingers curled against the blanket.
Solon’s knees gave way.
Bramel caught him under the right arm. Solon tried to stand, but his chest seized again. He coughed into his sleeve. When he pulled it away, a dark smear stained the cloth.
No one spoke.
Neris had gone white. Her gaze moved from the blood on Solon’s sleeve to Odran’s now-steady chest. She took one step toward Solon, then stopped as if she had found a line on the floor no one else could see.
The physician bent over the prince. “His breathing is clear.” He sounded almost offended by his own surprise. “The fever’s breaking.”
The woman at the bed made a small, broken noise and pressed both hands over her mouth. Then she reached for Odran’s fingers. He squeezed them.
Relief swept through the room, too fast and too bright. The woman began to cry. The physician called for water. Bramel let out a breath and tightened his grip on Solon’s arm.
“You did it,” he said.
Solon’s chest hurt when he tried to answer. He nodded instead.
The woman turned from her son. “You saved him.”
Her gratitude reached him through the pain. For a moment, he let himself look at Odran’s hand holding hers. The prince was breathing. The room had not lost him.
Then a servant rushed in with a basin, and the physician looked at Solon’s bloody sleeve.
“Can you stand? There are others waiting in the lower ward.”
Neris moved before Solon could answer. She seized the basin from the servant and set it down hard enough to slosh water over the rim.
“He can’t.”
The room turned toward her. Solon felt Bramel’s hand still supporting him. He tried to pull free, but his left arm answered with a pulse of pain that stole the movement.
“He needs a physician,” Neris said. Her voice shook on the first word. The next came out firm. “You saw him fall.”
The physician looked to Solon, as if his body were an inconvenience he could settle by asking permission. “The prince is stable. A short rest—”
“He needs a physician,” Neris repeated.
Bramel’s face had changed. He wasn’t looking at Solon’s sleeve. He was looking at Neris, then at the courtier and physician who had already turned their attention back to Odran. “We’ll get him looked at,” he said. “Let’s get him somewhere quiet.”
Solon wanted to tell Neris not to make trouble. The words sat behind his teeth. She was the only person in the room who seemed to understand that he had fallen for a reason. If he silenced her now, she would leave the truth with him and let the others keep taking.
He leaned on Bramel. “Help me sit.”
They got him to a chair beside the door. Neris stayed standing between him and the bed, small and stubborn in a room built to make everyone defer. The physician had gone back to checking Odran. The woman stroked her son’s hair and whispered his name. Bramel asked a servant for a healer’s kit.
Solon pressed the sleeve against his mouth. The blood had made the cloth tacky. His ribs hurt with every breath, and the arm he had hidden all day throbbed as if the prince’s whole illness had found room inside it.
Neris crouched in front of him. Her eyes dropped to his hand, which had begun to tremble.
“You did this after you healed me,” she said.
Solon held still.
Her gaze flicked to the bed. “He was choking. You touched him. Now you’re bleeding.” She looked back at him, and the fear in her face sharpened into anger. “Does it happen every time?”
He could have lied. The answer might have spared her the burden of knowing. But the blood on his sleeve had already answered more than he could take back.
“Not every time,” he said.
Neris stared at him. “That’s still a yes.”
He didn’t answer.
A courtier came to the doorway, smiling with the strained brightness of someone who had just escaped a disaster. “The Crown will be grateful. His Highness is out of danger.”
Neris stood. The courtier paused, surprised to find her between him and Solon.
“Look at him,” she said.
The courtier glanced down at Solon’s stained sleeve. His smile faltered, then returned as a smaller, more careful thing. “He’ll be tended to.”
“By whom?”
The man’s eyes moved to Bramel. Bramel had no answer ready.
Solon felt the room settling back around its prince: the opened curtains, the clean water, the voices lowering with relief. They had received what they asked for. The hurt on the chair beside the door had become a separate matter, one someone else could attend to later.
Neris turned toward the room. Her hands were curled tight at her sides.
“Wait,” Solon said.
She looked back. Her face was wet-eyed and furious, but she didn’t move.
He wanted her to stay safe. He wanted her to stop them from using him again. Neither want gave him an easy word to say.
The courtier stepped toward the door. Neris faced him once more.