The Queen and the Cure (The Bird and the Sword Chronicles #2)(14)

He awoke to sunlight and the scrape of a knife against his face.

“You are not my servant,” he murmured, opening his bleary eyes to the tickle of her unbound hair against his folded hands. She set her blade aside and scooted quickly away, pouring him a goblet of wine and helping him to sit. His body ached like he’d spent a week in battle or been dropped from the sky by a birdman. He downed the wine, and she promptly refilled it. It was mild and weak and far warmer than he liked, but it quenched his thirst. He fell back against the cushion, and she returned to his side, pulling his head into her lap.

“I will finish this. Then I will go. You’ve been asleep for two days,” she said demurely. “You’re turning into a bear.”

He snorted and her lips quirked, the corners lifting prettily before pursing in concentration once again. She used an oil that smelled of sage and made his skin tingle, and he closed his eyes and let her have her way. Her silence didn’t speak of secrets but of peace, and he let it wash over him. She was odd in her strange confidence, in her complete lack of pretense, and he felt an easing in his chest and a release in his head, like she’d loosened the past and tightened the present, making him more aware of the moment and less concerned with what had come before. He liked her.

“They will let you stay in Solemn. I will see to it. This home will be yours, and you will not be a slave. You will have nothing to fear,” he promised, needing to give her something.

“There is always something to fear,” she replied, her eyes on the blade she wielded. She said no more, and he was too drowsy to press the issue. He forced himself to remember the cool breezes of Jeru City, the shade of the trees, the sound of his brother’s voice, the clash of blades in the yard, the smell of fresh hay in the stables. He made himself think of home, yet he felt no pull toward it. Instead, it was his head in the lap of a slave, the silk of her breath on his face, and the tenderness in her hands that soothed him.

“You don’t look like the people of Quondoon,” he said simply, resisting the lethargy that wanted to pull him under again.

“No. Mina said I am ugly. My hair is not black and straight, my skin is not brown. I’m freckled and pale. My hair is the color of fire and it curls and tangles no matter how much I try to keep it smooth,” she said ruefully. “But it is the only home I know.”

“You are not ugly.”

Her back stiffened in surprise, and the blade paused on his skin for a heartbeat. He cursed inwardly, but when he avoided her gaze and offered no further comment, she turned the conversation away from herself.

“Do all the people in Jeru City look like you?” she asked.

“No. But there are many more people in Jeru City than in Solemn. There are more people in Jeru City than in all of Quondoon.”

“You are the brother of the king?”

“Yes.”

“So are you . . . a prince?”

“My brother is a king, and I am a soldier. That is all.”

“You look like a king,” she protested softly.

He was a big man—bulky even—layered with muscle and sinew hardened down by years of combat and grueling physical labor. He’d grown up in the jousting yard, dragging a sword before he could wield one, shielding himself from blows before he learned to land them. He looked like a soldier.

But he also looked like his father. And his father had been a king.

Kjell’s hair was just as dark and his eyes were the same pale blue. Cold. Flat. Cruel. His father had never claimed him, but it had never mattered. When people saw Kjell they always knew.

“You were born in Quondoon? Where is your family?” he asked, pushing his own paternity out of his thoughts.

“I am of Kilmorda. But Mina says I was born a slave, and I will always be a slave.”

“Kilmorda was destroyed by Volgar.”

“I am told I was the daughter of a servant in Lord Kilmorda’s household.”

“Lord Kilmorda and his family are dead.” The whole valley was a wasteland of Volgar nests and human remains. The villages were desolate, homes and fields were empty, and the carcasses of cattle and sheep were strewn across the country.

“Yes. That is what I am told.”

“You don’t remember?”

“My first memories are of fleeing to Firi with other refugees. I knew no one. I had nothing to eat. No clothes. No family. In Firi, I was indentured and sold and brought to Quondoon.”

“Solemn is a long way from Kilmorda.”

“Yes,” she agreed quietly, “but I do not miss what I cannot remember.”

“Why don’t you remember?”

“I don’t know. Mina said it was because I am . . . simple.” Sasha’s voice changed, and he couldn’t resist looking at her. “But I can read. I can read and I can write. The slaves here in Solemn do not read or write. I learned how . . . somewhere.”

“But you’re a Seer . . . surely you must have visions of your family.”

“I don’t see what has already been. I can only see what is to come, and even then, it’s like the breeze. I don’t call the breeze, it finds me. The things I see are like that. I don’t call them to me. They come. Or they don’t.”

She’d had no visions of her family. He wondered why. He could choose whether or not to wield his gift. She didn’t seem quite so lucky, though he supposed her choice lay in whether she kept the visions to herself.