Sorrows of Adoration Page 7

  I tried to look at my wound, but the act of turning my head in that direction moved a muscle in the shoulder, and pain flared through it as a result. I made a soft noise at the discomfort.

  The figure turned and faced the bed, then quickly approached. As he sat in the chair beside the bed, he moved out of the window’s glare, and I saw that it was Kurit, there when I awoke, just as he had promised.

  He took my hand and said, “Careful, Aenna, you’re not well just yet.”

  I smiled at him weakly.

  “Tash removed the bolt, and he stopped the bleeding, but you lost a great deal of blood before that, and you’re very weak. You must rest.”

  I tried to talk, to ask him if my arm would be useable, if there had been any poison, or even just to tell him that I was quite hungry, but he stopped me.

  “Hush, Aenna, don’t try to talk. Save your strength. You’re going to be just fine, Tash said so himself. He said that once the bolt was out, he was able to stitch you up well without having to cauterize much of the muscle, which means you should regain full use of your arm. There’s nothing to worry about. You’re safe here, and I’m going to stay with you, right here by your side, until you’re well.”

  He rose from the chair and leaned over the bed to kiss my forehead. Gently, he set my hand down on the bed, went to the door on the other side of the room, and opened it. He stepped half out, said something I could not hear, and then re-entered and closed the door.

  “I know you’re very tired, but just try to stay awake for a little while. A servant will bring some soup in a few minutes. You need to eat something, even if it’s just a little bit, to keep your strength up. Especially since we had so little food on the way home.”

  I could hear that he was doing something on the left side of the bed, but it hurt too much to look that way, so I just closed my eyes and relaxed. Aside from hunger, thirst, and a great fatigue, I did not feel all that poorly. My shoulder was a persistent, dull ache, and I was aware of a pungent and familiar odour from the wound’s dressing. I had learned to make that numbing salve as a child from a particular variety of tree root. Unfortunately, it really only worked on the upper tissue layers, so the deeper part of my injury hurt a great deal every time I breathed deeply.

  Kurit returned to the side of the bed with a cup in his hands and a damp cloth. “Here,” he said, putting the cup to my lips. “It’s cold water. You must be parched.” He tipped the glass so I could drink but poured a little too fast, and some of the water dribbled down my cheek.

  “Ah, I knew I would be dreadful at this,” he said, removing the cup and patting my cheek with the cloth. It was warm and felt very soothing. “Sorry,” he said, smiling at me. “Shall I try again, or do you fear I’ll drown you?”

  I smiled at him in return and nodded.

  He laughed. “I’m a mad fool. I expect you to nod an answer, yet I ask you a question that cannot be answered by yes or no. Hopefully you were nodding that you want more water, and don’t truly think I’d drown you. Do you want some more?”

  I prevented myself from laughing, lest it cause me further pain, but smiled broadly and gave another little nod. He put the cup to my lips again and poured again but more slowly. When I had taken several sips, he put the cup aside and patted my lips with the cloth again. Then he sat holding my hand, looking at me with great tenderness.

  “I’m sorry you didn’t have the chance to have a nice hot bath when we returned, but that will come in a few days. After you fell asleep, Tash shooed me away while he tended you, and when he was done his nurse cut away your old clothes and washed you, so you shouldn’t be too uncomfortable. I hope you don’t mind that we discarded your old clothes, including those ridiculous boots I made you.” He chuckled, and I smiled at him.

  “She put a simple gown over you for now, but don’t worry, I promise you’ll have an entire wardrobe of beautiful dresses when you’re well. And your own room, upstairs. Much nicer than this small guest room. This was just a fast place to bring you. I hope you’re not offended. But then if I let you speak you’d probably tell me it’s beautiful because it’s not your old cot in the inn’s kitchen, right?”

  I nodded.

  “I’ve only known you a few days, and yet I can predict your thoughts, Aenna.” He laughed again and lifted my hand to his lips, where he kissed it delicately.

  He sat quietly like that until a servant brought the soup, which he insisted on feeding me himself. Ridiculous, I thought, that a Prince should be hand-feeding a peasant. And yet the way he looked at me and touched me and cared for me with such sweet tenderness made me almost forget how far apart in station we were.

  Kurit wanted to stay in the room with me all night, but Tash convinced him to get sleep of his own. As a result, he was not in the room when I awoke the next morning, but I didn’t mind—it was the first time I had been on my own since reaching that outpost. How long ago that seemed, and yet it had only been a few days.

  I kept drifting in and out of sleep, reasonably comfortable despite my injury. I thought of many things, but my thoughts always returned to my feelings for Kurit. He was not what I thought a Prince would be. Oh, he was eloquent, refined, intelligent, and most handsome, but he seemed to lack a certain seriousness. He had dignity, and even when he winked and made silly jests he was still articulate and elegant, but there was a playfulness about him, a need to be joyous that was not what I would have expected in the nobility. Perhaps that was why I did not suspect him earlier of being the Prince. Perhaps that was what allowed me to fall in love with him despite my low station.

  I found it increasingly difficult to doubt his affection for me. Not because of the way he tended to me, but in fact because of how distressed he became when he was not allowed to continue it throughout the night. Even then, I truly believed that his reluctance to leave me was not out of fear for my health—for I seemed to be recovering well, given the nature of the injury—but instead of a desire to be with me. In the last moments that Tash permitted him to stay, he clung to my hand, as though he were being sent away for much longer than one night.

  So, with this newfound sense of faith in his fondness for me, I was able to think more positively about the situation and even allow a glimmer of hope to creep into my heart.

  The nurse brought me lunch, and still I had not seen Kurit. I wondered if he was all right and asked the nurse if she had seen him. She said she had not, but she would inquire on my behalf.

  After I finished eating—which I had discovered was a great joy here, the food being magnificent!—Tash came to check my wound and informed me that Kurit had not slept in his own bed since our arrival. Thus, he was understandably exhausted and had been left to continue sleeping all morning long. Then Tash ordered me not to fret about him. Tash seemed to be rather fond of giving orders.

  I was tired, comfortable, and had a full belly, so I fell asleep easily after Tash left.

  When next I stirred I did so because I heard the sound of hushed voices in the room. I opened my eyes to see that in the far corner stood Kurit and someone who appeared to be Jarik. I first identified him in my mind as “the Prince” but quickly corrected myself.

  “Kasha will not approve,” Jarik muttered.

  “I don’t care,” Kurit whispered with a hard edge to his voice. “She was always mad to think I’d consider Sashken.”

  “If this is what you truly want, then you know I shall support you, but—”

  “But nothing,” Kurit whispered. “I’ll handle my mother.”

  Jarik looked about to reply but noticed that I was awake. “I apologize if we disturbed your slumber, good lady,” he said, nodding to me politely.

  Kurit turned to face me and smiled upon seeing that I was indeed awake. “Good afternoon, fair Aenna.” He went immediately to the chair by the bed and took my hand, just as naturally as he had the day before. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here this morning for you.”

  “You needed sleep yourself I hear,” I said. “Don’t make yourself il
l worrying for me.”

  “I seem to recall you worrying for everyone but yourself in the same fashion when last we met, Lady Aenna,” Jarik said. His manner was warm and friendly, yet his face yielded no matching expression.

  Kurit laughed. “Give her a moment, and she’ll tell you she’s not a lady, right Aenna?”

  I smiled. I had not actually been about to say it, but indeed, I had thought those very words.

  Jarik smiled, but somehow it seemed pained. I surmised that perhaps he was tired if he had only just returned to the palace. “From what I have heard told, you possess the nobility of a lady,” he said.

  “Indeed she does,” said Kurit, a beaming smile on his face. “She is magnificent.”

  I felt my face turn so red it felt hot enough to boil water. I wanted to pull the blankets over myself and hide!

  “Kurit, you’re an uncouth rogue, making her blush like that. Don’t fret, Aenna—we’ll teach this scoundrel some manners yet.” Jarik gave Kurit a light smack to the back of his head, and it so shocked Kurit that I could not help but laugh. It seemed that these cousins were more like brothers.

  Kurit pretended to glare at Jarik, who in turn pretended to ignore Kurit and instead bowed to me deeply. “I’ll take my leave now, Lady Aenna, but should this rapscallion offend your good nature again, simply summon me, and I shall take him outside for a sound thrashing.”

  I smiled at Kurit, who was feigning putting a hand to a sword, though there was not even one there to draw in jest. Jarik continued to pretend to ignore him and kept bowing to me on his way out of the room.

  When he was gone, Kurit looked back to me, a happy smile on his face. “I’m sorry if I actually embarrassed you,” he said. “But I meant what I said, and I would proudly proclaim it to the world.” He reached forward and gently caressed my cheek. “With all that you’ve done for me, with all that you’ve demonstrated of yourself in such a short time, how I could not love you?”

  My heart thundered in my chest. That was the first time he had used that word.

  “And I do love you, Aenna. I wanted to wait to tell you, I wanted to take you out to the gardens and kneel before you to tell you, but I can’t wait for that. I cannot wait for you to be strong enough, let alone wait for spring. My plans and intentions flew away when I held you in that cart. Do you remember that? I shall never forget, holding you like that, trying to stop your bleeding, your blood on my hands when it should have been my blood that was spilled. I was so terrified you would die in my arms, you can’t know how that shook me to my very soul.”

  He closed his eyes and bowed his head as if reliving the moment, squeezing my hand between his, pressing the back of my fingers to his forehead as though in prayer.

  “Did you know that I wept for you? Thoughts of strength and honour were far from my mind. I didn’t care who saw me,” he said, lifting his head to look at me again. “I didn’t care what anyone thought. I cared for nothing in that moment but you. Nothing else mattered. That changed me, Aenna. I’ve many times been accused of not taking things seriously, that I jest too easily. And it’s true. You know yourself, as we fled—supposedly for our very lives—I could not help but pretend it was all a game.

  “But, Aenna, the game ended as you were bleeding in my arms. That was the first time I felt true fear, true loss. I’ve been sad in my life, as anyone has, but never have I come so close to such misery as I did imagining that I would not ever kiss you again.” He paused to slowly kiss my hand. “Does that sound foolish? I feel like I sound foolish.”

  I shook my head. “No,” I said. “I wish I hadn’t put you through that.”

  “Oh, no, that’s not what I meant at all,” he said, rising from the chair to move to sit beside me on the bed. He continued to hold my right hand in his left and moved his right to gently stroke my hair. “You have to stop feeling responsible for everything that goes wrong, or you’ll go mad. I was afraid for you because I love you. I knew it then. I know that love is supposed to grow over time and that it’s foolish to let oneself fall too deeply too fast, but none of that mattered to me at that moment because I thought that I was losing you and could only think of how horrible that would be.

  “And as I watched you sleep after you’d been tended to, I knew you would live. I believed that, and I was relieved, and I thought that intense feeling of adoration would fade somewhat once you were out of danger. I suspected it had been caused by the threat of loss.

  “But, Aenna, it hasn’t gone away. Not even now. I love you. I know it’s too soon. I know it’s been only days since we met, and even though those days were as months insofar as the amount of time we spent talking and being together, still, I know I should not realistically feel this way for you. But I do. I do. I can’t deny it—I won’t deny it! Not unless you tell me it upsets you. I pray that it doesn’t, but if it does I shall do whatever it is you want of me—”

  I moved my hand to his mouth and placed a finger on his lips to stop his nervous babbling. I wanted to say something reassuring. I wanted to express to him that I understood how he felt, that I too felt emotions than were stronger than they ought to have been. I wanted to tell him that time didn’t matter, that what felt right must be right and I too was overrun by intense feelings. My mind tossed about these notions, but none came forward as clear words in proper sentences. So instead I simply said, “I love you.”

  A look of incredulity passed over his face. “Say it again, so I know I didn’t imagine it.”

  I touched his cheek. It was smooth—he had shaved the few days’ worth of beard that had grown on our journey. Any hope of continuing to withhold my heart was shattered as I said again, “I love you.”

  He smiled at me, then leaned over to kiss me. I know how silly and girlish it all sounds, but my heart raced, my mind whirled, my soul was filled with every joyful proclamation of love I had ever heard a bard sing.

  As he sat back upwards, he smiled again, the roguish charm making itself known once more. “I am a beast,” he whispered. “Jarik should rightly give me a sound thrashing for kissing you in a bed, when I have not yet married you.”

  As I tried to prevent myself from pondering that little “yet,” he swept away any doubt of what he meant by moving from the bed to his knees on the floor. I could see only his head and shoulders as he knelt, and it seemed absurd, but he took my hand between both of his own again and then said, “Aenna of Alesha, you have twice saved my life. My life is yours. Would you do me the honour of marrying me, that I might spend the rest of my days at your side? I owe you everything that comes, and wish dearly to share it all with you.”

  My throat locked, and I wept. My shoulder hurt, but I didn’t care. If someone had told me two weeks before that soon I would be in a palace with a Prince asking me to be his bride, I would have called them insane. Yet there I was. I wondered if it was a dream, thinking perhaps I had bumped my head at the inn and would wake there soon, all of this passing as fantasy.

  Kurit misinterpreted my tears and fretfully said, “I’m sorry—it’s too soon! Forgive me if I’ve been too bold.” He brushed the tears from my cheek, looking so worried.

  “I will marry you,” I heard myself say, though I know not how my chaotic mind conceived the sentence.

  His concern quickly turned to elation, and for once even he was at a loss for words. He came back up to the bed and kissed me again, no longer apologizing for its inappropriateness. He kissed my lips, my cheeks, my forehead, and then my lips again.

  “I wish I could embrace you, pick you up, and whirl you about in delight, but I wouldn’t dare cause you injury,” he gushed happily.

  I smiled at him. “Is that what you were discussing with Jarik when I woke?” I asked.

  “Hmm? Oh, yes. I told him I was going to ask you to be my wife. Although to be quite honest, I didn’t know I was going to do it now. It just happened. And you’ve made me the happiest man alive, dear Aenna.”

  A small sense of disquiet seized me and I said, “He didn’t seem t
o think your mother would approve.”

  “I don’t care what she says,” he said quickly, dismissively. “I love you.”

  I looked at him seriously, the full impact of what had just occurred taking hold of my consciousness. “If she doesn’t approve, then it does matter. It matters a great deal.”

  “Why? Aenna, what matters is how we feel, not anyone else.”

  “No, Kurit. She’s not just your mother. She’s the Queen of Keshaerlan. You are one day going to be King, and your choice in a wife must be made not only from the heart but with a sound mind.”

  “Aenna, I told you before not to worry about that. I may have fallen for you rather quickly, and certain events may have made me act faster than I otherwise would have, but I should like to think I’m not so mindless as to choose a wife that is unworthy of the position. Don’t worry about my mother. She will get to know you as I have, and she’ll surely recognize that you are special, that you are more than just a pretty peasant girl tugging at my heartstrings, and she’ll see your potential. How could she not?”

  I decided that he had been right about so many things in which I had doubted him, that this time I would believe him and not worry. I basked in the delight of knowing he loved me and that he intended to marry me. I wondered if it was wise to leap into something so fast, but I was so happy I couldn’t make myself care. The worries and dangers that had set me on the path to this place were now behind me, and that was where I wanted them to stay.

  * * *

  The next day Kurit told me he had informed his parents of our engagement. He refused to tell me how his mother took the news, which made me suspect she did not approve, and it irritated me that he was too wrapped up in the giddiness of the moment to take her disapproval seriously. He said his father asked many questions but did not seem to object.

  “He wants to meet you today,” Kurit said.