Page 77 of Dare

My mother and father had clasped hands, their signet rings pressing together. Their fingers trembled, yet I saw no other physical discomforts. It was a fine morning, the illness momentarily tamed.

“Three months earlier, chaos had infested the kingdom,” I said to the flames. “An unforeseen pandemic claimed many victims.”

Oddly, those in their prime were the most susceptible. Yet supplied with gifted healers, Winter had survived that epidemic, its outbreak eventually suppressed.

Though, some had languished in the aftermath. The disease had gnawed on cartilage and nerves, producing daily joint pains and shivers that racked the stoutest of frames.

The memory weighed down my tongue. “My parents had been two such victims.”

I’d abhorred nature for this betrayal, blasphemed the will of the Seasons until my grandaunts intervened.

“It isn’t for us to question the Seasons,” Grandaunt Silvia had said.

“Nature tests us,” Grandaunt Doria had added. “It has a plan.”

As with the born, for example. According to my kingdom, the omnipotent Seasons had chosen people to be fools, birthed into an unnatural state for a purpose. An error to be entrusted to the monarchy. To set the example of a plagued mind—an unbalanced mind—so that everyone may know the distinction.

Fools were meant to be used. Or if uncontrollable, they would be contained like another disease.

That was what everyone had told me. But although I did not cling to superstition, I did believe in the power of illness. Like floods and avalanches, sickness was the same thing. A defect of nature.

At that age, the born had frightened me. The ones I’d seen in the dungeons and labs acted primitive or pitiful.

I had leveled my chin. If nature tested, I would test back. If a bridge between the elements and medicine existed, I would build it. I would learn to rid the world of its maladies.

To be Mother and Father’s hero. To care for them and others. To undo foolishness. Or at least, learn to command it.

When I had unwrapped the vial, I’d promised Mother and Father, “I will use it to fix you.”

That night, I created a make-believe draught for them, hoping to aid their sleep. But I did not enjoy pretending. What Winter citizen would?

Among the kingdom’s healers and scientists, the Court Physician held the greatest office. I’d crept into the man’s chambers and spent hours mixing an authentic tincture. Then I sipped the contents and writhed from an anguished stomach.

Days. Weeks. They passed.

I studied among Winter’s elite. I read books to my parents.

Father and Mother could not succeed my queen grandaunts. My parents were too sick for a future reign, with no convalescence in sight. Thus, Silvia and Doria named me their heir. An unexpected birthright. A chance to have absolute power over treatments.

They set a circlet upon my head, the tapers spearing the air. News of this appointment spread through The Dark Seasons.

It was also a period of travel for my grandaunts. They left for Spring to attend the Peace Talks. Half a year after their return, the queens traveled to Summer, to meet with King Rhys and Queen Giselle. They took me along, insisting it would be a profitable experience.

I didn’t want to leave Mother and Father, but I admired my grandaunts. They ruled a whole kingdom together and planned to show me how.

In Summer, I gaped in shock, overwhelmed by the sweltering heat and bright colors.

So. Much. Sun.

The climate had fried my skin, turning me into a slab of bacon. I had thought my flesh would peel off.

Presently rubbing my palms together failed to alleviate the clamminess. I nailed my gaze to the fire, lest I should meet the woman’s gaze and falter. “It happened during a stroll along the coastline.”

Rhys and Giselle were attending to my grandaunts, their company trailed by knights from both Seasons. As the outing required privacy from the public, a group of noble children playing on the beach were forced to relocate to a different shore. One of them had been a boy with a smug countenance. The leader of the group, I had guessed as the children departed.

At one point, I strayed to the ocean. Warm, salty, restless. Thinking to experiment with the seawater, I waded knee-deep and uncapped the vial hanging around my neck. As I bent to obtain a sample, a dorsal fin broke from the surface. In my periphery, a dark shape flashed in the waves—a large fish with pewter and sterling stripes.

Shouts erupted, the commotion deafening. I straightened, fear trapping my scream in ice.