The aureate affairs, p.37
The Aureate Affairs, page 37
“I shall leave you to rest,” he said, pausing to look at me. “Please take care, Mina. I will visit in the morning.”
My mouth was still in a tight line, but I dipped my knees, feeling my skull ache as I tried to bend my head to him.
“Do enjoy the ball for me,” I answered, my eyes less than enthused as I met his stare again. “I had such a lovely time with you before this incident befell me.”
Theo looked at me pointedly, easily catching my sarcasm. “Worry not, Mina,” he replied, his tone almost huffy. “I will be ending the party early. There is no ball without the belle of it not in attendance after all.”
Now it was my turn to frown at his jab. Theo inclined his head to me and then strode out of the room. I released the breath I was holding and touched my middle, stunned by what I had done.
What if Theo had given in to his desire? Would Giselle have walked into the prince having his way with me? I shuddered, then knelt, catching myself with my left hand before sliding onto my hip on the floor beside my bed, laying out my legs. With the sequins, beading, and scalloped hem, I looked like a mermaid from children’s storybooks.
I closed my eyes, struggling to get a firm grip on my mind. All my thoughts, my emotions, felt tangled. One minute I was angry, the next concussed, then sultry? Who was I? This all felt just…wrong.
Another ball ruined, yet still a victory for me.
But all I felt was shame.
Shame for acting like those vicious girls, and shame for Theo for being such a goddamn pitiful excuse of a man–and the next king, no less! I knew I could never marry someone who held no regard for me and in such a cruel manner at that. If he wanted me for a wife yet could not keep me safe, why would I ever stay at Chaulôn?
I covered my mouth, stifling a sob at what that would mean. There was only one true person that meant anything to me, who I had anchored to, and the thought of marrying some Duke or Viscount instead and not being able to see Sawyer again hit me far harder than I could have ever imagined.
I bowed my head, even when it sent a sharp pain through the back of my skull, and clamped my eyes shut. To marry someone other than Theo would mean forgoing the only semblance of happiness Chaulôn brought me...and that was Sawyer. I breathed in sharply, chest hitching on a sob, and curled myself inward.
“Miss!”
I didn’t even care that Giselle was witness to my breakdown.
I flinched at the pain of my tender ribs, the throb of my right arm as I pressed my hand harder to my mouth. All I wanted was the comfort and wisdom of the captain whom I had formed a very inappropriate attachment to. But crying for him after the prince just left...I could not trust G to keep from whispering of such debauchery to the other servants.
It wasn’t even about protecting myself, but the reputation of Sawyer’s.
He meant a great deal to me, and as much as I wanted to request Giselle to find him for me, I knew I could never be so forthright with our friendship. Because this went beyond that. I was weeping over the idea of losing him.
Fuck, what had I allowed myself to do? To form such a deep attachment to someone I knew from the very start I could never have?
“Oh, Miss, what can I do?” Giselle asked, bending in front of me.
I tried to catch my breath, to pull myself together. “’Tis nothing. I”
I had to downplay what she had just walked in on. To pacify what she could possibly have believed occurred.
“I was sure Theo would have proposed tonight, had—” I sniffled, swiping under my eyes of my tears. “Had those brats not attacked me.”
The tears were real but for entirely different reasons. I used them to my advantage, except I loathed having to fib to my sweet Giselle.
“He was inconsolable about what had been done to me. The mood was...was ruined, G.” I sniffed.
She looked shocked and awed by my tale. “Do not worry, Miss Mina. His Highness is so fond of you. I’m sure once you are better, he shall!”
I wiped my lingering tears away. “I should hope all is not lost...he was so angry at them, G. I could not assure him it did not matter, only that I wished our time together had not ended…”
I felt horrible lying to Giselle, but the last thing I needed was the servants to turn on me, thinking Theo had done something being alone in my bedroom with me.
“All will be well, Miss Mina. I am sure of it. Let us prepare you for bed. You must be longing to rest after such an ordeal…”
I allowed Giselle to care for me, not that I needed it. I drank the tea of herbs only so I could sleep from the effects, not to ease my pain. Pain was so temporary when I knew I had to use it finally. I would not spend all week vulnerable and bedbound.
Once Giselle left me, and I was tucked in, all the curtains were drawn, and the fire was going upon my request–even in spring–I took a collected breath. The fire would mask the unusual light that would appear should anyone happen to look up at my windows.
I had to take every precaution.
There was no way I would wait to heal naturally. In all my years of beatings, dangerous labor, rows with the boys, and all manner of injuries I incurred, I had not once suffered for more than a few hours. When it was safe, as it was now, I drew on the very thing I feared most of being discovered about me.
I remember the first time I discovered I was not a prosaic.
It was not long after I was enslaved, less than a month since I befriended the lads and could sleep easier knowing they had my back. We were assigned a new excavation site to mine for marble slabs contracted for a new town somewhere in Vérmethia.
The wards had been particularly nasty that week, hungover daily in the roasting heat.
The location was half a mile away from the Magnen village where we ate and slept and the wards’ cottage was situated. It was so hot, and we were all fatigued early in the day. Adrian brought down his axe, and one of the many dangers of working in the quarry was the unknowns of the earth we disrupted.
I looked up just as the ground crumpled beneath him.
“No!” I shouted, lunging after him, but I wasn’t close enough.
Jude was, and he grabbed his friend’s arm, shouting as he landed on the ground, struggling to keep his grip. The trench that cracked and unfolded below Adrian split further. Rufus made to grab me, but I rushed forward, not thinking, only wanting to save them.
I latched onto Jude’s ankle as he spilled over the edge. I was a gangly little thing. I couldn’t ever hold the weight of two older boys.
“Mina, no!”
“Jude!”
“Ads!”
I heard the other’s voices shout woefully for us as we tumbled down into the mess of dust and rock. I must have blacked out because I came to and screamed, pain so severe shooting up my leg like I had never experienced.
“Mina!”
I heard Jude calling for me, his voice coughing through the cloud of white soot. I pushed myself up and cried out, looking down at my leg. All I saw was red coating the boulders and hunks of stone stretching around me. My hand trembled violently as I touched my calf and whimpered as wicked pain bloomed from it.
“Mina!”
Jude came stumbling through the rubble, coughing into his shirt sleeve. I saw more red pouring from his temple, dripping down the side of his face and onto his tunic.
“Jude, you’re hurt!” I cried, reaching for him and unable to move.
“Adrian, where are you?” Jude called, tripping over loose rock and falling next to me.
“Over here,” we heard Adrian’s soft, deep voice.
“You alright?” Jude asked our friend while taking my hand and squeezing it.
“Arm is broken, I reckon,” came Adrian’s dulcet voice as he appeared to my right, clutching his dexter arm.
Jude noticed my leg and swore. “We gotta get you out of here. Oi! You up there, lads?!”
Peering through the pall of dirt in the air, we could make out Rufus’ ginger hair in the sun.
“You three alive down there?” he shouted down.
“Min is in bad shape!” Jude yelled, “We gotta get her out of here, fast!”
He looked at me, such a pretty boy, even with the scar. His selflessness and kindness always made me feel better, and his ability to help me not so scared only added to his wonderful nature.
“You just hang in there, ya hear, Min?” he said softly, tucking my hair behind my ear. He smiled at me, completely ignoring the blood pouring down from his scalp.
“This is only the beginning of life here.”
I remember how I couldn’t bear seeing him hurt, how there was no thought for his own safety and life, only for mine.
I wanted to be like that, be as brave and altruistic as Jude.
I kept thinking over and over to myself, ‘He doesn’t deserve to be hurt. I wish he weren’t bleeding. I wish I knew how to heal him.’ That was the first time I felt that warm glow flow through me.
I no longer felt my injuries. I became bathed in warmth from deep within me. I remember seeing the gold reflection in Jude’s eyes and how they widened and moved from my gaze to watch me as a whole.
“Min…” he gasped.
I reached out with my hand, my skin as golden and shining as the precious metal in the sunlight, and touched Jude’s face. His expression was gobsmacked, his mouth falling open as I took my hand back, and he went up to feel where he had been clobbered by the falling rock.
“Min, you’re a–” he started, then looked down at my legs.
The golden glow was visible through my trousers, and the giant hole along my calf where I had been bleeding now showed nothing but crimson-stained skin. I didn’t know what was happening, merely that I felt all the pain and aches vanish in an instant.
“Adrian,” I called breathlessly, holding onto this feeling and glowing power.
I waved him over, and his expression was the mirror image of Jude’s. But his feet carried him closer, and he knelt on my other side, awed and revered. I touched his arm he cradled, and he flinched, but that quickly gave way to a sigh.
He released his arm and moved it around, the bone perfectly intact.
“Minnie,” Adrian breathed, a slow, handsome smile growing on his face. He hardly ever showed emotion. He pulled me into a hug as the glow disappeared from me.
He kissed my soot-covered hair, “You healed us! Bless you, lovey, bless you to the Maker!”
Rufus and the others came rushing up from behind Jude, having climbed down safely from a less steep trench.
“What’s going on here? What was that weird gold light we was seeing through the dust?” Rufus demanded, climbing over boulders to reach us.
Jude lifted me up, carrying me on his hip instead of setting me down. He kissed my head, his face still flabbergasted.
“Lads, keep ya voices down.”
They all converged in a circle, Jude and I in the middle.
“What?” I asked nervously, all their attention on me tinting my cheeks pink.
“Min, have you ever heard of the Nadir?” Jude asked quietly.
The word stirred something in the back of my mind. But I shook my head because it was far too elusive to try and understand amid the adrenaline.
“Lads,” Adrian whispered. “Min just healed all our injuries…”
A hush fell over the group.
“I should not understand,” I murmured, fear running through me.
Jude squeezed me. “It means you’ve got magic, Min—Nadir magic. And you’ve got to be proper careful now. They enslaved all of them who had magic hundreds of years ago during the Nadir Wars. The older criminals here talk about them sometimes at night to pass the time. They’re still imprisoned and used as weapons to keep the country safe. Got no freedom; far worse being penned up like an armory, just waiting to be of service than what we do. If the wards find out you’re a Nadir…even we won’t be able to stop them from sending you to the camps Vérmethia has for your kind.”
My kind.
I would never forget the term.
And how it still sent a shiver of panic through my heart.
“Magic?” I whispered, looking at all of them. “I’ve got magic?”
Adrian nodded, smiling gently. “That gold glow was from you, Minnie. Me arm was broken, your leg was hemorrhaging, and Jude’s skull took a proper knock again, but we’re all fine now, ain’t we?”
I used my tunic sleeve to wipe away the thick coating of blood on Jude’s forehead. Where I had seen the blood pouring from was now unblemished. I felt my eyes go wide.
“I saved you,” I stated, stunned.
Jude touched his forehead to mine, grinning. “You saved us, Min. Couldn’t be prouder of ya.”
I hugged him, so relieved he wasn’t hurt anymore.
“You never knew you was a Nadir?” Rufus asked, scratching his ginger curls.
I let go of Jude and bit my lip.
“Well, I had all sorts of bruises and things at the orphanage, and my feet were horrible after prima…I usually woke up the next morning when the pain was really bad, and I prayed for it to go away…and the marks and stuff would be gone. I just thought I had a guardian angel or something…” I explained and realized how ridiculous that sounded.
But to an eight-year-old, when it first started? It made sense at the time.
“We gotta be careful no one notices,” Tillian announced gravely. “You think the quarries are rough? The tales of the Nadir camps are god fucking awful.”
The leader of our pack locked eyes with me and nodded. “Your secret is safe with us, Min, but you can’t ever trust anyone else. People will do anything for coin, and the reward for turning in a Nadir has parents giving up their kids, you hear me?”
I nodded, my heart hurting that the world was so cruel.
“I never want to lose you all,” I said, glancing at everyone. “I will do whatever I must to keep it secret then.”
And I had for the next eight years. The reason for my current dread that I was in the heart of the kingdom who enslaved Nadir to protect the country, who created the campaign that led to the Wars. It allowed them to forge the most powerful and undefeated army on the Continent.
I could endure being a slave; I could not endure becoming a weapon.
I was a Nadir, a rare human gifted with magic.
They were once supposedly an entire nation, according to the lore I heard in Magnen. It was nearly extinct thanks to power-hungry rulers and a war fought with humans to harness their magic for their own domination. Vérmethia thrived so abundantly because of its concentration of Nadir.
So, for the first time in months, before I ever knew of my fate that would set me in the royal family’s home, I called that dormant magic dwelling inside me.
I inhaled deeply, feeling that magic awakened and warming me.
Heal me, mend my injuries, I called, and as I breathed out, the golden light I carried inside glowed through my skin.
Oh, how I had missed this feeling. It was like a bright dawn. My body shone as the sun did at sunrise over the trees. I felt the caress of magic against my skull, ribs, arm, and foot.
In just seconds, I was good as new.
I sighed at the end of the pain and watched as the glow diminished until it was tucked away deep inside me, where I kept it hidden from everyone. Only those boys that I trusted knew of it, of what I could do. I had only ever used it to keep us alive at Magnen, healing us after the beatings, mining accidents, and brawls.
I turned onto my side and clutched the blankets to my chest, still petrified of anyone discovering my powers. If Theo found out what I was…I had finally begun to be open to liking him and growing our bond. But this would always surely keep me from forming any sort of attachment, of trust with him.
That only begged the same dilemma of my friendship with Sawyer.
He surely had to be in charge of the Nadir camps…or read the reports about them on his paper-covered desk.
My conundrum remained the same, as it always had since I learned how dangerous it was to be a Nadir in Vérmethia. Did I dare stay under the radar, right under his nose, or give up Sawyer for the safety of being a lord’s wife away from Chaulôn?
I was in the belly of the beast, with no easy way out, no escape from heartbreak, no matter which path I chose.
Chapter 17
The Indignity
I
stayed in bed to keep up pretenses, enjoying breakfast among all the pillows and the morning light coming in through the open windows. I had barely tucked into my porridge when Giselle went to answer the door, both of us curious who would call so early. If it indeed was Theo, he had more courage than I gave him credit for.
But there was no regal, sullen prince that entered my bedroom. Instead, it was a letter in Giselle’s hand for me, and I opened it, brows pinched in confusion. My heart quickly plummeted when I saw Sawyer’s handwriting and the grave news it bore.
Dear Mina,
Forgive the sudden notice, but I am being called away on an urgent matter to one of the militia camps. I leave post haste and will be unable to attend breakfast with you. I look forward to regaling the events of last night’s ball when I should return. Alas, I cannot provide a specific time of when I should make my way back to Chaulôn.
I am sorry for my departure when I gave my word to be available to you.
Please be prepared to update me on all that I have missed while I am away.
Humbly your companion,
Sawyer
I could have wept. I folded up the letter, angry, frustrated, but most of all dreadfully saddened. I would have to fake a week of healing without any good company. My mood was quite sour, but I played it off to my injuries to keep suspicions off from G.
My heart ached, and there was no denying how much Sawyer meant to me.
I only allowed myself to delve into those feelings minutely, feeding the devastation that would ultimately follow where my future led me come August. However, in moments like this, the floodgates opened, and I drowned in my own stupidity for fancying a man I could never have.
