"Thank you, Fredrick," the doctor replied before turning to the nurse and adding, "Apply more balm and get her dressed. Their Majesties have been waiting long enough. If her magic was stronger maybe we wouldn't have been in this situation, but for now, I will go and stall the Queens while you bring her along."
The way he spoke about me as though I wasn't there made me lift a brow. Now that I was past whatever panic attack I’d staved off, I was starting to get more and more irritated with him. What kind of doctor had his bedside manner?—even a Fae one. Maybe he and Sorrell were related. Gods knew they both acted like they couldn’t care less what anyone else did so long as they followed their every command.
The doctor removed his blood stained cloak and picked up a clean one, donning it as he strode from the room. As soon as he was gone, I turned my head toward the nurse. “Could you help me sit up?"
She didn’t blink or show any emotion as she moved to assist me. Her arms came around my back and together, we managed to get me halfway upright. Never again, I swore to myself, as I swallowed down bile. Nothing I had ever done in my life had hurt quite this bad. Not even being pushed off the damn castle. I continued breathing as though I were about to shove a squalling infant out of the place between my thighs—recalling how accidentally witnessing that birth at the Abbey had nearly made me pass out. Even without the whole giving birth thing, I was feeling the same. My head spun as I struggled to keep from vomiting all over the mute nurse as she helped me redress the wounds on my stomach and shoulder. I hadn't even had a chance to see them since I had been too afraid to move while I was on the table, but I could feel the new skin that was growing and the way it tugged against the old.
Once I was all bandaged up, she turned and reached for a swath of fabric laying at the end of the bed. The fabric turned out to be a flimsy dress made of the prettiest cerulean blue color I’d ever seen. It started at the top over the shoulders but quickly became darker as it trailed down to the end. I struggled to put it on, lifting my arms and tugging the opening for my head over and around my neck. The nurse stood by and watched with a passive expression and I realized she wouldn’t help unless I asked for it. I groaned and cursed silently as I shimmied the dress the rest of the way down on my own. Finally, when it was situated right and I was panting up a storm, but feeling accomplished, I sent her a smug look of satisfaction.
Instead of responding to my expression, however, she lifted what looked like a leather layer meant to go on the outside of the dress. I whimpered as she leaned forward and wrapped the tight piece around my chest, clicking several buckles into place as it tightened against my frame. Why? I thought. Why would it make any sense to shove the girl who’s in pain into a torture contraption? I narrowed my eyes on the nurse. Was she actually trying to kill me? Sorrell and the others had seemed to be pretty concerned with walking into the Court of Frost. They’d warned me of the dangers. Was this one of them? Assassination by corset?
Swirls of metal cupped my breasts before meeting in the middle and expanding over my waist in thick filigree. I was thankful for the leather that sat under the metal because it provided a shield against the cold material and also the possibility of being speared on something pointy. I kept a carefully suspicious eye on the mute nurse. She reached forward and attached a thick, wide black pendant that hooked into the collar of the top layer and looked like a necklace.
It was by far the fanciest thing I'd worn in a while—or ever if you excluded the dresses that Roan and Orion seemed to be constantly putting me in. They often acted like I was their doll. Their mothers must have not let them play as children. There could be no other explanation for why they relished dressing me up in ridiculous clothes that seemed less fabric and more sheer material. I wished I had a mirror to see myself, but there wasn't a single one around that I could see, and since the nurse was silently waiting for me at the door like a sheepdog, I didn't want to waste time looking. Dutifully, I followed her out and through the twists and turns of the pale stone hallways that seeped a chill that only seemed to grow more and more prevalent the further we went. It wasn’t until we arrived outside two large double doors, one that was thankfully open, that I realized just how cold this place was. Nurse No Words, however, didn’t even shiver as she directed me forward.
I frowned when I took in the crowd milling about what looked like a larger and icier replica of the Court of Crimson’s throne room. I scanned the arched ceiling, looking for Pixies. I didn’t see any, but that didn’t mean there were none. Pixies, I’d come to learn, were quite good at hiding. When I pulled my gaze back, I noticed the nurse had disappeared into the crowd and left me out in the open with dozens of eyes on me and a sinking feeling that I had stepped between the jaws of a very sharp-toothed and dangerous creature.
I stood there, frozen for a moment, before I heard Orion's voice and relief slipped through me at the familiar timbre. I took several steps toward the sound only to slow to a stop once more. I hadn’t noticed it at first, but Orion’s voice sounded colder, meaner. I continued to follow it, but more cautiously. When I finally spotted him, I noticed he was talking to an older man with a graying beard. To be fair, the man that sounded like Orion was turned away from me, so theoretically it could have been anyone—but I'd know that ass anywhere. I stayed further away, waiting until I could catch Orion's attention when he turned around, but the longer I watched, the more uncomfortable I saw he was.
An increasing need to go to him rose within me. I didn’t know what was being said—I could hear his voice, but not make out the words. Whatever was happening, though, was obviously making him uncomfortable if the set of his shoulders and the stiffness in his movements were anything to go by. The more I watched, the more I wanted to go to him. I was happy to see him still alive, but was I allowed to approach him here? I hesitated, unsure of my welcome. My gaze roamed over his wide frame, seeking a sign of something that would push me over the edge. He was a grown Fae, surely he could extract himself from a conversation he didn't want to have.
The longer I watched the more details I took in; the clenched fist at his side that he kept opening and closing as though he was reminding himself not to display his emotions. I also noticed that his clothing was not the normal black or gray he usually wore, but a deep purple, one that reminded me of his bedchamber and the garden he had first tasted me in. My body might have been injured, but it knew what it wanted, and in that moment, it was Orion.
He wasn't the only one, though. As Roan's voice reached my ears as well, I couldn't help but turn where I stood, my eyes searching for his fiery hair. When I found it and his eyes locked with mine, I almost fell to my knees with relief. It was so overwhelming that I had to reach out a hand and rest against the wall to steady myself.
I wasn't sure how I knew, since his expression remained blank, but the panic that rolled off him as he watched me lean against the wall was almost palpable. The men he was talking to didn't seem to notice in the slightest. It took only a few moments for him to excuse himself from his companions, but when he did, I watched him walk toward me, my relief turning to something else entirely as I stared at him. In the moments just before I’d passed out—when that bright, unrelenting light had overwhelmed me—I’d wondered if I might ever see him again. I had only been given a split second to mourn the loss of both him and Orion and yes, even the turdwad, Sorrell. For all his prickliness, I could tell he cared about Orion and Roan, and even if his honesty often had me wanting to punch his torturously handsome face, I liked his candor.