Dearest (7 page)

Judging by Friday’s expression, a similar event had not happened with the goose.

“Was that painful?”

He shook his head, afraid that if he opened his mouth, one emotion or another would betray him. He wasn’t lying; the spark had tingled, but it hadn’t hurt. No more than his current wound already did.

Her needle, on the other hand, lanced through his flesh like a firebrand. Sebastien, at the ready, shoved the corner of a blanket into Tristan’s mouth to muffle his screams. He bit down hard. His muscles spasmed. His eyes welled up against his will. He could tell Friday’s jaw was clenched, but she remained steady. He did his best to remain steady for her.

Stitch by stitch, she continued sewing him up with fire. Tears began to course down her cheeks too. Did she feel sorry for him? Was she losing her determination? Her tears made him angry, which was good, because the anger kept him conscious. She knew virtually nothing about him, his past, or his family. There was no way she could know what an excruciating punishment this was. What right had she to cry?

Suddenly there was a new pain: the fingers of Tristan’s right hand were being crushed by his sister. Elisa stared at the princess over Tristan’s body with a look that could cut glass.

“But I don’t know what else to do,” Friday whispered, as if in answer to an unspoken question. “I must go slowly to make sure every stitch is right.” She paused for a beat, and her beautiful features screwed up in an expression of . . . pain? Helplessness? Fear?

She shrugged, and then nodded. “Okay,” she said. “It’s just . . . I’ve never . . . I don’t know . . .” Her words trailed off into nothing.

Had Tristan succumbed to delirium? With whom was she speaking?

Friday pulled her needle through his flesh one last time before cutting it loose from the thread with a small knife and replacing it in the seam of her shirt. Was she finished? Tristan’s senses were so dazzled by the pain he couldn’t tell. She reached out to him again, this time laying her palm flat against his wound. There was another spark of magic flame—deep red instead of blue—and the pain was suddenly gone.

Friday fell away and collapsed into Christian’s arms, unconscious.

“What did she do?” Tristan sat up. “There’s no pain.”

“There’s no wound,” said Bernard.

Tristan twisted this way and that, ran his hands incredulously up and down his chest. His brother was right—there was nothing: no cut, no scar, no evidence that he had ever been injured. What
had
she done?

“She said she wasn’t a healer.” Tristan took the princess from his brother and cradled her in his own arms. As she shifted, her shirt pressed flat against her left side. Just beneath her left breast, a flower of blood began to soak through the linen there. Had she been wearing a bodice, they never would have seen it.

“She’s not a healer,” said François. “She’s an Empath.”

“Idiot!” Philippe yelled to the skies. He could have been referring to Friday or Tristan. Or both.

Less enigmatically, Rene smacked Tristan on the back of the head.

“You’ve gone and killed a princess,” said Bernard.

Tristan could feel her warm body breathing in his arms, however shallow. “She’s not dead,” he snapped.

“Not yet,” said Rene.

“She’s an Empath more powerful than I’ve ever seen,” said Sebastien. “She didn’t just feel your pain; she took it from you completely.”

Tristan held the princess tighter, cursing himself for the selfish thoughts he’d had while she was trying to heal him. “Will she be all right?”

“Let her go and let me see.”

Tristan might not have released his hold on her for anyone other than Christian, the most levelheaded of the brothers. Christian lifted Friday’s shirt, gently and modestly, uncovering the wound and nothing more. “It’s sewn,” he announced after his examination, “and nicely, too. The blood there seems to be entirely superficial.” He blotted it away with the corner of a blanket and lowered her shirt again. “Worry not, brother. She will heal.”

“I bore the burden of the sewing, but she will bear the scar I was meant to have.” Tristan tried not to be angry with her again, this time for being stronger than he.

“Who
is
she?” Tristan asked again.

“She is your destiny,” Sebastien told him.

Tristan had had enough of this nonsense, magic flames and all. “But I don’t want a destiny!”

“People seldom do. Just ask my sisters.” The soft body in his arms shook with a chuckle, followed by a wince. “Goddess, that hurts. Remind me not to be funny again for a while.”

“She’s alive!” shouted Rene.

“Incredible,” said Bernard.

Her eyes fluttered open and those gray depths looked right at Tristan. “What happened?”

“You took my wound,” he told her. “You just
took
it. It’s yours now.”

She raised her right arm to her left side and winced again. “That’s new.”

“Luckily, you took the stitches as well,” said Christian. “It already looks much better. I believe you’ll be fine . . . in time.”

Was his brother mad? So little about this whole situation was fine.

“I take it you don’t do this sort of magic often?” Tristan asked her.

“Beyond sewing, I’ve performed little magic at all personally, though it does run in my family.” Friday shook her head a little. “This is definitely a first.”

“Well, don’t go doing it again.”

Those gray eyes narrowed into icy slivers. “We may share a destiny, sir, but you do not know me, my family, or the chaos that skips merrily in our wake. I will very likely do that again, or worse, and you have no control over it now, nor will you. Understand?”

It was eerie how her words mirrored the ones he’d felt only moments before. Tristan hadn’t had a woman put him so firmly in his place since before their mother died. He supposed he deserved it—he just couldn’t seem to control his emotions lately. “Yes, milady. Please accept my apologies, and my extreme gratitude for the healing.”

“She’s not a healer,” the twins chorused.

Friday grinned. “They’re a quick study.”

“She’s a seamstress,” Christian finished with a smile. And then his smile fell. “A . . . seamstress,” he repeated, and then shook his head. “Milady, you have found yourself among a bevy of idiots.”

“Sorry?” Tristan had no idea what his brother was on about. He was too distracted by those eyes, that smile, and the happy realization that she had not yet excused herself from his arms.

Sebastien hopped up and slapped his thigh. “YES!”

Elisa quietly covered her mouth with her hands.

“It makes so much sense,” said François. “How could we have overlooked that? Has it been so long?”

“The question is,” said Philippe with great condescension, “can she
weave?
”

“Of course I can weave.” The princess seemed annoyed at the very idea that she might lack such simple knowledge.

“Of course she can weave,” Tristan repeated breathlessly, and then cradled her tightly in his arms again, hugging her close. It
was
destiny. She was going to save them. She was going to help break this blasted curse and save them all. And if she did that, she could have his heart and what little else that came with it.

Her cry from his shoulder was muffled. “What is going on?”

Christian shoved Tristan back and took her hands. “Princess Friday. How much do you know about nettles?”

5

“N
ETTLES?
”
FRIDAY ASKED.
“Like stinging nettles? The weeds.”

“The very same,” said the elder blond man.

Friday opened her mouth to begin answering the question, and then thought better of it. She’d recovered from the shock of her miraculous empathic magic—the skin of the wound pulled beneath her breast less painfully with every move she made. It was healing quickly, enough to rival even Saturday’s miraculous ability. Saturday, her younger sister with a destiny.

It was no secret that other great forces had a hand in the lives of the Woodcutter family, Fate most of all. Friday looked up into her young man’s bright blue eyes again and risked losing herself there.

Oh, for heaven’s sake. Enough was enough.

It was time to play the princess card.

“First things first.” She shoved against her young man’s now-unscarred chest and extracted herself from his arms. When she stood, the whisper of a breeze whistled in her ears. Goosebumps raised on her arms and she remembered where she was. The sky tower. Above her was nothing but stars; below her was nothing but darkness. She backed up against the Elder Wood door, away from the ragged edge that would haunt her nightmares for the rest of her life, and summoned her strength. “We still haven’t been properly introduced.”

After a moment of exchanged glances—Friday was all too familiar with the kind of sibling-speak that needed no words—the elder dark one cleared his throat.

“We are the former heirs to the throne of the Green Isles, in the far east, beyond the Troll Kingdom. Our parents and lands were taken from us by a usurper who wanted to force himself upon my sister. We stood against him, and for that we were punished by his sorceress. My brothers and I are cursed to take swan form by day and human form by night, when no man can look upon us.” Friday raised her eyebrows at that. “At least, until now. My sister is cursed with the glamour of a plain orphan girl. She is not mute, as you believe, but if she speaks a word to anyone before our curse is broken, the spell will last forever.”

Friday was at a loss for words, but still felt she needed to say something to the girl. “I’m so sorry.”

Rampion shook her head in forgiveness.
It was not to be helped.

“We call you Rampion.” Friday turned to the dark brother. “What’s her real name?”

“Elisa,” he said. “I am Sebastien, the eldest.”

“Christian,” said the man who had asked her about the nettles, presumably the second-eldest.

“Rene and Bernard,” said Rene and Bernard, twins to be sure, but Friday could not discern which was which. They bowed and patted their copper heads in unison.

“Tristan,” said her destiny.

“Philippe,” said the angry brother, the one whose melancholy hovered like a black cloud above his head. His features and coloring were similar enough to Tristan’s for them to be twins too, but Friday guessed otherwise.

“And François,” said the youngest, with a nod and flourish. “Elisa is one year my senior, though she’s been cursed to look younger.”

“You are the reader,” said Friday, and François bowed his head again.

“Like you, my intent was to be dedicated to the gods,” he said, “and it is still. It’s a path that requires much study.”

Friday did not feel it was too impertinent to ask, “Which gods?”

“The Four Winds. You might have noticed my sister is something of a windweaver herself.”

“So that’s why the winds don’t carry us off right now. And why my candle never went out. And how you danced yesterday.” Friday turned to their sister. “You’re very good, Rampion. Oh . . . should I call you that?”

“It is best that no one speak her true name outside this tower,” said Sebastien. “In case we are still hunted.”

The girl pointed to her eldest brother, presumably showing that she agreed with his sentiment.
Rampion is a fine name. I don’t mind it.

“That may be, but I would not insult you.”

And then Friday realized to whom she was responding . . . and how.

“Ah. Oh my.”

Elisa’s words had echoed perfectly in Friday’s ears, though she had not heard them in truth. It was the same voice she’d heard earlier:
Your family has power! Heal him!
And then:
If you let him die, yours is not the only destiny that dies with him.
Those words had prompted her to reach deep within herself and somehow take Tristan’s wound from him.

Though they seemed to have caught the attention of gods and fey alike, no one in her family had ever performed such powerful magic without training . . . except perhaps Wednesday. Wednesday, who had been transformed here, and who had woven her magic into the rock so that it would never crumble. Friday realized now that the stones of the sky tower contained far more power than any of them had imagined.

Elisa’s eyes were like saucers.
Princess Friday, did you hear me?

There was no reason to lie, though the brothers might pose more questions she could not answer. “It seems that I did.”

Friday braced herself as the girl jumped into her arms. She was all spindly limbs and golden hair, reminding Friday of Sunday in younger days. From her spasms it felt like the girl was sobbing, but no noise came from her. Friday patted her back. “There, there. It will be all right.”

Elisa pulled herself away; this time her eyes were wide with fear.
I haven’t upset the curse with this, have I? Please tell me I haven’t.

Friday squeezed the girl’s arms. “You can’t take all the blame; we are both part of this conversation. But you haven’t spoken a word out loud. I think the curse remains intact.” Friday snuck a glance up at the midnight sky, still full of stars with nary a cloud in sight. Upsetting a spell of this caliber would cause a storm, no doubt, and there didn’t seem to be anything brewing on the horizon.

Elisa hugged her again, more gently this time, and rested her head on Friday’s shoulder. Friday could sense the brothers’ combined tension and spoke to ease their minds. “Your sister is all right. She’s worried that she mucked up the spell somehow. I assured her she hasn’t.”

“You can . . . hear her?” asked Christian.

“It would appear so,” Friday replied. “I’m learning all sorts of new things about myself tonight. I only hope I still like me when it’s all said and done.”

The twins chortled at her self-deprecating humor. They were so much like Peter that Friday suddenly missed her brother fiercely.

It has to be me,
Elisa told her.
I have to be the one to weave the shirts of nettles for each of my brothers. They must don them before Mordant finds me and . . . binds me to him forever.

“She’s telling me about your curse,” Friday said to the brothers. And then to Elisa, “I will help you however I can.”