Palace of Lies (14 page)

“Here. You must be dying to sit up,” Janelia said, reaching for my arm. “Let me help you.”

Dazedly, I let Janelia pull me up by the shoulders, let Janelia bend my waist. I might as well have been a doll.

A new scene appeared before my eyes: Not just sky but a horizon-to-horizon stretch of dust and rock, broken only by
the road curving off into the distance. I felt dizzy. I couldn't have said if the road I was looking at was where we'd just been or where we were going.

“Desmia?” Janelia prompted.

My ears rang, turning my name into something almost unrecognizable. My heart pounded faster and faster, barely finishing one thump before the next one sounded. It felt like my heart was running, maybe even trying to escape my chest. Sweat poured off me, soaking my hair and clothes and sliding into my eyes so I couldn't see. My eyesight was going dark, anyhow, as though I was about to faint. But somehow the image of that awful open sky and that awful stretch of empty dust and rock stayed burned onto my vision.

I gulped air into my lungs and fought to stay alert.

“Desmia, what's wrong?”

“What happened?”

“Desmia?”

The voices seemed to come at me from a million miles away. Or from as far away as the distance between my balcony and the people who always stood down below on the ground, back at the palace.

“Was she poisoned?”

“How could she have been poisoned when she ate the same food as the rest of us last night and this morning?”

“Desmia, you didn't eat or drink anything else, did you?”

I couldn't tell who was saying what. But the mention of poison and eating made me notice that my stomach was roiling. I gagged.

“Go ahead—throw up if you have to!” This was Janelia's voice.

Still gagging, I leaned over the side of the stretcher. I closed my eyes so I didn't have to see if anything came out.

“Ugh, that's how a
princess
behaves?”

Terrence's voice,
I thought.
That was Terrence.

Someone was wailing, a long, drawn-out howl of pain.

Oh. That's me,
I thought. But I couldn't seem to stop it.

“This isn't a princess! This is just some crazy girl!”

Terrence again.

“Desmia, just tell us what's wrong! Just tell us what we can do to help!”

Janelia? Tog? Herk?

It was strange how I couldn't separate those three voices, couldn't tell them apart, even though I could recognize Terrence's.

I still couldn't stop the wailing coming from my mouth, but I found I could shape it, direct it, turn it into words.

“The sky, the sky, that awful, open sky . . .”

“I think I know what's wrong!”

That was Tog, wasn't it?

He was still talking.

“I think I know what to do! She was never out of the palace before yesterday, right?”

“Not for years, I don't think. . . .”

And that's Janelia, answering Tog,
I thought.

It was amazing how much better I felt, just to identify the voices around me.

“Let's carry her over by those rocks, then,” Tog said, a note of confidence back in his voice.

I felt myself being lifted on the stretcher again and rushed away from the road. After a moment the overly bright sunshine stopped pounding mercilessly against my eyelids. I dared to open my eyes a crack. The stretcher was sliding downward. They were lowering me into a dim cave, maybe, or just into the shadowed space between rocks. I reached out and put my hand against the nearest rock and it was so blessedly cool that I thought just the touch of it could bring down a fever, if fever was what I had.

Solid,
I thought.
Strong. And closed up and hidden and safe.

I found that I could finally stop screaming.

I lost track of time.
Was it only a moment or hours that I lay silently, the palm of my hand pressed against solid rock? Was it a moment or hours that the others sat silently staring at me before Janelia murmured beseechingly, “Desmia, please—are you all right? Can you tell us what's wrong?”

I gulped, tamping down nausea and revulsion.
This
was more like me. This was the control I was used to having over my body.

“I'm sorry,” I whispered. My voice came out a little ragged, but I was able to clear my throat and make it right again. “I'm so sorry. I don't know what happened. It was like . . .”

Like I was afraid that the ground would open up and swallow me whole. Like the sky was too big and too confining, both at the same time. Like I couldn't think. Like I wasn't me. Like something I couldn't control took over my body.

I turned and looked at Tog.

“How did you know bringing me back here between the rocks would help?” I asked.

He shrugged, and it actually seemed like a show of true modesty, as if he really didn't believe he deserved credit. But I couldn't be certain—in my time in the palace, I wasn't sure I'd ever seen any modesty that
wasn't
fake.

“I just guessed,” Tog said, spreading his hands wide, a gesture of both innocence and ignorance. “I've seen soldiers back from the war who act like you, and they always want to get somewhere safe. You were screaming about the sky, and I thought maybe you needed to get away from it. So it wouldn't scare you anymore. And I thought, if you've lived your whole life between stone walls, a rock cave would be the next best thing.”

I wasn't scared,
I wanted to say.
I am nothing like soldiers who have fought in the war. I am nothing like soldiers, period.

But I hadn't been able to stop screaming on my own. If the other four hadn't moved me away from the horrible sight of that dome of open, empty sky and the open, empty landscape beneath it, I might have still been screaming.

“I get scared sometimes too,” Herk whispered, leaning in to pat my arm. He glanced quickly back toward Tog and Terrence. “I just don't usually tell the big boys.”

For the first time I thought about what I was asking Herk to do—what I'd so carelessly drawn him in to when I announced back in Janelia's basement,
Herk and Tog will take me. And Janelia.
Herk was just a little kid. I hadn't thought to ask or even guess at his age before, but I did now: Was he maybe nine? Eight? Only
seven
?

Herk didn't actually look any more scared or stunned or worried than Janelia or Tog, sitting on either side of him. I couldn't tell about Terrence, the one who was supposedly never scared. He had his face turned, and he seemed to be gazing off into the distance.

For a moment everyone sat frozen in those positions, pinned in place by Herk acknowledging he was afraid. Or maybe their sudden paralysis was my fault. In the palace, I hadn't gotten as much leadership training as all my sister-princesses had in their hiding places: Lord Throckmorton hadn't actually wanted to turn me into a strong leader. He'd wanted me to be a spineless puppet he could manipulate however he wanted. But Cecilia, at least, had told me about what she'd learned. I knew the first rule of leadership was to look decisive and unafraid no matter what.

I had just failed that test of leadership.

But what could I do about it when I was still shaking, still drenched in sweat, still barely able to hold myself back from wailing even more?

Janelia broke the spell by reaching out and putting her arm around Herk, drawing him close.

“I get scared sometimes too, Herksy,” she said. “You're being really brave, going with us to Fridesia. I think you're braver than any of the big boys were, when they were your age.”

“Hey! Don't insult my courage like that!” Tog said. “I was brave when I was a little guy too!”

I could tell he was only pretending to be offended. I wasn't sure Herk noticed, but Tog's joking tone made me feel better.

Terrence didn't join in the joking. He was still peering off into the distance, his gaze roaming across the landscape that had terrified me.

“Cold water would help, wouldn't it?” he asked. “I think that's a river beyond the rocks. I'll go fill our water gourds.”

“Good idea. Take these three, and I'll give Desmia the rest of what we have left,” Janelia said. “She should probably start out with lukewarm water, anyhow, until her stomach settles.”

Janelia took gourds from Herk and Tog and carefully poured all the remaining water into one. She handed the empty ones to Terrence, who started toward the river even as Janelia held the full gourd up to my mouth.

They're treating me completely like an invalid now,
I thought.
Or like a small child or a pet. I'm the princess and they're beggars and yet they're acting like I can't think for myself.

Considering that I still didn't quite trust myself to open my mouth without screaming, I didn't see how I could protest. I let Janelia trickle a thin stream of water down my throat, and it did help. I was parched; my mouth tasted of dust and vomit and fear.

The water seemed to wash all that away.

“Better,” I murmured, when I finally stopped drinking. “I feel better. Thank . . . you.”

Royalty was almost never supposed to show gratitude—it was as forbidden as regret or apologies or any other show
of weakness. What I had learned from Lord Throckmorton was that you should only show appreciation in order to manipulate someone into feeling obligated. That was the strategy I had been trying for with Madame Bisset back at the prison house. But now I felt the words “thank you” slip out almost without my thinking about it.

Because of the sister-princesses,
I thought.
I picked up the habit from them. None of them could remember that they weren't supposed to say thank you.

My vision blurred again, and I forced myself to concentrate on looking at the solid rock around me.

“If you think you can keep it down, food would be a good idea too,” Janelia said. “Why don't we start eating? I doubt that Terrence will mind. We can let him take a shift of not carrying the stretcher, after lunch, so he can get his break then. . . .”

Janelia seemed to be babbling, saying anything to fill the gap of silence.

“What's for lunch, what's for lunch, what's for lunch?” Herk chanted. It seemed as though he, at least, had recovered from his fear.

Janelia and Tog both laughed.

“This might be one of those meals you want to pretend is something else,” Tog suggested.

Janelia glanced apologetically at me.

“We're going to eat up the bread first, before it goes bad,” she said. “And it was stale to begin with, because we didn't
have the time or the money to wait for fresh this morning. Later we'll catch some fish and maybe rabbits or fowl as we go along. And I have an idea for a way to make money to buy more food in the villages we pass—the meals will get better after this, I promise.”

I wanted to be noble and gracious and murmur something like, “Oh, I'm sure it will be delicious”—and somehow sound sincere. But the thought of stale, hard bread made my stomach churn once again. I thought I was showing great nobility and graciousness just forcing myself to hold out my hand to take the small chunk of bread Janelia dropped into my palm. The bread felt as dense as a stone and no more appetizing.

Tog and Herk tore into their chunks of bread as if they hadn't eaten in days. Janelia smiled apologetically and began gnawing on her own piece, which I noticed was by far the smallest portion.

Somehow that detail made it possible for me to lift my hand to my mouth and at least try to start nibbling the bread.

In no time at all Herk had gobbled down his bread. He glanced pointedly at the piece Janelia had laid aside on a clean kerchief for Terrence.

“How long will it take Terrence to get back?” Herk asked.

“It looked like a ways to that river,” Tog said. He shoved the bread on the kerchief a little farther from Herk. “Why? You know Terrence won't share.”

“I know,” Herk said. “I'm just thirsty. And—I thought we could play a game.”

Janelia pushed my gourd toward Herk.

“There's a few drops left in that,” Janelia told him.

But—I'm the princess!
I thought.
Nobody except other royalty or the official taster would share a princess's drinking goblet!

I reminded myself this was a dried-out gourd Janelia was offering Herk, not a goblet. I kept my mouth shut.

“And, Herk, we talked about this last night,” Janelia said, fixing Herk with a stern gaze as he upended the gourd into his mouth, gathering perhaps three or four drops. “Until we get to Fridesia, nobody will have time or energy to play the running-around games you like so much. We have to focus on getting there as fast and as safely as we can.”

“I didn't mean
that
kind of game,” Herk protested. “I just thought, since Princess Desmia didn't see anything we passed this morning, we could have a competition. Each of us can tell the best things we saw, and then she can judge whose story she likes best.”

Tog and Janelia glanced anxiously at me and then at each other, as if they were both thinking,
Doesn't he get that the scenery we passed this morning would have terrified Desmia? Doesn't he understand that she wouldn't even want to think about the world outside this circle of rocks right now? Who's going to tell him that?

But Herk was peering at me so eagerly, I suddenly couldn't bear to see him quashed.

“Let's hear your story,” I said. “I'm already sure it'll be best.”

“No fair saying that yet!” Herk said, sticking out his bottom lip. “Now I know you're just going to let me win!”

What had I done wrong?