I saw only my father's physicians, a manservant who helped bathe and change me, and Calmi for the next five days. The physicians did not know anyone else was treating me and I didn't wish to raise suspicion, so I allowed them to prod and poke and offer their diagnoses. They never stayed long. They never actually did anything. Not like Calmi, who pricked my body with strange needles and lay hot stones on my back and shoulder and legs, and brewed strange smelling herbs and made me eat a special diet of nuts and cheeses to strengthen my bones.

She did not speak unless I spoke to her. She worked silently, never attempting to cajole me out of my constant brooding, my bouts of self-pity, and the endless aching pain.

By the fifth day I was beyond restless. I'd never spent so long in my chambers. Never spent a day cooped up without exercising, running, riding, training.

When Lady Calmi arrived after a maid had taken away my breakfast tray, I was happy to see she was early.

'What torturous healing contraption have you brought for me today?' I asked, peering at the strange wooden poles she was carrying. She did not ruffle at my jibe, but set down her basket and pieced together the bits of wood. They were longer than walking sticks, a single stumpy leg branching into two sides with a bar of wood joining the sides three quarters of the way up, and a bar at the top of each one. When she had fitted the bits together she placed each one under her armpit and holding onto the lower bar used them to walk around the room on one foot.

The demonstration seemed so out of character I laughed. The Lady Calmi who made no gesture that was not elegant and calculated hobbling on these strange walking sticks. When her eyes caught mine, anger flared in her face.

'It is so you can stop wallowing around here like some miserable worm and walk in the gardens. But if you think they are too ridiculous—'

'No, no,' I said, smiling. 'You misunderstand. They look incredibly ingenious. Where did you find them?'

'I had them made for you, You Royal Highness.'

My smile vanished, and I felt like the ungrateful fool I was. 'I would like to try them,' I said. I moved to the edge of the upholstered chair and she placed one under each arm. Then she stood back as I pushed myself up and tried hobbling around the room. It put pressure on my shoulder but I crossed to the fireplace using the two contraptions as legs to balance me.

Calmi's emotionless eyes watched.

'You designed these?' I said, turning from the unlit hearth to face her. She stared at me for a long moment, then nodded.

'Thank you. They're perfect. I would like to test them further. Will you walk with me in the palace gardens?'

'We will be seen together, Your Royal Highness.'

'Please, I would prefer you to call me Jakut.'

Silence hung between us. I nodded and smiled tightly. I was the laughingstock of the King's court, shamed publicly by the King and Queen. Not to mention the reputation I myself had nurtured of being a ladies' man.

Lady Calmi had risked offending the King by attending to me in secret; she would not wish to ruin her own reputation and the chance of a suitable match by seeding rumours about her friendship with a dishonoured Prince whose own father was out to destroy him.

I turned my back on her and picked up an ornament on the fireplace mantel. It was a large obsidian egg shaped rock that had belonged to my mother.

'What news of Linx Ralkstead?'

Lady Calmi cleared her throat. My heart leapt in my chest. Nothing made Calmi awkward, and yet here the tiniest telltale sign.

'He has been pardoned?' I asked, fighting to keep my voice steady. Pardoned only five days after purposefully injuring the heir to the Carucan throne would be the equivalent of my father chaining me outside the palace doors for the townsfolk to throw fruit at.

'He has vanished from the dungeons,' Calmi said. Almost as bad.

The sense of injustice at my father's treatment had been a slow poison for seventeen years. In a year or two, when what happened at the tournament had been altered in the minds of the courtiers by the stories my father would spread, Linx would return, forgiven. No, not merely forgiven, a hero who had achieved some feat of grand courage for his King and country. His career would not be ruined.

Perhaps he would not return at all, but was already riding south to join the Elite Commanders. He would be part of the King's inner circle, protected by this act of loyalty.

My father did not simply humiliate me and thwart my plans, he stole my only true friend.

I did not blame Linx. No one refused the King. But I missed him and I hated knowing that he would suffer over what he'd done. It would fester in my brother-in-arms. It would rot him to the core, and if he ever returned, I would transform in his eyes into the enemy my father had made us.

'Should I light the fire to heat the stones?' Lady Calmi's voice shook me from my brooding.

She had already done enough for me without lowering her to the status of a parlour maid.

'I'll do it,' I said awkwardly sitting, my left leg sticking out, pain shooting through it an instant when I moved it. I struck a match and lit the lightwood clumps which had been arranged so the fire took quickly. Lady Calmi got the boiling pot, filled it with water from the washroom and plopped in the smooth fist-sized stones.

She came and knelt beside me to hang the pot over the fire. I watched her move, each gesture elegant, as if she were performing some restrained, precise dance. Her eyes met my gaze, and I looked away. Somehow she saw beneath the surface of my being. She saw my raw, bruised, flailing essence.

'Why are you here?' I asked her.

'Lingred asked me to tend to you.'

'I have not seen him since the day of the tournament. And I do not imagine he gave you the idea for these,' I say, gesturing at the walking sticks.

'You are not who people say you are,' she said. 'You have endured by allowing them to believe you are weak, frivolous, lustful, arrogant. But you are none of these things. You do not lust for power or hold your pride above all else. You have lived in the shadows, but you still seek the light.'

Tightness twisted in my throat. I looked up, and found I could not look away. My actions and words had been misunderstood as far back as I could remember. I was familiar with being judged weak and frail, spoilt and pampered. I had given up trying to change anyone's opinion of me a long time ago.

'Who are you?' I murmured.

'No one,' she said, breaking eye contact and gazing into the warm flames licking at the copper pot.

'Even a slave is someone.'

Her eyes flashed up at me. 'Would you outlaw slavery, Your Royal Highness?'

'It is already outlawed.'

'But it is common practice. No one does anything to stop it.'

'That bothers you?' I asked. I'd never heard anyone in the Ruby Court concern themselves with the plight of those born less fortunately than themselves. Most were too focused on securing more power, or wealth, or a better title, or favour from the King.

'My grandfather has many slaves. It is barely a life at all,' she said quietly. Her guard dropped for the first time and I saw a confused girl, rather than the austere lady who could pass for many years more than her sixteen.

'If my destiny is to succeed the King, I will do all in my power to uphold the law. Every man, woman and child has the right to determine the path of his own life.'

She nodded, the assured porcelain demeanour back in place.

'Your grandfather is Lord Strik,' I continued.

She gave the slightest nod of her head.

'His province stretches across the western kingdom. Next to the King and my Uncle, Prince Roarhil the Duke of Rathesyde, I've heard him referred to as the most powerful man in Caruca.'

Calmi fiddled with her braid, stroking the loose ends. She had neat, long fingers.

'He is powerful and cruel and he takes whatever he pleases.'

'What do you mean?'

'His lands increase with every long-sleep. Men die and their sons do not inherit their birthright, it all comes under my grandfather's govern.'

'But all land is allocated by the King. And no one, but the King, can own it.'

Her eyes shot up, piercing into me like shards of ice. For the first time she looked at me like I was an idiot.

'How much time have you spent outside the Royal City?'

'I lived in Lyndonia until I was eight. I have not been out of the Red City since then.'

'Lyndonia,' she said, waving her hand dismissively. 'How will you ever rule a kingdom you know nothing about?'

I felt the hairs on my forearms bristle. I straightened my shoulders. 'It can't have escaped your notice, Lady Calmi. My father has no intention that I ever rule Caruca.'

Her expression shifted, growing as cool and harsh as the northern winds.

'If you believe it is so,' she said, 'then it will be so.' She curtsied, lifted the pot away from the fire and went to stand by the bed. She waited for me to lay down so she could administer the hot stones.

I gathered the crutches and positioned them beneath my arms. Her words had not escaped my notice; she had taken the familiar Carucan teaching of Rhag, "If it is so, then it is meant to be so", and twisted it to mean something entirely different. She was a woman to be reckoned with, this Lady Calmi; her past as mysterious, as her beauty was untouchable. 

***

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