The Healer Princess (Princess of the Seven Suns Book 1)

by Amy Little

  Outside, it had started to drizzle. She kept her head down, and her gaze on the road, while with her power, alert to the danger that had shadowed her on the way there, she sensed every blade of grass, every tree, every cat and dog and mouse, and every housewife and workman she encountered on her way, which gave her welcome relief; she felt that if she let go of that external focus, she would have dissolved in tears.

  That would not do, she said to herself. What she had before her was a new journey.

  A journey that she would have to take without Zak.

  The gold dagger in her hand illuminated the tunnel no more than a meter or so ahead. The tunnel’s walls, while they were dry before, now seemed to be covered by a moist sheen. In the distance, when she held her breath, she could hear odd slithering sounds, which made her speed up her steps. She shook with pent up nervous energy and resolve.

  Deeper down, the rock surface underfoot became more slippery yet.

  Awkwardly balancing her heavy bag in one hand and the dagger in the other, Annika slipped, and landed with a hard thud. She cried out, then clamped her mouth shut, afraid of drawing whatever was in these tunnels to herself, but not before the cry reverberated all around, as though in an acoustic chamber.

  Annika cursed quietly under her breath. She promised herself she would not cry.

  The tunnels wound monotonously through the bedrock underneath the castle.

  As she walked, more carefully now, Annika’s thoughts fleeted between the letter, Cara, and Zak. Then she thought of how careful her father and sister had been inside the castle. They were certain that they were being monitored. They never said by whom. Thinking about it now, it seemed clear to Annika that it must have been the snakes. Who else would have had sufficient power to penetrate her father’s castle? Other than the Emperor, or maybe both…. Annika shivered, remembering what Cara had told her about the link between the Emperor and the snakes.

  Two red lights just ahead stared at her.

  Annika felt fear flood her. She raised the dagger higher and slowly edged forward.

  Ahead of her stood an enormous grey rat. In the shoulders, the rat was almost as tall as Annika. Its eyes, flushed with red, stared angrily. Beneath the rat’s splayed whiskers, razor-sharp teeth gleamed.

  Annika backed away. She held the dagger before her, trying to stop her hand from shaking.

  The rat flicked its long black tail. Then it leaped forward.

  Annika screamed in terror and pressed her back to the wall.

  The scream, made louder by the tunnel’s acoustics, reverberated and grew louder yet all around them. The rat lost its certainty. It stopped no more than two meters from Annika. Its tail flicked from side to side.

  Annika tried not to gag on its stench. She had embraced the power but she could not do harm with it. She did not know how to. Instead, she felt within the rat, shuddering with disgust and fear at its foreign consciousness, and trying to detect anything to which she could relate. She seemed to find a strand… hunger.

  The rat was filled with hunger. It had not eaten for many days.

  Annika pictured the food that she had seen in the castle’s kitchen in better days. Trays laden with roasted chicken, loaves of freshly baked breads. Annika focused on these images, the related smells, and the sensations of biting into a succulent piece of meat or breaking apart a chunk of bread. Then she channeled those sensations to the rat.

  The rat shifted on its feet. It sniffed the air as though trying to determine where the smells came from.

  Annika visualized the route she had taken. The tunnels winding, sloping up; the door to the castle, then the path that led to the guardhouse where she hoped, without showing the thought to the rat, that the soldiers would deal with it.

  The rat turned and scurried up, its claws raking the slippery stones and its mind now filled with the feast that it was certain it would find.

  Looking after it, Annika wiped the cold sweat off her forehead.

  Then without wasting time she rushed down the tunnels, fearing all the while the rat’s enchantment slipping and the creature’s return.

  Soon she was walking on the fine gray sand on the shore of the lava lake.

  The soft crunch of the sand and the lap of the icy waves filled Annika with a sense of calm. For the first time since leaving the castle her heart beat softer. She felt her hands unclench; but then a sense of fatigue took hold. She shook her head, telling herself she needed to stay alert.

  Ahead was the vast expanse of the reddish-orange water.

  Somewhere on the other side, if the letter was true, awaited Cara.

  Annika made her way to the pier. She now knew why only one boat had remained at the pier, for Cara had explained in the letter that she had taken the other.

  Annika looked from the lake to the boat and back. She had never learned to swim and had always feared any expanses of water.

  Just as Cara had.

  Annika resolutely set her mouth. If Cara could find strength in her to navigate this lake, in a boat, so would she.

  The boat bobbed in the slight swell that now worried the lake. The boat was a couple of meters from the wooden pier, tied to the pier by a grey rope that finished in a convoluted knot.

  She struggled with the rope for a few minutes.

  The rope was heavy, woven with multiple strands, and thicker than Annika’s wrists.

  No matter how she tried, she could not undo the knot.

  With effort, Annika pulled the boat right up to the pier. She tossed her bag inside.

  The bag landed on the wooden seat with a clank and rolled down to the flat bottom of the boat.

  She tried to cut the rope with the dagger, but the dagger’s blunt edge slipped along without managing to cut a single strand. Her efforts were futile.

  Annika sat down on the pier. She looked glumly at the lake. The boards felt hard and rough under her. The boat creaked as the swell of the lake intensified and then softened, until the lake was almost entirely placid, only for the swell to slowly rise again some minutes later.

  To fail after coming so close! she thought to herself.

  Tears rose up. She bit her lip and closed her eyes, promising that she would not let herself cry.

  She did not know how long she sat there, her thoughts swirling and looping in on themselves like the gusts of air in a gathering whirlwind.

  She thought of the last few months and of the turn her life had taken. She had returned from the riverlands to the castle with the hope of leaving the fold of her House so that she could live in the city, and practice healing, only to find herself the Queen of the House, bound to a rigid role; the experiences she had had in developing her power, the battles with snakes, and falling for Zak; and the losses, each of them; each loss harder than the one before.

  And Zak….

  There was no way around it. At the very vortex of that tornado of feelings was Zak.

  Her memories returned to him again and again. The memory of the times that they had spent together made her blood run hot and cold in turn. In the brief moments when her thoughts seemed to reach a standstill, she thought she could sense his hands running down her shoulders and caressing her back, his breath on her neck and her breasts.

  Annika shivered as she forced the memories away and stood up.

  A sudden feeling that had been scratching at the edges of her consciousness rose to the fore. Someone was near.

  She leaped up and spun around.

  There, standing on the sandy beach, immediately before the jutting pier, and looking at her intently, with a travel bag in one hand, was Zak.

  Zak!

  Was she imagining it?

  Annika’s first instinct was to run towards him and take hold of him before this image, this mirage, would dissipate, covering him with kisses and losing herself in his arms.

  She stopped herself.

  If it was a mirage, that would not help her. And if this was Zak….

  She asked, a few moments later, in a voice
that was huskier and more uncertain than she wished, “How long have you been standing there?”

  “You seemed deep in thought,” he said, coming up the pier. “I did not wish to disturb.”

  Annika blushed on recalling the sensations of which she had daydreamt.

  Standing next to her and with an assured, muscular movement, Zak flung his bag in the boat. It thudded next to her satchel.

  She looked at him with disbelief. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  She was about to speak when he placed a finger against her lips, and feeling his hard, rough touch she felt relief flood through her very being. She closed her eyes. There were no words to be said.

  Her thoughts, her feelings, clicked into place with him beside her and even when he moved away she could feel him there, with her and part of her, and she no longer felt alone; yet at the back of her mind burned the fear of what it would be like for the feeling of loneliness to return.

  When she opened her eyes again he was already working on the knotted rope, undoing it with expert flicks of the wrist.

  He grinned at her.

  It was impossible for her, she realized, to make it plain just how much she wanted, needed him there. She had already lost so much of her independence. Now, with Zak there, she had so much more to lose…. She said, “Let’s get one thing straight, Zak.”

  “Only one?” he asked.

  His nonchalance almost made her see red.

  “Yes.” And don’t expect me to thank you, she was about to say, but then the memory of the words that she had wanted to say to him when he was not there stopped her. He loved her, she had to admit to herself; it was impossible for her to look into his eyes and with the deep love she saw there to believe otherwise. And so she said something different to what she had intended. “I’m sorry that I had tried to push you away.”

  Suddenly feeling shy and self-conscious, she came up to him and took his hand. It was a gesture of reconciliation that, not so long ago, she thought herself incapable of.

  His hand was heavy and weathered. Its strength filled her with sudden confidence. The barriers that she had felt edging up between them once more now completely collapsed. They stood on the pier, his fingers tracing the outlines of her cheek, her chin, her neck. He gently held her around the waist and pulled her in close.

  She felt a shiver run through her as her lips opened to him the way that a flower opens to the sun’s rays.

  She led him onto the sand where they slowly, lingeringly, undressed one another. A fresh breeze ran along the lake’s shore. She felt safe, protected, desired.

  In the dim light, on the soft, warm sand, their bodies sought one another out.

  Sometime later they were both sitting in the boat, with Annika at the fore and Zak casting off the rope that had kept it moored to the pier.

  She watched him with a slight, adoring smile.

  His brow was burrowed in concentration but as he caught her gaze he looked up with an open grin.

  She had not felt such happiness before, she reflected.

  The thought filled her with both joy and dismay.

  How could she hold on to something so precious? Can something this good last?

  For one, the world around conspired against them. She remembered her sister’s letter. The snakes were seeking to capture the Empire, having gained sway over the Emperor, and now aiming to destroy everything built by man, making space for their own hatchlings and a new, slithering kingdom.

  For another… for another she still had a fear at the back of her mind of where her love for Zak would take her.

  Could she trust him completely? Could she trust herself?

  Yet as the boat cast adrift, Annika felt her misgivings melt away.

  First things first, Annika said to herself. She must seek out Cara. All other questions could be answered after that.

  Zak, sensing her change in mood, brushed her cheek with gentle concern.

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  And, in that moment, she was.

  He nodded. “Where to?”

  It was Annika’s turn to furrow her brow as she looked in her satchel for the red, leather-bound book from her father’s library. “Cara’s letter said this will show me the way,” she said. “But it did not tell me how.”

  Zak picked up the pair of oars in the boat and having lowered them in the water decisively pulled at them. “While the book is silent, let’s not stay at this shore longer than we must.”

  She nodded absently as she leafed through the book. The feeling of nervous apprehension that she had felt before began to return.

  The words on the page were now in an incomprehensible tongue.

  Annika looked at them in disbelief. She was certain that the book was written in the common imperial tongue! Otherwise, how could she have read it before?

  The letters were large, misshapen. They looked like they had been carved in a rock by a crude chisel.

  Annika frantically flicked through the pages, looking for the passage that she had read once before that described the direction she had to take.

  Sensing her discomfort Zak stopped rowing. “What did you read there?” When she did not reply, he frowned and picked the book from her hands. “This has no resemblance to any language I know. What is it?

  “I vaguely recall the instruction to set out at a specific angle to the shore, before changing direction based on the stalactites above,” she said. She wiped the sweat off her forehead. “But the details, I can’t recall.”

  She had to stop herself from crying as Zak returned the book and continued on the oars. She clutched the book on top of her knees, as though squeezing it would pry the answer she needed. The sense of deep, overriding despondency she had felt before Zak returned.

  What will they do now? Her sister will be waiting for her, yet without the instructions in the book they would not find Cara. Would the script change once more if she took it out of the Dragon’s Mouth? Would there be anyone in Karrum who could decipher the tongue?

  Lost in these gloomy thoughts, Annika placed her palms flat on the book’s cover, and closed her eyes. She did not know how long she sat there like that.

  Zak’s cry of surprise startled her. She looked around, as though coming out of a trance.

  The boat was moving ahead by itself. Zak had pulled the oars out of the water and was looking overboard with astonishment. Behind the boat, the water foamed.

  “What’s happening,” she asked.

  “I thought that was you,” said Zak. “But look, we’re slowing now.” In a few moments, the boat was at a standstill, rolling in the gentle waves.

  Annika felt puzzled.

  The shore they had departed from was visible on the horizon like a faint, gray line.

  She looked up and around.

  High above, the stalactites descended from the cavern’s roof. Below them, the water, deeper now, had lost its orangey tint and was almost entirely red.

  What had moved the boat? Could it have been her?

  Annika tried to recreate her thoughts. She thought about Cara, again.

  Suddenly the boat picked up speed once more. Zak cried out, excitedly. “That’s it! What were you doing?”

  “I thought about Cara,” Annika said. “And then….”

  “Continue! Whatever this is, perhaps it seeks Cara, like a homing pigeon.”

  Feeling a sense of sudden, cautious optimism, she closed her eyes, lay her hands on the book again, and filled her mind with Cara. Bit by bit she lost herself in Cara’s image.

  She felt the cool wind on her face as the boat gathered speed.

  She felt Zak’s encouraging, warm hand on her arm.

  All that mattered to her now was Zak, finding Cara, and the sense of freedom that she had never before felt.

  Will their love persist?

  Will she find Cara?

  Will she realize her dreams?

  With Zak beside her, Annika felt she could do anything.<
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  She took one hand off the book, despite the boat slowing slightly, and entwined her fingers with his.

  “I love you,” he said.

  “I love you.”

  THE END

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