Fox’s Tongue and Kirin’s Bone

In this order:

His hands were bound.

He did not have his dagger.

He was too weak to fight well, even if he did.

He was hungry.

Aaron eased his eyes open from their bare slits, and let himself take in the rest of the room.

He was alone. It was not a prison cell. He’d known that already—he remembered, vaguely, seeing the gold-edged paintings and the vases with their fresh flowers between other, slightly more fantastic images. Rose had been here, hadn’t she? She’d held his hand—then she had run off, and he’d gone somewhere else. John and Mabel, too—he could picture them, John looking odd without his usual coating of flour, Mabel staring wide-eyed at everything.

He was in a guest room. A nicer one than he’d ever been allowed to clean. He didn’t know what wing it was in, but suspected he was still on the royals’ floor. He remembered being carried. He did not remember stairs.

There was a window across the room. Gray, indefinite light came through it. Outside it was cloudy, and could be anywhere from morning to late afternoon. Snow clung to the windowsill, forming a dark mound six inches or more deep. More drifted disconsolately from the clouds, flake by flake into the gray.

The slash from the Kindly Soul’s blade was a clean line over his right collarbone, kissing the side of his neck. Fully healed.

He didn’t have a shirt.

He did have pants.

He’d been recently bathed. He felt clean, smelled clean. His hair was putting off the scent of a pretty little flower bed in full spring bloom. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

The bed was warm. He was snug under a pile of thick blankets. They wrapped comfortably over him, weighing down each curve of his body and tucking at his sides in just the right way so as to make moving a shame. The bed, too, seemed to have a groove designed just for him; the pillow was especially made to hold the heaviness of his head.

The door opened. He didn’t realize he’d been sleeping again until he caught sight of the window. All was dark outside. The snow was a gray mound on the sill, eight inches or more in height. The fireplace a dim warmth, banked for the night. Only the lamp nearest him was lit. There was an extra weight sitting next to him. Rose.

“Hey,” said a young voice from the door.

“Hey,” the princess replied. She stretched—a long, slow, cat-like stretch. There was a book on her lap. It was thick and leather-bound, with a title that seemed exceptionally long.

“The Baker boy changed his recipe again,” her brother said, bringing over the plate he carried. Rose squiggled into a more upright position, fluffing the pillows behind her back. “I’m pretty sure we’re going to throw up if we eat them all.” He said it like a challenge he quite looked forward to undertaking.

The girl counted the little round honey rolls with her eyes, and did not find a baker’s dozen. “You started without me. Jerk.”

“You’re welcome, jerk.” Her twin hopped up onto the bed, so that Aaron had a princess on his left and a prince on his right. They set the plate midway between them. A perfectly fair and equitable spot, that just so happened to be right on top of him.

The princess took one bite, then covered her mouth. “How much sugar is in these?”

“Enough,” the boy said, with great relish.

Neither of them had noticed that the person they were setting their bread tray on was not actually a piece of the furniture; that he was, in fact, quite awake. Aaron tried to clear his throat, but he couldn’t figure out how. He couldn’t remember what muscles to use, what steps he had to take to make that noise. Still, the act of trying did the trick. Connor looked at him, and their eyes met, green on gray.

The boy shot off the bed so quickly he nearly took the plate with him. Rose sprawled across Aaron’s lap to grab it as he hit the ground.

“He’s awake!”

She turned her head. Aaron looked back. Then, without even a flicker of surprise, she turned back to her brother. “So?”

“So get away from him.”

Rose stretched herself out even more lazily, picking a honey roll from the silver tray and popping it into her mouth. She kicked her legs over her back, making a proper mess of her skirts as she stared at her brother. She chewed slowly and pointedly. When she was done, she said: “See? He never hurts me.”

The prince’s mouth compressed down to a thin line. He turned on his heel and strode from the room. The look on his face was the same in a castle as it was on the streets: there went a boy who meant to snitch.

Aaron had to swallow a few times. He didn’t find his voice. Just a wispy, cracked imitation of it. “Why would I hurt you?”

At that, the princess did jump. She sat straight up, her eyes wide, looking at him as if she was only just now seeing him, and watching him watch her back. She experimentally held up a hand, and moved it back and forth. Aaron’s eyes tracked it obligingly.

“Are you really awake?” she asked. “Not just dreaming with your eyes open?”

He didn’t quite know what to say to that, and didn’t trust his voice to say it. It was all a bit too philosophical for him. He settled, instead, for a small nod.

She gasped. Then, in quick order: she tucked her feet under herself so her bare legs weren’t showing, smoothed down her dress, and finger-combed her hair. All at once, she was not the sort of girl who called her brother a jerk; she was a princess, seated most properly on the side of his sickbed. With a regal air, she even deigned to remove the plate from his person.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

Aaron knew the answer to that one. “Hungry,” he croaked. “Extremely hungry.”

When the door opened again, the princess had helped prop him up using every pillow on the bed, and was handing him honey rolls, piece by hand-torn piece. Aaron was doing his best to chew them, but finding it more difficult than he remembered.

“He’s awake,” she said.

“Get away from him, Rose,” her brother quietly ordered. Not her twin: Orin, her elder brother. Connor stood behind him in the doorway, a triumphant look on his face.

“No, look—he’s awake awake,” she insisted.

Orin turned a hard look on him. Aaron met his gaze, as meekly as possible. And then something unexpected happened: relief flickered through the crown prince’s eyes. Just for a moment. Then it was gone, and his face was all serious lines again. But in that instant, he had looked almost normal. Much closer to Aaron’s age, and much further from ruling a nation.

“Connor,” he ordered decisively, “Find a guard and have the doctor sent for. Rose, go with him.”

“He won’t hurt me.”

“Rose.” A silent moment stretched between them. Then, slowly, she slid off the bed and padded to the door, her back straight. As she reached it, she lifted her hand to her neck: she took the scarf she had there, and draped it over her head. Red flowers on white silk hid her fey-marked face. The door shut behind them.

Aaron looked at the crown prince. Orin looked back, not making a move to cross the space between them.

“How long?” Aaron asked, his voice rusty.

“Nearly a month,” the crown prince replied.

Aaron was still for a moment. Then he nodded. It made sense. The dagger wound was nothing but a new scar; he’d known it had been at least two weeks, from that. Even so, a month was… longer than he’d thought. He swallowed. He couldn’t seem to find his voice. Instead, he simply held up his bound hands with a mute question on his face.

“You woke a few times, but never… You seemed to believe yourself in danger. You tried to climb out the window, once. A guard was injured trying to subdue you.” The prince cleared his throat. “In any case, that was only at the beginning. After the fever broke, you never… The doctor believed… Well. Suffice it to say, it is good to see you awake, Lord Sung.”

Aaron stilled.

Orin clasped his hands behind his back and squared his shoulders, as if delivering a formal report. “The Lady felt fit to share her knowledge of the situation after the incident. You’ll excuse my father and me for not recognizing you in such circumstances, and such attire. You will be pleased to know that, though your charade was quite successful, the entirety of the royal family has been briefed upon your role here. There will be no further misunderstandings. Please also rest assured that the knowledge has spread no further. Your discretion in front of the guards, even at the risk of your own life, was admirable; your mission was not put in jeopardy.”

Aaron nodded. It seemed the thing to do.

“Is there anything I can get for you?” the prince asked, somewhat stiffly, into the silence between them. Aaron thought of a cup of water, but knew his hands weren’t steady enough. The idea of the crown prince holding a glass for him while he drank was a bit much. He shook his head.

They waited for the doctor. The prince eventually took a seat in a chair across the room from him. They continued waiting. The doctor, it seemed, had not been ready for him. No surprise in that: apparently Aaron’s condition had been quite stable in recent days. Apparently they hadn’t much expected him to need a doctor again; hadn’t much expected him to wake up at all.

“The Kindly Souls,” he managed.

“There have been no further attempts,” the prince said. “The number of guards posted in the royal wing is somewhat… suffocating.” He leaned back in his chair, and stared at an aimless point above Aaron’s bed. “I’ve been waiting for this, but Rose and Connor…”

The crown prince cut himself off. He re-straightened his shoulders, regained his composure, and resumed his vigil. Something in the curve of his mouth seemed to suggest that it was Aaron’s fault he’d spoken so freely.

“In the future,” the prince said, “it would be helpful if you were to inform us of your suspicions prior to the attack, rather than waiting for it to occur.”

They didn’t know who had let the assassins in, then. They’d cared for poor Markus, fallen hero, while the investigation continued.

The doctor arrived soon after: an old man, bent in the back, but with knobby hands as strong as steel wire. Rose and Connor tried to sneak back into the room as the man poked and prodded at him, but their older brother shepherded them out. Orin paused in the doorway, and turned back.

“Aaron?” he said, switching to what he thought was the faker of the two names, now that there was an outsider present. “The Duke of Three Havens has sent word. He will be arriving in the spring with others of the southern lords, to present a petition before the king.”

The Duke of Three Havens.

Markus’ father.

Oh.