Preserving the Ingenairii (49 page)

              
He glanced momentarily at Alec,
then
spoke to Jeswyne.
 
“Constanc will take you to a room.
 
Constanc, please show Lady Jeswyne to the room next to yours for the time being.”

              
Constanc instantly stepped forward, and Jeswyne shouldered past Alec to follow her back down the hallway.

              
“Terrific!” Alec said in a loud, angry tone, looking at Danel, who backed away in confusion.

              
“Parnell,” he said, looking at the man, “do you acknowledge who I am?”

              
Parnell looked at Stracha, who nodded.
 
“Yes, I do.
 
You are the returned Alec, back to protect the Dominion.”

              
“Will you submit to my will and rule?” Alec asked, knowing that he had to begin to take control of the Dominion.
 
“All of you?” he added, looking around the room.

              
“I do,” each of them answered.

              
“Thank you,” Alec said.
 
“This is my first order to you all.
 
Treat the Lady Jeswyne with all the respect and dignity due to a member of royalty.
 
Obey her commands as if they were mine.

              
“My second order is to prepare suitable clothing so that we may go down to the palace tonight to visit Queen Bethany.
 
And I want to bring Lady Jeswyne with us,” Alec told them.
 
“Danel, are there others we can rely on here in the city?”

              
“Captain Lewis has an entire battalion under her command temporarily as a reward for leading the mission that drove Michian out of Oyster Bay,” Danel reported.
 
“She is headquartered in an army base on the north side of town.

              
“I’m here on an approved pass, sir,” he added.

              
Alec grinned.
 
“I have no doubt.
 
Please go to her and tell her I have returned, and that I intend to take command of the Palace, then Oyster Bay, and then the Dominion.
 
I would like for her to report to me at the plaza in front of the Palace first thing after breakfast tomorrow morning.

              
“And Danel,” he added.
 
“My apologies for snapping at you.”

              
“No need to
apologize
sir,” Danel said.
 
“I just opened my mouth too fast.”

              
“Not the first time that’s happened,” Stracha said in a false whisper.

              
“I hope things will be alright between you and your lady,” Danel spoke.

              
“She is not my lady, not while I’m engaged to the Queen.
 
She is a very special person though, and she saved my life.
 
She deserves the best we can give her.
 
Let’s get going now,” Alec ordered, and people started moving in different directions, so that he was quickly left alone in the front hallway.

              
He sat on a bench, and reflected.
 
In this house, he and Cassie had slept after the Apprentice’s ball.
 
Here Bethany had kissed him after he had restored the drowned Cassie’s life.
 
And then he had left.
 
It had been his house, but he had spent only a handful of days here.
 
And now he feared Jeswyne would leave him because of something small and silly and misunderstood.
 
And in the name of honor, he would have to let her go if he couldn’t persuade her to stay.

              
Nestor returned with a set of robes, featuring the healer’s band stitched into the sleeve.
 
Alec thanked him,
then
switched into the new robes in a small room off the hall.

              
When he returned to the hallway, the others had already gathered, determined to not be the cause of delay for Alec’s journey to the Palace.
 
Jeswyne was with them, cleaned, her hair simply arranged, and wearing a plain white gown.
 
She refused to make eye contact with Alec.

              
“Let’s be on our way,” Alec said, and he led them out the door.

              
“Parnell told us he remembered being in the Healer House before the invasion,” Nestor tried to begin a conversation.

              
“But you were here long ago, weren’t you, my lord?” Parnell addressed Alec.
 
“Our folklore said that you restored the healer house after hundreds of years of abandonment.
 
And your first great feat, growing legs for a crippled girl, happened there.”

              
“That was Cassie, and the truth is that I healed her legs while I was still an apprentice living in the Warrior House.
 
There weren’t any recognized healers until then, and after I healed her legs, I was named a healer and allowed to restore the house,” Alec recounted.

              
“And I noticed that it was added on to while I was gone.
 
It’s larger than it was,” he explained as they walked out of the gate.

              
“And did you truly raise that fountain?” Constanc asked, pointing to the stony rock that bubbled up an unceasing stream.

              
“I did,” Alec admitted.

              
“It’s like walking with history,” Nestor said.

              
“Please!” Stracha retorted.
 
“Don’t give him such a big head already.
 
He’s still just a man: he hasn’t even figured out how to heal those scars on his face!”
 
She grinned at Alec.

              
“He lies just like a man,” Jeswyne added.

              
That halted the conversation, and they walked along the dark road until they came to a small entrance on the side of the palace.
 
“We’re here to check on her majesty,” Parnell told the guards, who recognized all the healers but Alec and Jeswyne.

              
“Bringing in some new cures?” one Guard asked, and Parnell nodded his head in agreement.
 
“Carry on,” the guard said, and raised the bar to let them through.

              
“We don’t have weapons,” Alec said to Parnell.
 
“Do we need to get some?”

              
“We’ve never carried any weapons in to see the queen before.
 
They frown on that,” Parnell replied.

              
Alec abruptly left the main hall and moved right.
 
“This is a short cut,” he announced, and the group scurried to catch up.

              
“How long were you here?” Alec asked Jeswyne, hoping that her frosty demeanor might have thawed.

              
“I was in this building for three days,” Jeswyne replied curtly, ending further conversation.

              
Moments later they emerged from a small pantry into a large hall, just steps away from a doorway where guards were alertly stationed, watching their arrival.
 
“We’ve come to try further treatment for her majesty,” Parnell told the guards, and they were allowed to enter the antechamber of the Queen’s suite.

              
“The queen is speaking with her advisors,” a guard told the contingent of healers who entered the room.

              
“We’ve brought two new healers to take a look at her condition.
  
They have great talents,” said Parnell, who was well known to the guards.

              
“We’ll allow the two to enter.
 
We don’t need a whole parade in the queen’s chamber,” a senior guard spoke up.
 
Parnell looked at Alec, who nodded assent.
 
The guard placed his hand on Alec’s shoulder and prompted him through the door, with Jeswyne close behind.
  
Alec though did not look back at the Michian girl; he only had eyes on the figure lying on the bed in the room before him.

Chapter 40 – Alec and Bethany

Alec walked forward as if in a daze, crossing the large room with his heart pounding loudly in his ears.

“Watch out, clumsy oaf,” said a man who Alec brushed against as he approached the bed.
 
He could see Bethany’s head resting on a pillow.
 
Her thin arms were on top of the covers.
 
Her hair was a pure silver color that remained becoming.
 
Her eyes were closed, but in her face Alec still recognized the girl he had loved so intensely so long ago.

“Bethany?” he called gently.
 
“Excuse me,” he said as he shouldered past an advisor next to the bed.
 
“Bethany, do you remember a night when you sat on a beach at the old stone quarry on Ingenairii Hill.
 
You had taken a young healer and his ward to a swimming party.
 
And you learned who had thrown the knife that cut your skirt in the back?”
 
Alec’s eyes began to swell with tears as he stood beside Bethany.
 
He reached out a hand to touch her arm, and released a dash of healing energy into her.

Her condition was grave, Alec could see.
 
Her organs were failing, her veins were collapsing, and her blood was thin.
 
He would have to use a great deal of energy, and take a lot of time, to restore her health.

Her eyes flew open.
 
Jeswyne had walked to the far side of the bed, and watched the faces of both Alec and Bethany.

“I remember that night,” Bethany said with a slight smile.
 
She looked up at Alec, intently examining his face.
 
“I hit him when he admitted the skirt story; I was so mad!
 
Then I almost kissed Alec that night for the first time.
 
Who are you?
 
How do you know that story?”

“You did kiss that night, when you tucked me in to bed, after we went back to the healer house.
 
Appel’s shout only delayed the kiss; it didn’t prevent it,” Alec said, sending another wave of energy into the queen.

“This is hardly appropriate,” one of the nearby advisors said loudly.
 
“You’re here to heal her, not badger her with old stories.
 
You’ll need to leave at once.”
 
He motioned for a guard to come and remove Alec.

“It’s me Beth.
 
I finally made it back,” Alec began to cry.
 
“They call me the demon-slayer instead of the crown protector now.
 
The world kept us apart for too, too long.
 
But I’m back and we’re together.”
 
He leaned over and swept his arms behind and underneath her, drawing her into a hug as he sat down on the edge of the bed, and infused her with more healing power.

“Oh Alec, it truly is you!
 
I feel your energy.
 
It’s you.
 
It was you who killed all those demons, wasn’t it?” Bethany wrapped her arms around Alec, and began to cry as well.
 
“I always hoped that someday you would come back.
 
Even after years and years, I’d sometimes wake up in the morning and wonder if it was finally the day you would return.

“Was it the energy realm that held you all these years?
 
Aristotle told us all after we got back that you were there.
 
He told us how you woke him and told him to save the rest of us, just before he saw you sprint off to fight the demon.
 
That was the last we knew.
 
Only the ingenairii knew – we never revealed that secret to the rest of them,” Bethany raised her head from his shoulder and looked at his face.

“The demon ambushed all the ingenairii as they entered the energy realm,” Alec told her.
 
“I went to Oyster Bay, and I saw all your bodies lying on cots, growing thinner and weaker, and I had to physically go into the realm to fight it to set you free.
 
After I found Ari and woke him up, I was trapped there, fighting the demon for fifty years; I couldn’t get away,” he felt compelled to explain.
 
“There was a curse on me for doing what I had to do to set you free.
 
And when I finally came back, well, you know the story.
 
More demons,” he told her.
 
His eyes shifted to Jeswyne’s face, whose eyes slid away immediately, embarrassed to be witnessing such an intimate moment.