The Archshade

Twenty-Four

The woman who spoke with Daynar moves between the bedrolls, a young girl at her side. Hard at work, the woman changes bandages, administers medicines, and doles out rations. When in sight of a patient, her face is bright and cheerful, but a drawn and weary countenance surfaces every time she turns away.

The little girl by her side resembles the woman so completely that there can be no doubt she's her daughter. She's solemn and quiet for a child, but she helps her mother with simple tasks, watching everything with big, bright eyes.

I search for Daynar. My gaze passes him over twice, thinking him a shadow in his observant position against the wall. When my eyes settle on him, he steps forward and kneels beside a bedroll in a secluded corner not far from my hiding place. Beneath the blankets, a young woman shivers violently with only her nose and eyes peeking out from under the covers.

I lean farther around the corner of the staircase, straining to see through the dim candlelight.

With the woman and her daughter preoccupied with the other patients, Daynar begins a strange ritual. He leans in close to the young woman, his ear hovering over her chest, listening. When he raises his head, he gently peels the blankets away from her face and places two fingers at the side of her neck, pressing against her vein. Her skin is gaunt and pale. Heaving a sigh, Daynar sits back on his heels, pausing as if to prepare himself for something.

Then, the prince removes his gloves.

My eyes refuse to blink, trapped by the strangled expectation of what I'm about to witness. His hands are withered and torn. In many places, his sallow skin is peeling off, revealing the lower layer of pink, sensitive flesh. Several fingernails are missing, and the ones which remain are cracked and bloodied. His knuckles are raw with what look like blister sores. I look closer. The sores cover his hands but even more gruesome are the patches of black along his flesh—places where his body is rotting like the wood of a tree. On his right hand, beneath his thumb, the tiniest glint of white bone peeks through dead and blackened muscle.

All the color drains from my face, and bile rises in the back of my throat. Though I manage to hold it back, I'm left with a hot wave of shame.

The Archshade brings his hands together and places the tips of his index fingers against the bridge of his nose like a meditating priest. Closing his eyes, he takes in a deep breath... then another... then a third. The air in the room changes, buzzing with a strange sort of energy. My skin tingles with the feel of it. After the third exhale, the Archshade separates his hands, lightly setting one on top of the other on the young woman's forehead. She doesn't even stir beneath his touch.

A subtle breeze gusts through the room. I snap my eyes towards the windows but each one is still boarded up tight. The candle beside the Archshade flickers and goes out, plunging him and the young woman into darkness. Trembling, I crouch down, but I refuse to look away.

From beneath the Archshade's hands, a light begins to grow—a dull yellow light, casting a narrow radius of disfigured shadows. The Archshade cups it between his palms, pulling the light away from the young woman. In an instant, the color returns to her skin. My lips part in awe as her skeletal cheeks fill in and her muscles tighten. Though her eyes flutter beneath their lids, she remains unconscious, unaware of her savior.

Once the young woman is restored, the Archshade squeezes the light, smashing it between his palms. Small beams try to escape between his fingers, but they soon fade, disappearing into his flesh. When the light is gone, the wind dies, and the candle springs back to life.

Before I can even attempt to make sense of what just happened, the Archshade opens his eyes and clutches his chest. He groans and tries to stand but crashes to the floor.

I bite my lip, holding myself back, fighting the urge to rush to his side.

His eyes turn wild and pinched with agony. Like an animal, Daynar groans and begins clawing at his face wrappings. He grips his chest again, slumping forward. His eyes shimmer with pain, and his breaths come in labored gasps.

I soon taste blood where I've bitten through my own lip.

His face wrappings hang half off. I can see part of his left cheek, and a patch of skin from his brow to his hairline, but even that is too much. His sickly, gray flesh is covered in scratches and grazes, barely hanging onto his pallid cheekbones and crooked nose. Dark, crusted blood lines every tear of his flesh while blotches of the same black rot fester beneath. I cover my mouth with my hands as pure horror holds my eyes to the patches of rot as they begin to spread. The surrounding veins turn black as the skin above darkens and blisters, falling away in flecks like ash.

The woman and her daughter rush over.

Daynar tightens the cloth covering his face, but I've already seen it all—the Rot eroding his flesh and decaying beneath his skin. Overwhelmed tears sting beneath my eyelids. My own skin crawls with imagined pains as my stomach threatens to empty.

As the woman and the little girl draw closer to Daynar, the worst of the cursed enchantment appears to be over. The prince's eyes return from wild and pained to weary and vacant, drained of any strength. He still clutches a hand to his chest, but his breathing slows, and his murky gaze seems to settle on me.

I duck back into the shadows of the stone staircase, but those haunting eyes linger in my mind—no trace of the intense green glass gaze I've come to recognize.

"My lord!"

At the sound of a fervent whisper, I peek back around the corner. Daynar, still a bit dazed, blinks as he struggles to sit up. The woman running the infirmary places a gentle hand on his back, her brow creasing with concern. From my vantage point, I can only hear some of her whispered words.

"... haven't rested... last time... visited," she mutters.

Daynar weakly rewraps his scarf around his face, hiding all traces of the black Rot. Calmly, he rises to his feet, and the woman grasps his arm, bracing him. He flinches at her touch but doesn't refuse the help. Daynar straightens up and brushes invisible specs of dust off his black robes. I cup a hand over my ear, straining to hear as he fixes the woman with a meaningful stare and speaks in a low, purposeful voice.

"I am needed here."

The woman shakes her head, grasping his hand in both of hers. I never even saw Daynar slip his gloves back on.

"Gracious Archshade, you will always be needed here, but you know as well as I do that some are in the hands of the Mother Goddess." Her voice wavers for a moment before she whispers, "We cannot save them all." She musters a weak, motherly smile. "Please, my lord, go now and rest."

With pain still in his eyes, Daynar reluctantly nods. "Very well..."

As the woman helps Daynar towards the front door, I bound up the stairs as quietly as I can, taking them two at a time. Hiding on the second-floor landing, I listen to the creak of the dilapidated front door, hear some muted farewells, then watch the woman return to the patients.

Slumping against the wall beside the staircase, I stare into space, trying to grasp some semblance of sense. I rest my forehead on my hand, trying to support all the thoughts jumbled together in my mind. Shock, awe, horror—they all seem too weak of words. Even all of them at once, rushing around and crashing into each other, is not enough. Nausea surges again in the back of my throat.

There's only one word which rises to the surface, forcing its way past all the others. Just one word.

Archshade...

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