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I was dying. I knew it as well as I knew my own name was Candale. No one would say it to me, of course. The healer would come and go, give me sad looks, talk softly to my father, or my grandfather, to my mother, or my sister, whoever happened to be in my room at the time, and then, she would leave, and I would be left alone with a quiet, worried relative. It wasn’t a surprise to me that I was dying. I had never been exactly strong, had suffered from fits all of my life, and more recently, I had just started to waste away, to lose weight, and to grow weak. I knew that I should fear death, I was only seventeen, but I didn’t. It would be a relief, I knew, an end to this charade of life

It had all started so quickly. Just over three months ago I had started to feel dizzy, and weak, and had headaches. I had gone to bed, thinking it would pass in a week, or two, that it was just a summer cold, and I had lain there feeling restless and hating myself for being ill.

Only it hadn’t passed, it had gotten worse, and quickly too. As the days had worn on into a month, my strength had left me and took from me the choice about whether I stayed in bed or not. As the months went on I reached the point that I was at now, barely able to move on my own, certainly not able to feed or wash myself, or do any of the other small things that I had taken for granted when I had been well. I even needed someone to help me to sit up, sometimes, or even, to turn me over. Sometimes pain racked my body, and I wept from it, and no one could do anything to stop it. My body was slowly wasting away while I lay in my bed, and everyone just watched because there was nothing else that anyone could do.

Some days were better than others.

On my bad days, I couldn’t move at all and the bed that had been such a comfort to me, had become a burden to me, it had become a snare that I couldn’t get free from. At times I felt as though I was drowning in it, I was lost amongst the heavy red coverings, unable to rise up, unable to move. All I could do was lie there, the covers a heavy weight on top of me, the room in still darkness around me, and I could barely even draw breath. That was on my weaker days, on the days when I knew that I was going to die, and wished that it would come soon and save me from this.

On the days when I had some strength, I could sit up. Sometimes, I could even be helped to sit on a soft plush chair by my window, carried there, of course, and wrapped in a blanket, but no one had offered to carry me to the window in nearly two weeks now, they must have thought I was too weak for such a thing, and the curtains of my room were always closed now, the garden hidden from my eyes. The window was closed, too, and my room was hot and stifling. It smelt of sickness, it smelt of death, and not even the waxy scent of slowly melting candles, or the roses my mother had brought me in from her garden, could really mask that. The roses were dying now, wilting and crumbling in the crystal vase. I tried not to look at them for long. They were dying flowers for a dying child.

I longed to be carried out into the castle gardens, to lie on the soft summer grass, feel the sun on my face, smell the roses, and die out there, quietly and slowly, surrounded perhaps by my family, or even on my own. It didn’t matter, as long as I was outside, in the light. I didn’t want to die in here in the dark.

Only they were not going to let me go that easily. My grandfather was king, King of Carnia. I was his heir, and though I had a sister who could take the throne when I died, she did not want it, and my parents were determined to fight nature, to fight what I knew was only the natural path of things, and they would do all that they could to keep me alive. In their eyes, I had to live, no matter how I felt to the contrary.

So the healers came, and the healers went. I grew weaker, so weak that I could do nothing for myself, yet I didn’t die, I just lived on, in pain, a withered boy lying in that huge, four-poster bed, surrounded by heavy blood red coverings.

My bedroom door creaked open, bringing with it a blast of light, as my sister, Aylara, stuck her head around the door, a mischievous grin lighting up her face.

"You look terrible, Candale," she said. "Like a living skeleton."

"Thanks," I said. I struggled to sit up right, pulling myself up against the red silken cushions, shoving them as best as I could to support my back and shoulders. I could not sit up without them. Moving like this hurt, made my arms ache and in the end, Aylara had to come over and help me, holding me up as best as she could while she arranged the cushions behind me. This was a good day for me, one where I could sit up, more or less by myself, and move the pillows behind me, even if I was too tired to finish the task. "Thanks," I said again, genuinely this time.

Her blue eyes were sad as they looked at me, and she reached out to brush at my hair. "Would you like to go outside?" she asked.

"I would love to," I said. "But I can’t walk."

"I am not asking you that, ‘Dale. I am asking if you want to go outside."

"Then, yes, I do."

"All right."

She walked away; leaving me slumped there against the soft cushions of the bed. I stared after her, watching as she left my bedroom, and closed the door behind her. What had that been about? Why had she helped me to sit up like this, if she was just going to leave? In fact, why had she even come to see me? Just to ask me if I wanted to go outside? Of course I did. She knew that. I talked about it a lot. How I had wanted to spend my summer swimming in the lake, and hunting, attending balls and banquets, and I asked her to tell me all about everything that I was missing, though she always insisted that I wasn’t missing much, the balls, the banquets and the hunts were all quiet affairs, solemn rather than festive. I was not sure I believed her.

The door opened again and Aylara returned. This time, she had Lord Kal with her. Kal was a good friend to both Aylara and me, and she brought him to see me fairly often, so it was no surprise to see him with her now. Kal did sometimes come and see me on his own, and brought me gifts, too, to ease my boredom. He was a few years older than me, being twenty-three, but he had always been in my life and we were very close friends. He had taught me to hunt with birds as well as with dogs, and the first time I had gotten drunk was with him. He was a major part of my life, but he was more than that for Aylara, they were courting, even though my sister was still fairly young, and they would be officially betrothed soon. Though I doubted I would live to see it.

"I will take the blanket and pillows downstairs," my sister said. "You can carry ‘Dale for me." I watched her, in silent amazement, as she opened the carved chest that stood at the foot of the bed and helped herself to two blankets and a spare pillow. Kal, meanwhile, was picking up my black silk robe from over the arm of the chair in the corner of my room. Then he approached me.

"Father won’t like this," I said.

"Father isn’t here," Aylara replied. "And I will take full responsibility for this."

"You have to," I said softly. "I . . . I find it hard enough to breathe at the moment, let alone explain anything to him."

Kal studied me, and then he half turned toward my sister. "Maybe we shouldn’t," he said. "He looks terrible, maybe your father is right, perhaps rest is the best thing for him."

"I-I have rested all summer," I said. "I . . . I had to lie in this room, i-in the heat . . . and I haven’t seen the sun in ages, l-let alone felt it on my face. I-I want to go outside." I forced myself to smile at Kal, though my face ached. "Please?" I would have begged him, if I could. Got down on my hands and knees and begged, if I thought that for one minute I had the strength to move. I wanted to go outside. I wanted to smell the fresh air, feel the sun on my face, hear the birds, so much. So much I wanted this.

"Just bring him, Kal," Aylara said. She left the room carrying the blankets with her, and Kal helped me into my robe. Then he bent over to lift me up into his arms. I put my arms around his throat, holding tightly to him.

"You hardly weigh anything, my prince," Kal whispered. His face had turned ashen, his soft brown eyes were shadowed.

"I know," I said. "I-I know. I-I am tall though. D-don’t bang me on anything."

Kal laughed. "You are the clumsy one," he said. "All legs and arms, always colliding with things or falling over. I think I can manage to carry you outside without you hitting anything." He lifted me higher in his arms and carried me out of my bedchamber.

I hadn’t left my bedchamber room in three months. I could barely even remember what the rooms beyond it looked like. I knew that there was another bedchamber, adjacent to my own, with a door that led into it from my own room. It was where my nursemaid had slept when I was a child, and where, sometimes, when I was really bad, a healer would stay. There was a small sitting room attached to that bedchamber, and somewhere I had a study, too, and a bathing chamber, but I hadn’t seen any of those rooms since I had fallen ill.

Since I had started to die.

Kal carried me through my almost forgotten sitting room, now, with its colourful tapestries on the walls, and my own sketches and drawings, in charcoal and paints. I remembered how often I used to just sit in that room, in one of the soft blue cushioned chairs, playing chess with my father, or reading a book, or drawing. I couldn’t remember the last time I had played a game of chess with my father, or even, felt strong enough to lift a stick of charcoal. I loved to draw, and looking at my pictures, as Kal carried me through, I realised how much I missed it.

"I have forgotten what it feels like to stand on my own two feet," I told Kal. "Sometimes, I can’t remember being well. Feels like I have been ill forever."

"No," Kal said. "You haven’t. Not so long ago you were in trouble for climbing out onto the castle roof, do you remember?"

I laughed softly as the image came back to my mind, of how it had been, that spring evening, climbed up on one of the castle roofs, watching the sunset, feeling the cold breeze against my face. It was before I had fallen ill, before all of this had happened to me. "I do remember," I said softly. I clung a little tighter to Kal’s strong body as he started to go down the stairs. "Am I getting heavy?" I asked.

"No," he said. He met my eyes just briefly. The worry was still there. "You weigh less than your sister." He flushed. "Less that a kitten."

"When are you going to marry Aylara?" I asked.

Kal hesitated. "Candale." Then he sighed. "After."

"After?" Then it came to me. "Oh. A-after I am dead?"

"Yes."

I swallowed tightly, trying to swallow back the lump that had formed in my throat. "S-so you think I am going to die?"

"I-I don’t know," he said. "Aylara fears it. She cries about it nearly every day. S-she isn’t ready for marriage yet, Candale, and she says that she won’t even think about it while you are ill. No one knows how to make you better, Candale, and you cannot go on being ill forever. You will either get better on your own or . . ."

"Or I will die."

"Yes."

"I-I don’t fear death," I said softly. "I-I sometimes think it will be easier than living like this. I-I hate not being able to do anything for myself."

"I know."

He had to kick open the garden door to take me outside. It was my mother’s gardens that he had taken me to, her own private area of grass, and trees and flowers, mostly roses, in all the colours. Peacocks wandered around it, happily making a lot of noise, and the males flashed their beautiful tail feathers. It was where my sister and I had played together as children, where I went sometimes, to be alone, when I was able to walk and to make a choice like that for myself.

It was a warm day, not as hot as the middle of summer would have been. There was a pleasant breeze, and the leaves on the trees were already turning golden brown. I could smell the heady scent of my mother’s roses, and I sighed softly. I had longed for this, even in my sickest days, I had longed for this, dreamed of this, of the garden, of the roses, of the sun.

Aylara had spread out a blanket for me, and arranged the pillows, and Kal set me down gently, pausing to tighten the sash of my robe around my waist.

"Oh," I whispered slowly. "Oh, I love this."

"I thought that you might," my sister said. She covered me over in the second blanket. "Warm enough?"

"Too warm," I said. She eased the blanket down, to lie around my middle, and soothed my hair. "Better. Thank you."

"This is a good idea, right, ‘Dale? Y-you aren’t too tired for this?"

"No." I shut my eyes. "This is lovely. I-I am just going to lie here, with my eyes shut, for a moment or two. I-I won’t be asleep, I will just be resting." I opened my eyes again to look at Aylara, and lifted my hand as best I could to shake my finger at her. "So no talking about me."

"We have better things to talk about than you, ‘Dale."

"No, you don’t," I said. I closed my eyes. "The world revolves around me."

Though my eyes were shut, I could tell that Aylara was smiling at me. "Of course it does, ‘Dale. Of course."

I laughed softly, and lay still.

I listened to the sound of the birds, for a while, and just enjoyed feeling the sun on my face. It was remarkable how alive and real everything felt outside in the fresh air and in the sunshine. In my room time seemed to stop. There seemed to be nothing else alive, there were no other sounds, no other presence except of those who visited me, and when I was alone, it felt as though there was only me. I had forgotten how good just the sound of a bird singing could be, or of a cricket chirruping. The windows in my room were not opened, for fear that I would catch a summer cold, and it would kill me. It was so nice now to feel the wind on my face, to feel it blowing through my hair. I felt alive. Even as weak as I was, as tired as I was, I felt alive.

My sister and Kal were talking, just gossiping really. It was so strange to listen to their soft voices and to think about how much I had missed lying in that sterile room of mine. I had been detached from the rest of the world, because while I had been lying in that bed, dying slowly, the rest of the world had gone on without me. People had gone on having arguments, falling in love, having babies, getting drunk, continuing with their lives the way that they before I had fallen ill. My presence, or lack of it, had made no difference. The world didn’t need me in it. The world could go on without me, and it was strange to realise that. To realise just how much things had not changed around me, while for me everything had stopped.

Aylara started to talk about my parents. "They keep fighting," she said quietly. "Mother is not even talking to father now, I think. They were so quiet at dinner last night, and then she just left, before the second course was even brought out, and father didn’t say a word to her."

"I wish I had been there," Kal whispered, "and offered you support. I know how hard this is for you."

I struggled to open my eyes, they felt so heavy, so limp. "Why are they arguing?" I asked softly.

Aylara didn’t look up at me. She had picked daisies and was threading them together to make a chain, as we had done when we were children. She always resembled a doll, my pretty sister, and now she resembled one more than ever with those daises in her lap. She was a sixteen year old doll, with long, blond hair, and large blue eyes that were framed by the longest eyelashes I had ever seen on anyone. She set the fashion trend, my pretty small sister, was the centre of Court life, even when she didn’t try to be. And she always looked as though looking beautiful took no trouble at all, but I knew that wasn’t the case, having been forced to wait for her for several hours while she got ready for something as simple as a hunting trip.

"I thought you were asleep," she said. "I-I would not have mentioned it if I knew you were awake."

"Why?" I whispered. I licked my lips. My mouth was dry. Kal must have realised as he leaned in toward me with a mug of water. I realised then, that they had brought out some food with them, and had wine that they were drinking. I sipped the water gratefully, spilling most of it down my chin and throat. Kal smiled at me as he cleaned it up with the corner of the blanket, and then he settled me back down again. "They are my parents, too. Besides, I-I told you I wasn’t going to sleep."

"I didn’t want to worry you." She set the chain of daises down and gave me a sad look with her large blue eyes. "They argue all the time, Candale. I don’t think they have said one word to each other in the last few days that has not been angry, or hostile in some way, or even, just coldly polite."

"I-is it my fault?" I whispered. "Are they fighting about me?"

"Yes," Aylara replied.

I closed my eyes again. "I am going to die," I said softly. "There isn’t any real point to argue about me. What can they do?"

"You aren’t going to die," Aylara said.

"Yes, I am," I whispered. "Come on, ‘Lara. I don’t mind it. I am not afraid of death. I-it will be easier to take than this." I was beginning to feel very tired, that familiar heavy feeling was washing over me, and everything was turning dark. I moaned softly, and struggled to draw the blanket over me. Kal leaned over and smoothed it carefully up to my shoulders.

"Do you want to go back inside?" he asked me gently.

"No. I-I can sleep here. I-in a minute." I settled down, gripping the blanket tightly in my hands. "’Lara, I-I can talk to them, if you want? T-tell them not to argue about me. W-what are they saying?"

"T-they say," she hesitated. "Well, mother says that you are her son, that it is worth anything if a cure can be found for you, and father says that you aren’t going to die. You are just weak, that she is overreacting. And then mother talks about this woman, Mayrila, and father gets really angry at her, and then the argument moves onto other things. Balls and banquets, about how mother isn’t making a big enough effort, and she will accuse him of being a ‘cold and callous bastard,’ and it goes back to arguing about you. I-it’s not always about you, ‘Dale. It just seems to end up being about you most of the time. They are so worried about you, and I don’t think mother can sleep, and she cries so often, it just makes things hard for them."

"She doesn’t come to see me often," I said. Everything was getting heavy. The relaxing sound of the birds sounded like a loud intrusion in my ears now, the peacocks loud crowing like a screech for the dying. I longed for some peace and quiet. Darkness was swelling around me. I needed to sleep.

"She comes when you sleep. She finds it easier." I felt warm fingers against my face, in my hair, and my sister’s sweet perfume as she leaned over to kiss my temple. "Go to sleep, then, ‘Dale. Sleep well, and have good dreams. And maybe when you wake, and you feel better, because I know that you will, you will come swimming with me. I-it really is no fun without you to splash me and pull on my legs."

I struggled to grin at her, though I didn’t open my eyes. "First thing I shall do, when I am well, is splash you, ‘Lara," I promised.

They fell silent for a while, to let me sleep.

I woke up as the world suddenly moved around me. I gasped, opening my eyes and found myself staring up at the bearded countenance of Davn, one of my father’s men, a member of the Royal Guard, but he served my father exclusively, rather than the royal family as a whole. He had lifted me up into his arms. I could hear my sister berating him. "He wants to stay outside," she snapped. "Davn, put him down."

"I do not take orders from you, my princess," Davn replied. "But from your father. Please bring in the blankets. Do not leave them out here to get wet."

"I will not," she snapped. "Put him down now!" She sounded like a child, I imagined that any minute she would stomp her foot, and toss her hair, as she often had as a child, having a temper-tantrum.

"I will not," Davn said.

"Please," I whispered. Davn looked down at me. His brown eyes were cold, hard, almost black. He looked weary of me, as though being sent outside to fetch me, to take me inside, was more effort than he could be bothered with. I got the feeling he wished that I would just die, to make things easier for him, and for everyone. "Please? I really want to stay outside." Every word was an effort to speak; I could barely hear my own voice.

"No," he said simply, a sharp end to the argument, at least, as far as he was concerned. I wasn’t going to give up that easily. I was going to die, and damned if I was going to die in that bedroom of mine without having spent one last afternoon in the sun.

"Let him stay," Kal said. "I will take him in later, put him to bed. The prince is fine. We are looking after him."

"If you can call that looking after him, then yes, you were. Prince Gerian does not consider it looking after, and as I take my orders from him, I am taking Prince Candale back inside, and putting him to bed." He turned and walked away from my sister then, carrying me across the grass in his arms, wrapped up still in one of the blankets. I gasped softly, and started to struggle in his arms, wriggling about, trying to strike his shoulders, demanding that he just put me down, but my blows can’t have felt like anything more than a snowflake falling on a snowman, and he just ignored me.

"I am going to talk to my father about this!" I heard my sister yell.

"Do that, Princess," Davn said, calling back over his shoulder, and then we were inside.

"Please," I said again, as Davn carried me back upstairs to my bedroom. I was so aware of the looks passing servants and courtiers were giving me. They were looks of pity, as I was carried back to my chambers in my nightgown and robe, begging to be taken back outside. My words fell on deaf ears. "Oh, for Drakan’s sake, please let me go. I-I was fine; it felt good to be outside, in the fresh air. M-my room smells o-of sickness, and it’s so hot in there."

"It is not up to me," Davn replied. "I am sorry."

"No," I whispered. "No you aren’t."

"No," Davn agreed. "I am not. You should have stayed in your room."

"Why?" I whispered. "W-why can’t I just be outside? T-the summer is nearly over now, and I never got to do anything that I wanted. I know that I am ill, but I just want to e-enjoy what is left of the summer."

"You are an embarrassment, Candale," Davn replied. He took me through into my bedroom and dropped me unceremoniously down onto my bed. "You are supposed to be your father’s heir. You are the only son, the eldest child, you are meant to be king, one day, and you are weak and pathetic like a child. Worse, because at least most children can walk and feed themselves, and bathe themselves. You are weak and pathetic like an old, old man." Unceremoniously he pulled off my dressing gown, and tugged the heavy covers back up around me. I just goggled at him; I couldn’t believe that he had spoken to me like that. Before I had fallen ill, everyone had treated me as a prince should be treated, with respect, and dignity, and awe. As a sick prince I had become a patient, someone to scold for not taking his medicine, someone to prod and poke, to strip and wash without regard for my embarrassment, someone who wasn’t even worth talking to, as most of my healers spoke about me, over my head, as though I wasn’t there. Now it seemed I was less than that. Not even a patient. Now I was just a nothing, a no one, and Davn could talk to me how ever he wished. No one had spoken to me like that before, and it hurt. I could feel tears in my eyes. "Have you not seen yourself in the mirror?"

"No," I gasped.

Davn walked away from me and picked up my silver shaving mirror from the top of my dressing table. He returned and held it before me. "There," he said. "See what your parents are so ashamed of. See why they argue so much. See why you have to stay in your room, out of the way, so no one has to see what you look like now."

I blinked and reached out to take the mirror from him, struggling to curl my fingers around it. I couldn’t hold the heavy weight of the silver frame up, and with a muttered oath, Davn took it from me, and moved it closer to my face. I blinked again, and then I found myself staring at a face I barely recognised.

I had never thought much of the way I looked. I had been told I was really attractive. When I had been well my hair had been dark and curling, thick inky hair, like my mother’s, that had hung down to brush my shoulders and had framed my face. My eyes were large, and violet, and my chin was pointed. It was an almost feline face I had often thought, on the odd moments when I had thought about myself much at all. Now the changes were so drastic, I barely looked like me. My hair was limp, and dull with grease, it even felt thinner as it rested against my head, and it no longer curled so wildly around my face, just stuck there. There were shadows around my bloodshot eyes, and they appeared so dark, so empty. Not violet anymore, just a flat, muddy colour. My lips were so white, almost colourless, and my cheeks were sunken, showing up my high cheek bones even more drastically, and I was so pale. I had always had very pale skin, I used to burn in the summer if I went out and about for too long, uncovered, but now I was a sickly unhealthy colour, almost yellow in hue. There was a thin, patchy layer of youthful beard on my face. Not full, not healthy. I looked like the living skeleton that Aylara had called me. I had thought she was just teasing me, and now I knew that she hadn’t been. I looked terrible. I looked as though I was already dead.

I touched my face gently with my fingers, feeling the bones, the sunken cheeks, and then I saw what my illness had done to my hands. I had seen them before, of course, seen my whole body when the healers washed me, only, I had not stopped to think anything of it. Now that Davn had drawn my attention to it, I noticed them. My hands were so thin, the skin was nearly translucent, I could see the bones, the tendons, beneath the skin. They looked so fragile, as though the skin was just wispy yellow paper wrapped around my fragile skeleton. I had always been slim, and now I was wasted. I was a mess. I did not even look like myself anymore.

Tears started to run down my face.

"Do you see?" Davn asked me coldly. "Why you are an embarrassment to your father and your grandfather?"

"They love me," I said softly. "I-I do not embarrass them, they love me."

"Yes. They love you, but they wish that you were not their heir. They wish that they had a stronger boy to call their own. One not prone to fits, one who is not now slowly wasting away, one who did not just leave his room and show the whole castle how sick and wasted he really is! You are an embarrassment, Candale. They love you, but they wish that you were not their blood."

"T-they would not say this to you," I whispered, my voice felt so thick. It was hard to talk. I longed to yell at him, to tell him that this wasn’t true, but I couldn’t. Fear had gripped me. What if this was true? What if this was the way that my own father was talking about me behind my back? And my grandfather, the king, the man who had taught me to ride, who had given me my first horse, who came to see me as often as he could while I lay sick, and brought me sweet cakes and biscuits from the kitchen, and made me promise not to tell the healers or my parents, who both insisted I live on broth and porridge. I loved my grandfather. He knew all my secrets, I trusted him as Aylara trusted Kal. He would not really speak about me this way.

"No," Davn said. "They do not. I am not of their blood for them to tell me this; I can just see it in their eyes. They just want you to die, Candale. It will be easier on everyone than all this waiting. Look at you now, crying, just because I speak the truth. You are not a man, Candale. You are just a child, and you are dying." There was a barely masked sneer on his face as he said that. He took pleasure in speaking these words to me, and I wondered, not for the first time, what it was that I had done to make him dislike me so strongly.

"Yes," I said softly. "I probably am, b-but you still can’t speak to me this way."

"Can’t?" Davn raised an eyebrow at me. "I do not see why I can’t. It is the truth." There was such a smug tone of self-righteousness in his voice, as though he had every right to say this to me, because even though he knew it hurt me, even though I was his prince and he should have treated me with respect, he felt that I deserved to hear these words, and that self-righteous tone angered me more than the words alone did. I was determined to face this. I knew that he saw this as our last meeting, the one before I died, and I knew, too, that neither of us had anything left to lose speaking so freely to each other, but I was damned if I was going to let him win this battle of wills.

I struggled upright, and Davn stood there with his arms folded across his chest to watch me. He was almost amused by my struggles, by my gasps of pain and the sweat that beaded my forehead, ran down my face, and started to soak my nightshirt. Sitting upright was costing me more strength than anything should, but I was determined. And finally, when I was upright, I lifted my eyes to meet his. "Dying or not," I said softly. "I am still your prince." Davn’s eyes narrowed. "Y-you will treat me with respect."

"Perhaps when you have earned it," Davn began.

"Whether you feel I have earned it or not, it is immaterial. I am a prince. I am Sorron’s grandson and you will respect me, o-or I will have you flogged." His eyes flashed fire at me now. Seventeen years I had known Davn, my entire life, and he had never once spoken to me as a prince, never once been respectful toward me. Before my parents he might call me ‘Sire’ and do as I asked, and bow when he should, but there was always a mocking glint to his eyes. He had been friends with my father for years; he felt I was a disappointment, that perhaps my father deserved better in a son. And perhaps Gerian did, but it was not Davn’s place to say that. Davn was nothing more than my father’s bodyguard. He was not a man in any position to speak this way, or treat me as he had done. For years I had put up with it, I would not anymore. "Now, I want you to put my mirror back on the table," and I held it out to him, "and then get out of my rooms."

"I am not your servant, my prince" Davn said. "I do as your father tells me."

"Put the mirror back onto my table," I repeated, "and then get out of my rooms." My voice croaked, and died toward the end of my sentence, but I managed to get it all out. Davn just stared at me, and for a moment, I really feared that he would not as I had asked, and I could not force him. Even when I had been well, I had not had the strength, physically or mentally, to make this man do anything that I asked, and I was far from well now.

But he took the mirror from me. His eyes spat with anger, and there was a hard line to his shoulders that was his anger barely held in check. I feared that perhaps, if I were well, he might have hit me. Prince or no prince, Davn had never had respect for me. He had never hit me before, but then, I had never dared to stand up to him in any way before either.

But Davn didn’t hit me. He turned away with a contemptuous, angry look in his eyes, and set my mirror down onto the table with over-exaggerated care, and then he left my rooms. The bedroom door slammed shut behind him, and with a gasp, I collapsed back against the pillows, and I started to cry.

I wept for a really long time. My body shook with sobs beyond my control, and the pain I felt deep inside my stomach seemed endless, a giant hole inside me that threatened to swallow me. I was going to die. I knew it. I had feared it, and thought it, and considered it, as I lay in my room at night, unable to sleep. I had believed it, and yet, it hadn’t seemed real to me, and now I had seen my face in the mirror, seen the ravages that my illness had done to me, and I knew I was going to die. I was going to wither away to nothing, if I could indeed wither away anymore. I was going to slowly rot, lying in this red draped bed, with the smell of my own illness and rotting flesh in my nose. I was going to die here, in this bed, and never see the winter. Never make a snowman, or throw balls of snow at my sister and Kal. I was not even going to go to the Summer Dance, dressed in the black breeches embroidered with silver, and the tight fitting violet doublet that I had had ordered from the tailor during the early stages of my illness while I lay in bed, and still thought that I would get well again. I doubted it would even fit me now, I was so thin. They would probably bury me in it. I hiccupped miserably. I was going to die here, and there was nothing that I could do.

When arms encircled my shoulders, I was surprised, and I was eased against a strong set of shoulders. The arms around me were so strong, so tight, that I felt crushed, and lost, and yet, so safe, caught up in this stronger grip. I felt soft velvet beneath my fingers. My grandfather, dressed as he always was, in blue, to match his eyes. It was what had given him the nickname of ‘The Sky King.’ I had not seen him in three days, affairs of state always kept him so busy, and I missed him, and I didn’t want him to ever see me like this, but now he was here, with his arms around me, and I could smell that familiar scent of his, and feel his greying blond shoulder length hair brushed against my face, I couldn’t stop myself from crying.

"I am so sorry," he whispered. "I really am." He eased me back with gentle hands, propping me up against the pillows, and I rubbed my eyes and my nose on the sleeve of my nightshirt with a heavy, numb arm. Sorron frowned at me and produced a soft handkerchief, edged in expensive white lace, from one of his pockets. "Candale, really," he chastised me softly. He settled me back against the pillows of my bed, and soothed at my hair. The light caught on the ring on his finger. The king’s seal ring. I had a seal of my own, it sat on my dressing table in a box, and I doubted it would fit my finger now. I was never going to wear that king’s seal ring.

"Why?" I hiccupped at last. "Why are you sorry? What did you do?"

"I am sorry for allowing your sister to take you outside," he said softly. "I feared that it would be too much for you, but she insisted that it wouldn’t, that they would take care of you."

"I-I wasn’t crying about that," I whispered. "I loved being outside. Y-you didn’t tell my father that it was all right though? H-he ordered me brought back in."

"Your father does not see your illness the way that I and your mother do. He thinks that you will get better on your own, that these healers are a waste of time, that all you need is rest. Three months of rest is not enough, apparently you need more, but rest is all that he believes you need." He wiped at my eyes with his handkerchief. "Would you like some water?" I nodded my head, and watched as he leaned over to my bedside table to pour me a glass of water. "If it wasn’t that you were tired, then why were you crying?"

"I-I don’t want to die," I said.

Sorron turned to look at me sharply, spilling the water down the side of the glass. He barely seemed to notice. "Who told you that you were going to die?" he demanded.

"N-no one told me," I whispered. "I-I fear it, and then, I saw m-myself in the mirror a-and what else can I think? I-I don’t even look like myself anymore." I swallowed painfully. "T-the water," I whispered. "Please?"

"Oh. Of course." My grandfather supported my head as he let me sip the water. I drank slowly, trying not to spill it as I had earlier, not wanting to embarrass myself any further before my king, only I doubted that Sorron noticed. He was not being my king. He was being my grandfather. There was concern in his blue eyes, and I saw then how tired he was. There were shadows around his eyes, and bags beneath them. He had lost weight, too. He had never been a large man, neither he, nor my father, nor myself, but he was tall, and strong, and now, he seemed thinner somehow. Was it worrying about me that had done this to him? "Better?" I nodded. "Good boy." Sorron set down the glass, and then settled me back down on the bed, the heavy covers soothed over me so that I couldn’t move. "Who let you look in the mirror?"

"I-I insisted," I lied. "I-I wanted to. I-it has been three months since I last saw my face." I was covering for Davn, not for his sake, really, but for my own, and for that of my father. The last thing I thought that any of us needed, on top of my illness, was to worry about the inappropriate way that my father’s bodyguard and advisor had spoken to me. I wondered if Davn would appreciate my silence. I doubted it. He probably saw it as part of my honour to keep silent about our conversation, something that I had to do, and he probably wouldn’t have expected me to even consider telling my grandfather about it. It was no one else’s business but our own, after all.

Sorron frowned. "You look terrible, Candale," he said. "Yes, you do. And yes, I can see how you would think that you were going to die. Your mother, your father, your sister, they all fear it." He grabbed both my hands suddenly, holding them tightly. "But I am not going to let that happen."

I tried to laugh, only it came out hollow and I started to cough. The coughs shook my body, and the more I coughed, the harder it became to stop it. My grandfather gathered me up, held me upright, as I coughed and spluttered in his arms. I felt a tightness in my stomach, and my chest started to hurt, as my body shook. I could feel something bitter in my mouth, a familiar copper taste, and when the coughing fit finally died, and I wiped my mouth on the back of my head, I found blood there. "Oh," I whispered. "Oh. Oh gods." I collapsed in his grip and he had to lower me back down onto the soft cushions of the bed. Then he leaned toward me silently, and wiped my hand with his handkerchief, smearing red blood across the white silk. There was fear in his eyes, and I had never seen him look so afraid. Or so ghostly white. "N-not even you can stop death, grandfather," I gasped miserably. "Y-you can have nearly anything that you want, as king, b-but not even you can keep death away from me. W-winter is going to kill me." I shut my eyes tightly so I wouldn’t have to see that look in his eyes, and felt fresh tears run down my cheeks, stinging the sore skin. I moaned miserably. "It’s going to kill me."

"No," he snapped, suddenly angry at me. "No, my boy. I am not going to let that happen to you. I am not going to let you die. Look at me." I didn’t open my eyes, just turned my head away slowly. I didn’t have the strength to turn my whole body away from him, I could only move my head. "Candale, I am telling you to look at me. Now!" So I turned back to face him, and I opened my eyes. The look he gave me was hard, determined, and I felt comforted by it. "I am not going to let you go easily, Candale. I am going to do all that I can for you."

"I-I thought that all that could be done for me had been done. All those healers. S-some of them from so far away, and some were so famous. I-I thought that all that had been done had been done. Why would you hold something back from me if you thought that it could save me?" I blinked back the fresh swelling of tears I felt. "Why would you let me suffer like this?"

"Not me, Candale." Sorron soothed my hair. "Your father. He does not like the one who I know can save you, he does not trust her, and he fears what will happen to you if we let her near you. He is your father, and he is worried for you, so I just let him go on bringing those healers in, letting him do whatever he could. Now I am going to take charge, as I should have done before." His touch was soft as he settled me down, settling the covers smoothly around me. I was so tired now, so drained, perhaps he could see it in my eyes. I let them flicker shut again. "Do you trust me?"

"Yes, sir," I whispered. I licked my dry and cracked lips. "You know that I do."

"Then trust me on this. I am not going to let you die." He hesitated. "It might be a high price to pay for your life, Candale. It might prove to be a harsh price that we all suffer for a long time, but I think that it is worth it."

"I agree," I said softly, sleepily. The darkness was closing around me. "Stay?" I whispered. "Please? J-just until I fall asleep?"

"Of course, Candale." The hand left my hair and moved over to grasp my wrist. His fingers were warm and strong, soothing against my own fingers gently. I felt his touch soothing me as the darkness swarmed around me, and pulled me down.