Sul: From Gold to Iron and Rust: Book One of the Sulaai Trilogy by Jacqui Davis & Katy Grierson

Author:Jacqui Davis & Katy Grierson [Davis, Jacqui & Grierson, Katy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Logic Fairy Ltd
Published: 2023-04-02T04:00:00+00:00

Aysel liked wounded things. She liked weak things and sick things. She liked watching them die.

She could have left the whining king and his idiot cousin to go back to Cydric. She already had enough to tell her priest to make this farce worth it. But then she couldn’t see her prey come to its end. So she stayed, and she watched, and she revelled in it all.

They knew death was around them, even if they couldn’t admit it to themselves. People still spoke in whispers and slunk about in the shadows. Autumn rains came and brought with them the damp smell of rotting wood. Elmes drank more and got out of bed less. Illesy put more weight on his shoulders until they started to stoop from the burden everyone knew the king should be carrying.

Only Terrin thrived with his wet nurse, but even he wailed and cried when he was carried to Elmes. It pleased her when they stopped bringing him. The lively, little monster had no place here.

“He’s sick,” she told Illesy when she found him sitting alone at the head of an empty table.

A sun was carved on the surface, its rays pointing to him. They held meetings in this room, Illesy and the other men in charge. They thought it was a secret that they ruled while Elmes drank and dozed away his days in the room above them, but she listened and she knew. Soon the whole palace did too.

“We think he might be. Here. You must be hungry after all that running around.” Illesy leant across to the table and handed her some honeycomb.

She took it slowly, watching him suspiciously.

He waited until she had taken a bite and so could not speak. “Now, never are you allowed in the solar again. You should be watching Terrin and our Shining Light.” He handed her another treat. “Tell me, when one of your people gets sick, who do you send for to heal them?”

“Priests, but that never works.”

“What do the priests do?”

“They pray. They cut themselves and give their blood for the angels’ attention. They ask Metatron and his master, Father, to take away the sickness. But they don’t listen. Then when people think the priests aren’t watching, they send for witchdoctors.”

“Which doctors?”

She smiled. “Whichever one has the most magic.”

“I thought priests never liked magic?”

“They say they don’t, but most don’t like people dying more”

“How do you find a healer? Must I ask a priest?”

Aysel snorted. “You can’t ask a priest. They burn magic if they find it.”

Illesy hit the table with his hands. His eyes had bags under them, and there were new lines at the corners of his eyes. “Stop speaking in circles. I want to find a healer.”

“Then just ask for one,” Aysel said with a shrug.

“Just go.” Illesy waved her away with a sigh and slumped back into his chair.

They found Illesy his witchdoctor. A boy from the stables told him about one after it became common knowledge the southerners would pay well for the information.

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