nod, pretended to scan the list. Oh, I could pick out words here and there if I really worked at it, but mostly it looked like spider tracks tangling across the page. If I needed to know exactly what it said, I’d get Ibolya to read it for me. Or Sondra. But I was practiced in working around this particular limitation.
“What, in your estimation, Lord Dearsley, are the most critical concerns?” I asked, rolling up the scroll and tapping it on my knee.
The court erupted into a din of sound, different factions and delegations yelling all at once about their disasters.
“Silence!” I roared, the volume making my voice harsher than usual, the strain biting painfully. It worked, though. The room fell silent, everyone staring at me in shock and more than a little fear. I nearly ruined it by smiling. “There is one person in this room named Lord Dearsley,” I continued in a more reasonable tone. I stroked Vesno’s head to give the impression of calm. “Now then, Lord Dearsley? And remain seated. I can hear you fine.”
Dearsley cleared his throat. “As You say, Conrí. The chief concerns arise from the intensifying earth tremors and the ongoing storm. All seagoing traffic has halted, with a number of fishing ships lost at sea with no way to search for them. Three bridges have collapsed, isolating a number of communities. Two villages have been buried under mudslides, and the rain and earth tremors are preventing rescue efforts. Numerous coastal towns are so flooded their entire populations have evacuated to high ground, where they’re now stranded with sick and injured and no supplies. Plus a string of islands off the north shore seem to have sunk entirely. Those are the disasters involving the largest clusters of population, but there is suffering across all of Calanthe—children lost in swollen rivers, families missing, structures collapsing. It’s difficult to know where to start.” He smiled hopefully at me. “What do You think?”
I wished I’d never gotten out of bed.
* * *
Hours later, we’d made stopgap plans to address the most critical disasters, but I felt like I’d been running flat out only to slide back. For every decision we made—and I hustled those along as fast as I could—to fix what had already broken, three more reports arrived of additional disasters.
Lia hadn’t been exaggerating when she said Calanthe was unraveling. From what I’d learned in the past hours, the situation was accelerating at a daunting rate, and we could only slap a few bandages on it. We really needed to get Lia on the job of fixing the problem at the source. I could only hope some real food and more sleep had worked a miracle. When Vesno and I got to our rooms, however, Ibolya sweetly deflected me from checking on Lia.
“I just looked in on Her Highness, Conrí,” Ibolya said with a respectful curtsy. “She’s sleeping. It would be best not to disturb Her.”
“I won’t wake her.”
“Nevertheless, I can’t let You in.”
“Is she any better?”
Ibolya hesitated. “I can’t say.”
That meant no. From the look on Ibolya’s face, Lia was worse. “Did Healer Jeaneth look at her?”
“Yes. But…” Ibolya bit her lip, firmed it. “As Ambrose said, there’s nothing she can do. Her Highness needs food and rest.”
“Lia did eat, though?”
Ibolya knotted her fingers together. “She wasn’t able to keep it down,” she admitted.
Curse it all. I strained with the need to be with her. “I’d like to see Lia for myself.”
“For Her sake, Conrí—or Yours?”
For mine, of course. In my mind’s eye, I kept seeing her on that slab, white as death, cold as stone, lost to me forever. I needed to see the flush of life in her skin, to listen to her breathing. “For Calanthe’s,” I said, Vesno shoving his nose under my hand in comfort. “Things are getting worse.”
“Her Highness is not up to doing anything for us right now. We must let Her recover first.”
I shifted on my feet, tempted to shove the slight woman aside. Ibolya cocked her head, reading my intention—and I recalled Lia’s warning that all her ladies possessed thorns. The last thing I needed was to be knocked out and wake up hours from now with a headache worthy of a three-day bender.
I took a calming breath, deep enough that the scar tissue in my lungs twinged. “What’s the problem, Ibolya? I want to see my wife. That should be enough.”
“Conrí,” she said, very gently. “Her Highness specifically asked that I keep You away. I’m