Chapter Six.
Zea bid them rest after their fight with the troll even though Adriel did not want to rest in case there were anymore fowl creatures lurking in the save, and Micah insisted upon taking watch while the other two slept – they had both been hurt in the fight and he had slept long enough when the magic had knocked him out.
After much argument Adriel agreed begrudgingly but he refused to let Micah lay out the bedding they had brought in their packs; he moved away from the others and began to set up camp for himself, ever so often casting furious looks back over his shoulder.
"Ignore him." Zea said softly, her hand still pressed to her side where the tolls huge hand had knocked into her.
"Oh, I am." Micah said coldly, looking at Adreil's back as the Prince laid out the bedroll, he glanced back to Zea and his eyes lingered upon her side where she was still holding herself. "How badly did it hurt you?"
"Not much." Zea said but she winced as she moved to sit down upon a nearby rock.
Micah regarded her for a moment, taking in her build and her stature – it did not look like sprites where built much different from humans and he knew about the human anatomy and how to heal it.
"Let me look," he said. "It's what I am apprenticed for, after all."
Zea seemed uncertain for a moment but then the uncertainty faded from her face and she grasped the hem of her dress, pulling the leaf-sown garment over her head.
Micah blushed, unsure where to look because underneath her simple robe Zea was completely naked.
Micah had not seen many women naked only two others in fact.
Rosalia, once, when she'd been feverish and stripped for an ice bath. Her maid Nicolette had not been fast enough in shoving him outside the princess's room and he had seen her, pallid skin glistening with sweat and long, poppy-red hair cascading over her shoulders and down her back.
The other had been Maud, one of the washing girls who'd come to him for help when she was with child and did not want Benardo, Micah's teacher and master, to know. Benardo would have unquestionably told her Mistress and then Maud would lose her place, being unmarried as she was. Micah had given her poisonous herbs to educe a miscarriage and arranged for her to have some time to recover and grieve.
The first time had been so quick and the second carried out in secret with each party jumping at any sound that now with Zea perfectly naked and untroubled Micah was suddenly flushed and flustered.
He glanced quickly over to see if Adriel was looking and to make him shut his eyes if he was but the prince was already asleep, his bravado only a cover for his tiredness so Micah turned back to Zea, swallowed his nervousness and lent forward.
His hands gently pressed into her side, feeling the bones there for any breaks, bruising was already coming up; horrid and purple upon her autumnal leaf skin.
"You've got some bones broken." He said in a half whisper because he'd just noticed something else, something that made him sick to his stomach. All the way up Zea's back the skin was red and blistered in horrible chris-cross patents. Micah recognised the paten and the blistering; his own back had been the same way over the years from the whippings he had received for being lazy or rude or any other sins he committed in the service of Benardo.
One hand of its own accord touched the sore red skin and Zea hissed, eyes sliding shut and face contorting.
"Who did this to you?" Micah asked, trembling with scarcely suppressed rage.
"The High Ones." Zea chocked out between tears of disgrace and pain that welled up under her closed eyelids and tricked down her scared face. "My punishment, they never fade and always ache."
"Your eye as well?"
Zea nodded. "My eye as well."
"Why? What could you have done that would warrant such punishment?"
"I helped to create life. I made a rose seed grown into a human child."
Micah nodded slowly, cold understanding dawning on him.
"Rosalia. Everyone says she's not the king's daughter but I never believed them." He gabbled quickly, remembering palace gossip. Everyone from the head cook to the kings most trusted nobleman had a story about Rosalia's true parentage but none as fanciful or as true as the one Zea now span.
"She's a rose, a rose made human, and every year she steals more of my magic to stay human, to grow old."
"I'm sorry."
"I do not mind, I would gladly do it again a thousand times." Zea said, picking up her dress and shrugging it back on over her bruised and ruined body.
"I have powder that will help you're bones to heal." Micah said, taking a small draw stringed bag from the belt around his waist. "Just put the powder in water and drink it once a day."
"Thank you." Zea said. She took the little bag from him and fixed it to the belt she herself wore tied round her middle. Micah did not think, after knowing now that she wore nothing beneath her dress, that he would ever be able to look her in the eye again.
He studied the ground carefully, felling something more had to be said on the subject. The unfairness of it all overwhelmed him and he reached out a hand grasping the sprite's small hands and clasped them for a moment before letting go.
"I am sorry, Zea." He said, trailing his fingers at the dust around her feet.
The sprite smiled softly.
"I know." She said sadly and glanced across at the snoring bundle that was Adriel in the corner "I'm sorry too."
Micah looked at her questioningly but she shook her head and they sat in the silence broken only occasionally by the snuffling snores of Adriel and Micah glared at the stonewall feeling suddenly very young and completely hopeless.