“Is he dead?”
“I certainly hope so.”
“Jory! How can you say such a thing?”
Jory shrugged as she glanced at the body on the ground. “Well Daye, he was trying to kill you.”
“No, he wasn’t.” Daye bent over and gingerly touched the body. It jerked. “He’s alive!”
Jory rolled him over and felt for a pulse. She poked him with her sword and he jerked again. She sighed. “You’re right. He lives.”
“What should we do?” said Daye.
As the twelve-year-old younger sister with little experience of the world, Jory thought Daye worried about the most inconsequential things. “Go home and see if Cook has made her scrumptious cinnamon rolls?”
“Jory! How can you be so heartless?” Daye hunkered down and put her hand on the boy’s chest. “His arrow was meant for the deer. It scampered off after you . . . after you struck him down.”
Jory shrugged again. “He is just a peasant and should know better than to hunt in our woods.”
Daye glared at her fifteen-year-old sister and heir to their father’s throne. “You will be a horrible queen!”
Jory hung her head. Daye may be naive and soft, but her opinion was the only one that mattered. “Help me put him in the cart then. I guess we can bring him to the Healer.”
They wrestled him in as best they could practically folding him in half to get him to fit. The buckets of apples they just picked had to be left on the side of the road. Jory swore under her breath.
The cart jerked and bounced over ruts and roots on the overgrown path leading to the Healer’s hut. The boy never made a sound. When they finally arrived, Daye leaped out and banged on the door with both fists. “Help, a boy has been hurt!”
A bent and graying person of indeterminate age and gender opened the door and hobbled out. After a cursory look, the Healer declared, “This boy has been run through. It is too late.”
Daye couldn’t contain her tears. “Please! You must help him. It was an accident. Jory didn’t mean to . . .”
“It was not an accident,” Jory huffed.
The Healer stared at Jory for so long, she began to feel a prick of uncertainty in her gut. Finally, the Healer turned to Daye. “There is a way. But it requires a . . . sacrifice.”
“What kind of sacrifice?”
“A heart for a heart.”
Daye thought for a moment. “Does it have to be a human heart?”
The Healer pointed to Jory. Her faced paled as she clutched a hand to her chest.
“No!” Daye cried, horrified.
“Healer,” the boy suddenly moaned. “I consent.”
“Are you certain?”
Daye planted herself in front of her sister. “I will not let you harm the future Queen!”
“But she cannot be a queen without a heart!” The Healer plunged a hand into the boy’s chest, pulled out a glowing ball of light and thrust it into Jory.
Daye screamed as Jory collapsed. She lay like death on the hard ground. After an eternity, she struggled to her feet and for the first time in her life, tears flowed down her face.
“What did you do?” Daye whispered.
“The boy did it,” said the Healer.
They looked in the cart. The boy was gone.
“He saved you, future queen” said the Healer.
“Saved me?” Tears still pooled in Jory’s eyes. “Saved me from what?”
The Healer paused a moment then smiled sadly. “From yourself . . .”