A Blaze in the Dark (A New Dawn #1)

Chapter 40 - Alex

What I am about to say borders on military treason, but I am loyal to the army, and you, My King.

Gods, what was this?

The glass phials in her bag clinked against one another as she slipped between two junior patrols nervously dawdling around at the corner of the market square. She often met the ebb and flow of the soldiers on her daily walks across town to deliver Healer Mark's potions, but on this very morning, things were quite different: the square was littered with army men.

All of them, from the smallest Cadet to the brawniest of the serjeants, wore a backpack the size of toddlers, fully equipped with the necessary supplies the high officers believed the junior patrols needed to survive a week in the wild.

As if one would really die without fresh clothes or cutlery...

There, in the shadow of the giant Sundial sat her favourite Cadet on the ground. In his hands, the same open scroll that many Serjeants were studying in detail too. She sniggered. Of course Nick's patrol would give any reading material to him. They had come to know him well.

The Goddess of Envy pinched her stomach. It wasn't all fun and giggles. With that backpack, Nick would moan the entire walk to the royal forest. He would move so slowly that his patrol would abandon him halfway, and he wouldn't mind at all. Had he woken up with another case of Belly Fever this morning, the Muttonhead would have occupied the privy all week with the biggest smile on his face.

She didn't understand why he was being so pessimistic about the camp. She would gladly trade all her pretty dresses and exquisite pieces of jewellery for one day in his shoes; no matter how much they stank of rotten fish.

If only she could walk up to him and wish him good luck, but she couldn't. She had been at official ceremonies, and Nick was terrified his friends found out that he was one of the Laneby survivors.

Puddingbrain. Sooner or later someone was bound to find out. She had warned him about that; he wouldn't have to come crying to her when it happened.

She glared at him. While he was living the life she wanted, she would be handing out the same serums as every day, smiling that same fake smile as the patients blathered on about ailments that hadn't improved in a decade. On three separate occasions this week, she had stood before Healer Mark, on the brink of confessing that she had grown tired of being his errand girl, but she hadn't had the heart to tell him.

Besides, what else would she do? Spend even more time with Lana's etiquette teacher? She'd rather drown herself in a well.

She turned the corner and zigzagged through the crowd until she reached the Captain's house. As an officer, he could rely on the Healers' services, as did the noblemen and -women that lived in Sundale, and anyone working at the castle. Since spring colds were roaring through the city, she had a busy schedule ahead of her.

But her first stop was for quite something else. She knocked on the door, and a couple of seconds later Mary was already there, wearing the same old tawny apron she had worn when Alex had met her all those moons ago.

"Morning." Alex forced a cheerful greeting out of her throat and dug into the bag to fish out all six bottles of the plum-coloured liquid. "Speed delivery for Captain Jonathan. These should be enough for him to last the whole week."

"Thank you so much, Miss Alex." Mary rested her broom against the door frame and took all phials, placing them one by one on the small table behind her. "Our dearest Captain often forgets that he's not the youngest anymore. His mind wants more than his poor joints allow him to."