THE SON-IN-LAW WHO WOULDN'T BURN

CHAPTER 5: A VERY CONVENIENT FLUKE

The elders didn't let Cole sleep. They cut the ropes, pulled him off the altar, and carried him upstairs to the old healing room behind the kitchens.

The room smelled of boiled herbs and lamp smoke. They dropped him onto a narrow bed, then stood around him in a circle. Nine grown cultivators in grey robes stared at him as if they were waiting for something strange to happen.

Cole kept his left sleeve pulled down over the ring and his eyes half shut. His wrist throbbed with every beat of his heart.

"Look at the ceiling," Hollow said quietly inside his head. "A man who has just survived a fire shouldn't be looking at people's faces. He should be looking for something to hold on to."

I'm doing that.

"Not very well. Blink more slowly."

Cole slowed his blinking.

"Everyone out!" a woman's voice snapped. "Out. I can't work with nine pairs of boots standing on my floor."

Healer Orla pushed her way through the elders. She was small and had grey hair. Her sleeves were rolled up to her elbows, and both her arms were stained with herbs. She had treated Cole's cuts for three years. She had never said a kind word to him, but she had never let him bleed longer than he needed to.

She placed a lamp on the stool beside him and pulled his eyelid open with her thumb.

"Look at the light."

He looked at it.

"Hmm." She let go. "Follow my finger."

He followed her finger.

"Say your name."

"Cole Marden."

"Your wife's name?"

"Elise." His throat tightened when he said it. He didn't have to pretend. "Is she... where is she?"

"Standing by the door, staring holes through my wall." Orla didn't even turn her head. "Breathe in."

Cole took a breath. Her cold fingers pressed along his ribs. He held his breath as he remembered how they had felt an hour ago, broken and painful. Now, there was nothing. Orla's hands stopped on his left side. She pressed again, then moved on.

"You had two broken ribs," she said quietly. "Wasn't that what Garrick's guard told me? You landed on them."

"I... don't know. It hurt a lot."

"It doesn't hurt now?"

"A bit."

"A bit." Orla pressed her lips together. "Show me your hands."

He held them out. The skin where the ropes had cut him was smooth. She turned his hands over, looked at his palms, and pressed her thumb between his fingers as if she were checking a piece of fruit.

Cole glanced at the door.

Elise stood there with her bandaged hand against her chest. Her eyes were red, but her face gave nothing away. She gave him the smallest shake of her head.

Careful.

"Well?" Garrick pushed through the crowd, his arms folded over his belly. "What did the fire do to him?"

"Nothing," Orla said.

"Nothing?"

"Not a blister. Not even a burnt hair. His hair hasn't curled." She wiped her hands on her apron. "And I checked the other thing, too. His roots. There's nothing there. He's just as empty as the day they tested him. A man with no cultivation shouldn't survive a fall like that, and he certainly shouldn't have lived through that fire."

"Then there's a trick." Garrick pointed at Cole. "He's hiding something. I want him stripped and searched."

"Garrick," Elder Morrow said, sounding tired, "he's already been stripped. We've checked every part of his clothes. There's no charm, no magic item, and no medicine."

"Then he took something!"

"With what?" Orla snapped. "He's a servant. He has nothing. Do you think I haven't treated him enough to know what's in his body?"

The room fell quiet. Someone coughed. In the corner, Brent was biting his thumbnail and refusing to look at Cole.

"Cole."

The voice was soft. It came from the foot of the bed.

Silas had entered without anyone hearing him. He stood with both hands resting on his cane. The lamp light left dark shadows under his eyes. Every elder in the room moved back a little when they saw him.

"You're going to tell me how this happened."

Cole's stomach tightened.

"Hollow..."

"Slow down. Speak slowly. Like a man who doesn't understand what's happening to his own body."

Cole swallowed. He let his voice come out weak and shaky.

"I don't... know, sir. I really don't."

"You were on the altar. The fire touched you."

"Yes, sir."

"And you felt nothing."

"It was... warm. Like a bath. I thought I was going to die, but then I didn't."

"Hmm." Silas tapped his cane once. "And the fall?"

"I hit my head. I remember everything going dark. Then someone was pulling me up."

Cole let his eyes move towards Orla.

"Healer, when I was a boy, my mother used to say I had cold blood. I would get sick in the summer and better in the winter. She said it ran in the family." He licked his dry lips. "Could that... mean something?"

Orla raised her brows. "A cold-blood sickness?"

"I don't know what it's called."

"It's a rare condition," she said slowly. "Cold blood. The body doesn't make enough heat. It's usually harmless, and sometimes..." She stopped and frowned. "I've never heard of it saving anyone from a ritual fire."

"But it's possible," Cole said.

"Anything is possible." Orla folded her arms. "But I wouldn't bet on it."

"Convenient," Garrick muttered. "Very convenient. Our sacrifice just happens to have something strange in his blood that makes him fireproof on the one night we need him to burn."

"Brother." Morrow's voice was weak. "Perhaps the cave..."

"The cave is just a hole in the floor, Morrow. I've lived in this house for forty-seven years. That cave has never done anything but sit there and smell."

"Enough."

Silas didn't raise his voice, but everyone stopped talking.

He stared at Cole for a long time with his pale, steady eyes. Cole kept looking at the ceiling and counted his breaths.

In. Two. Out. Two.

A drop of sweat ran down the side of his neck. The ring on his wrist was warm.

"The boy will stay in this house," Silas said at last. "He will be watched. Nobody is to lay a hand on him without my permission. Garrick, that includes you."

Garrick's face darkened. "Father..."

"I will look into this myself, and I will do it quietly. Not one word must leave this room. Not to the guards, not to the cousins, and not to the Court."

His cane tapped the floor.

"Do you understand?"

The elders murmured their agreement. Garrick said nothing. His jaw moved as he held back his anger.

"Healer," Silas said. "Finish your check. Look at everything."

"I've checked everything."

"Check again."

Orla let out a tired breath and turned back to the bed. She took Cole's left hand in both of hers.

"Don't pull away," she said quietly, so only he could hear. "I need to see your wrist. They'll want to know if the skin under your brand was burned."

Cole's whole body went cold.

"Hollow..."

"Don't move." Hollow's voice sounded tense. "Don't speak. Let her look at the brand. The ring may stay quiet."

May?

"I don't know. I've never worn one on a servant's wrist before."

Orla slipped her fingers under his sleeve and pulled it back an inch.

Cool air touched the ring. Cole felt it prickle.

Then Orla stopped.

He heard her breath catch.

"What is this?" she whispered.

She pulled the sleeve up another inch. The white band shone under the lamp. It was thin and smooth, and a number inside it gave off a soft light.

Nobody else had seen it. Silas was standing at the other side of the bed. Garrick had turned to argue with Morrow. The room was full of voices, but Cole could see Orla's face go pale.

Then quick footsteps came from behind her.

Elise's good hand closed around the sleeve before Orla coul

d pull it up any further. She pulled it back down, covering the ring as if she were tucking in a child.

Then she looked straight into Orla's eyes.

"He's mine to look after," she said.