Kismet's Kiss: A Fantasy Romance (Alaia Chronicles) by Cate Rowan

a large canvas pack. The Healer touched Tahir’s small hand and smiled down at him. “How are you?”
    Tahir glanced up through sweaty bangs and returned the woman’s smile. Pride at her son’s politeness warred with disgruntlement that he must behave so to a foreign infidel who was toying with his life.
    “You’re still very hot.” Varene gave a worried cluck. “How’s your throat?”
    “Better,” he croaked, but grimaced.
    There. If his throat still hurt only a couple of hours after the witch’s treatment, how much good had she really done?
    “And have you had anything to drink?” the Healer asked.
    Tahir shook his head, and Varene glanced at Sulya.
    “He’s been sleeping since you left,” Sulya said defensively. “Bairam had told me to let him rest. I had a pitcher brought, as you can see, and—”
    “Fine,” Varene interrupted. She poured a glass and spoke to Tahir. “You may not remember, but I helped to ease the soreness in your throat while you were sleeping. I’d like to do that again, so you can swallow and talk for a bit without it hurting so much.”
    He listened gravely and nodded.
    Sulya and Sohad stood in uneasy silence as the healer laid her hand on Tahir’s throat and performed the same ceremony as she had before. Sulya waited with a torn heart, half-hoping but skeptical, and shifted to eye the woman. As she stared, she became deeply puzzled.
    Varene was a Royal Healer, much the equivalent of a Royal Physician, and thus held an exalted rank among the non-royal courtiers—yet no rubies or sapphires graced her neck or wrists, no diamonds dangled from her vulgarly exposed ears. Whether gems glittered from her ankles or toes, she could not tell, for they were covered by skirts that hung all the way to the floor. Most unladylike.
    And instead of draping her long, thick blond curls enticingly around her shoulders and breasts like any woman with sense and confidence, the Healer had pulled her hair tightly back from her face, making her seem uglier than she was. In truth, her face was not unattractive, if pallid.
    Sulya fingered her own glistening necklace of emeralds and pearls, each twice as big as her thumbnails, that draped down to her gold-wrapped ankles. With no jewels and gems to attract a man, to entice their eyes and bring them close enough to smell and hunger for her, how could this pale woman hope to marry or keep a man of power or wealth and secure her place as the mother to his heirs? This wench made herself as plain as a mule beside sleek mares.
    In fact, Sulya thought, gathering her indignation around her, how could this woman be what she claimed, if she didn’t display the wealth of her rank? And if she was not what she claimed, how then could she be trusted with the sons and daughters of the blessed sultan? With Tahir, her own blessing?
    The Healer removed her hands from Sulya’s son. “Is that better?”
    “Yes!” he said. The joyous smile he gave Varene wrenched Sulya’s soul. She pressed herself back against the wall and kept her lips tightly shut.
    “Excellent,” said Varene. “Now please sit up, and drink this. I’ll need your help with something.” She waited while Tahir raised himself against the pillows and grasped the tall glass thirstily in both hands, then turned to Sohad and nodded. He brought the canvas pack closer and loosened the mouth of it.
    Varene knelt and rummaged through the bag. She removed several smaller sacks and laid them on the rug, then pulled something from each one of them. A leaf, a blade of long grass, a twig, a dried flower. Aghast, Sulya stared down at the bits and pieces of vegetation littering the floor. Leaves and sticks—these were supposed to heal her son?
    Varene selected the skinny leaf. “Tahir, open—”
    “You will address him as Prince Tahir!” Sulya snapped. “He is the son of the Great Sultan of Kad!”
    Varene shot her a hard look, then turned a solemn face to her son. “My apologies, Prince Tahir.”
    “They