Free Madbond by Nancy Springer

morning.”
    â€œEnough,” I mumbled.
    â€œI am sorry. I will never—”
    â€œLet it go, I say!” The thought of the eerie knife was harrowing me. “I never question the reasons of kings. Why have you told me this strange, long tale?”
    The telling of the tale had cost him somewhat, I sensed, for he did not seem wont to talk about himself.
    â€œBecause—since that time, there has been a—an odd thing about me. Since the time I was dead. I feel—call it a power if you like. I feel what other people are feeling. Joy, sometimes, or love, but also pain. I felt—I felt my parents’ grief the night I died, not only my own. I could tell the difference quite plainly. An adult’s grief is a more echoing thing than a child’s, a child’s passions are cleaner.… I felt my mother’s loving courage, a courage such as I had never known. And once I was back in the body, I felt the ambitions and petty angers of people all around me. My father’s grief after my mother went away nearly destroyed me. I was glad to see him leave, and hated my own joy.…”
    His voice trailed off into a whisper, and he stopped, not looking at me but staring into the great eyes of a young seal pup.
    â€œYou can tell what other people are thinking?” I demanded. What a power for a king.
    â€œNot thinking. Feeling. In my own body. Heartache, heart’s ease, the shiver of fear or the knot in the gut…”
    â€œEveryone’s feelings?”
    â€œNo, no, not everyone, Sakeema be thanked!” He raised his hands as if in defense, and I began to understand what an agony this power might be. “Only those whom I know well, until lately. And only their higher peaks or lower valleys. But you, Dannoc—when you came, your passion beat me down with the force of a four-day storm.”
    I stiffened, not wanting to hear about how I had come, not wanting to remember.
    â€œMadman, they call you, my folk. But I was with you in the prison pit, and I know better. Dannoc, something terrible has been done to you, and it has driven you outside of self.”
    His left hand reached over to touch me on the shoulder, and I drew back with such a jolt that I startled the seals. I would have wept if he had touched me, and there was something in me that would not weep. A hard, heavy feeling—
    â€œLike a stone,” Kor said softly, “pressing down on your heart. Or a great, taut knot—”
    â€œGo away!” I shouted at him, suddenly furious. “Let me alone!”
    â€œDannoc, if you could only—loosen the bonds—”
    â€œGet out of here!” I screamed with a vehemence that set the seals in motion. They blundered out of the cave and plopped into the sea. Kor and I were left alone, I glaring and he pitying. Damn him with his gentle eyes, for all the world like a seal’s soft stare, I wanted to hit him, but I knew guiltily that I had hurt him already. I lay flat on the damp cave floor.
    â€œRemembering cannot be much worse than what you already suffer,” Kor muttered.
    â€œKor,” I panted, “get out of this cave before I lose what little sense is left to me.”
    â€œWell.” He moved toward the entrance with a sigh, giving up for the time. “We cannot stay here in any event. The tide is coming in.”
    â€œI don’t care.” I put my face down against the wet stone.
    He crouched in the white winter light of the entry, looking at me. If he had commanded me to come out, I think I would have defied him and died for the sake of my spleen. I think also that he knew it, or felt it, and he studied me before he spoke.
    â€œGet out of the cave, and I will leave you. Otherwise, I will come back in and badger you some more.”
    After a moment I crawled out. The sea was lapping at the lip of the cave, and we had to walk in the water, coming around the rocks. When we had reached the sand, I turned up