Page 45

Chapter Thirty-Three

Aurelia

T he medic holds out her arm to stop me from passing through the doorway. “You’d better not come any closer, Your Imperial Highness.”

What I can see from the threshold is already disturbing enough. It’s the middle of the day, but the beds in this staff dormitory are nearly all occupied with maids, cleaners, and cooks twisting and turning under their sheets. Red dots stand out against their skin like a flood of ruddy freckles.

A lump clogs my throat. “It’s spreading quickly.”

The medic nods, her lips pursing before she speaks again.

“Based on the symptoms, it’s a variation of camp pox—usually only seen among soldiers on the march or in siege.

It hits hard and fast, but we’ve developed methods of eliminating the contagion once it strikes.

Unfortunately, whatever’s hit the palace is resistant to our usual remedy.

Some of us have been able to use our gifts to soothe the symptoms, but there are only so many of us… ”

They’ve been running themselves ragged. And reducing symptoms doesn’t matter if the person is still just as sick when the medics have exhausted their magic.

“Will they recover on their own?” I have to ask.

“We’re not sure yet. No one has, but the first cases were only yesterday afternoon. Traditional camp pox can last over a week if untreated… and used to leave many of those who recovered with permanent ill effects.”

My throat constricts harder. “Is it ever fatal?”

The medic grimaces. “Only occasionally, usually among those already weakened for other reasons. But we can’t be sure of that either with this stronger strain.

Some of the more elderly palace residents have been hit particularly hard: Baron Daveno, Marchionissa Lucrene, Meritta who supervises the kitchen staff… ”

Lucrene. She was training alongside Bianca and the rest of us yesterday when the illness first struck.

But if she’s still alive, there’s a chance to save her from what must be Sabrelle’s latest offense.

“How is Vicerine Bianca?” I have to ask. I haven’t been allowed to venture into my friend’s rooms since the medics recognized the illness.

“The fever’s addled her mind, but she’s faring better than some.” The medic’s head droops. “I’m sorry I can’t offer more solutions yet, Your Imperial Highness. We’re applying all our skills to the outbreak.”

I drag in a breath, willing away the impression that I’m feeling a tad dizzy myself. It’s only the stress—it has to be. “I’ll apply my own too and see what I can come up with.”

The medic’s expression softens with a trace of a smile. “I almost forgot your gift. But don’t tire yourself too much, Your Imperial Highness. We need you well. ”

I need my court well. More than half of the palace staff has already fallen ill, and an equal proportion of the nobles on top of that.

When I head back down the hall, a soldier I vaguely recognize comes trotting to join me and my guards. I brace myself for more bad news.

“Another seven soldiers are down with the pox,” he reports, dipping his head to both me and Captain Evando, who’s assigned himself as one of my personal protectors now that some of my usual host of guards are sick. “That’s almost a third of us stationed around the palace.”

I grasp onto the one glimmer of hope I can find. “Your ranks haven’t been hit quite as hard.”

Evando exhales roughly. “From what I’ve seen, any of us who’ve caught camp pox in the past hasn’t been affected by this strain so far. Most of us who’ve spent time at the borders or farther abroad have faced it before.”

He glances over at Marc, who’s poised even closer than usual by my shoulder. “I don’t see where you’d have encountered it. Are you sure you should remain on the empress’s guard duty? If you catch it and pass it on?—”

Marc interrupts in a firm tone. “I assure you, I’ve recovered from the pox before. I’m no more a threat to Her Imperial Highness’s well-being than you are.”

Evando still looks skeptical, which I can’t blame him for. As far as he knows, Marc only joined the imperial military forces very recently.

He has no idea that the man he’s questioning led the march against the Rionian rebellion several years ago.

It seems best to divert attention from any questions of Marc’s history. I stride on to the stairs that’ll take us to the main floor of the palace. “Do we have any idea where this outbreak originated? How the first to catch it were infected?”

I don’t think Sabrelle could have sent the contagion straight into her victims’ bodies, no matter how sure I am that she’s the ultimate source of this plague.

At the same time as Bianca was fainting at my side, the first few pages collapsed in the palace halls. I can’t imagine who all four of them would have encountered at approximately the same time.

Evando shakes his head with a defeated air.

“We’ve had the typical messengers, deliveries, and changing of the guards, but nothing unusual.

I don’t believe any of them had interacted with Vicerine Bianca, although perhaps she caught it from one of the staff.

There haven’t been any reports of illness from the rest of the city so far… It doesn’t make sense.”

Or maybe it does. As we reach the top of the stairs near the broad windows overlooking the front courtyard, someone down the hall gasps. A crimson light filters through the glass.

With a lurch of my heart, I spin toward the windows.

A glowing image of a vibrantly red stallion gallops past the palace, hovering in mid-air, like some kind of demon horse. As it passes us, it tosses its mane defiantly.

The soldiers on the grounds below stare up at it, several of them flicking their hands through the gesture of the divinities.

I tap my fingers down my front myself, a chill gathering in my chest. “Sabrelle is responsible somehow. She influenced someone, encouraged the disease in whatever ways godlen can…”

I whirl on my feet again, this time toward my own quarters. A hot flush washes away the chill. “I need to make use of my gift now, before?—”

Evando is staring at me, his face paling.

Marc’s expression has gone taut. “Empress…”

The flush flares hotter—more than just determination. It’s the searing of a fever .

A prickling sensation creeps under my skin. Have I already broken out in the ruddy blotches of the pox?

My legs wobble under me with a wave of lightheadedness. Marc catches my elbow, and Evando takes my other arm.

“We’d better get you to your chambers, Your Imperial Highness,” the captain says, and calls to one of the remaining footmen nearby. “Get any medics who can be spared to the empress’s apartment!”

He keeps muttering as they usher me up the stairs to the third floor. “We shouldn’t have let you look in on the patients.”

I keep my head enough to speak dryly. “I hardly think you ‘let’ the empress do anything, captain. And I won’t have caught it from looking through a doorway ten minutes ago. It’s a wonder I hadn’t fallen ill sooner.”

My sacrificed spleen rarely causes problems in my daily life, but it does make me more sensitive to sickness.

Is this Sabrelle’s plan? She wanted to get rid of me, so she had my entire palace infected?

The feverish fog unfurls through my head. As we approach my chambers, all I want to do is lie down and escape the aches starting to wind up my calves.

Then one of the nursemaids bursts past the door to my daughter’s rooms, her eyes wide with panic. A baby’s wail splits the air from behind her.

“Medics!” she cries. “Someone bring the medics!”

I lose my breath as sharply as if I’ve been punched in the chest.

“Coraya?” I manage to croak. “Is she sick too?”

The nursemaid takes in my no-doubt blotchy face and backs up a step. “We’ll do whatever we can for her. The medics have to be able to help her.”

Evando tugs me toward my own rooms. “Come, Empress. There’s nothing you can do for your daughter right now. You both need to rest and listen to the medics.”

Except the medics don’t know how to cure us yet. And there is something I can do—what I was planning to do before the sickness swept over me.

When I’ve opened the door to my chambers, I veer not toward my bed but to my trunks.

“Your Imperial Highness?” Evando asks, wavering uncertainly on his feet as I shove open the lid.

“I can reduce my symptoms myself,” I tell him, grabbing my tea box and brewing apparatus. “And then I need to see what kind of cure I can make. I’m not letting Coraya suffer if I can help her.”

It might be more than suffering. The medic said even the usual camp pox can kill those with a weakened constitution. How hard will it hit an infant?

A hot rush of tears blurs my vision. Godlen or no, I’m not letting Sabrelle take my daughter from me. How dare she even try ?

My arm wobbles, and Marc leaps in to steady my small cauldron before I drop it.

“All right,” he says in a tight but even tone. “Let’s see you use that gift of yours. Just tell us what you need.”

He shoots a look much too imperious for his current station at Evando, but the captain is too out of sorts to react.

Yes. My gift. But first I need to be able to concentrate.

I detach the upper portion of the tea box to get at the medicinal supplies underneath. Dried waneberry leaves for fever. Vitch bark for the aches. I suppose I should be glad my stomach isn’t churning as well. I might actually be better off than when Bastien inadvertently left me deathly ill.

Gods, if only he and the others were here now?—

No, it’s better that they’re not. The princes would never have encountered this pox before. They’d fall ill too .

I can do this on my own.

I’m not entirely on my own, besides. As I chew the herbs, Marc studies my apparatus and does an impressive job of figuring out how to assemble the various parts. He crouches beside me, his gaze avid.

Behind him, Evando paces on my rug. “You shouldn’t push yourself too hard. The medics will be here any moment.”