Page 14 of The Keeper of the Kingdoms

How she’d managed to get it all down here, I didn’t ask. A tension built between us and I didn’t know how to resolve it. She wasn’t like any fae I’d ever known. I knew questioning her abilities wouldn’t help my cause, so I accepted she was more than capable of determining her own limits.

For now.

“How was your father?” I asked.

“Concerned,” she admitted. “But he trusts me. He’ll cover my duties while I examine our guest. I’ve left him researching necromancy.”

She hefted a stack of books into my waiting arms gratefully, and we approached the celltogether.

“How has he been?” She asked.

“Quiet.” After we left the cell, he took some time to settle down from his rage, but the thrashing stopped, and I’d heard very little since. “Every time I looked in, he was glaring with those creepy white eyes, though.” I shuddered.

Up close, they were more unsettling than I’d even imagined, and I was not excited about Kiera going in there, but I had the sense not to voice it after her last outburst.

“It’s a classic sign of antemortem, or as most know it, the undead state. But once turned into that state, they usually serve the purpose for which they were created, and then they are returned back to the soil by the necromancer who summoned them. It’s been many years since necromancy was a common practice, but in my understanding, when kept alive too long, they fall apart from decomposition, like this one is starting to do.”

“So someone is controlling him—it?” I wasn’t sure what to call the damned thing.

“I don’t know. With Octavian dead, perhaps they are stuck here unable to return to death.”

She moved over to a table against the cell wall and turned her back on the creature in a move I didn’t know whether to berate or admire. Either way, I bit my tongue and vowed to myself she would not be in this room unguarded at any time. I would have her back so that she could focus on work. Then, once this was over, we would be discussing her training at length. She had to learn to stop only thinking like a healer. She would need better situational awareness in the field.

I put the books down for her and scanned the titles, one eye always on the undead.

“So, is that our main avenue of research?”

She eyed me. “Our?”

I rolled my eyes. “Do I need to remind you of our discussion in the library a mere hour ago? I’m at your disposal. I stillremember how to read. My muscles didn’t push my brain out of my head while you were gone.”

“Very well,” she snapped, barely concealing a half-smirk. She slapped a book into my chest and I caught it. “Necromancy, its effects, the magic involved. Anything you can find.” She instructed.

I nodded, smiling. “Anything else?”

“Only if you see something you think could be relevant.”

“And what will you be doing?” I glanced at the table as she unpacked her bag of healing tools.

“I’m going to do a quarantine ward on him first.”

“You really think this could spread?”

Kiera looked at the table, too. Our guest had been writhing in his restraints with renewed energy since we entered the room, and I could not fathom how Kiera would get close enough to examine him without being in immediate danger.

“I don’t. Not really. But I consulted Father, and we agreed to treat him like a containment risk for now, which will allow me to perform some basic tests. The magic will protect me from physical contact or contamination.”

I must have looked skeptical.

“Think of it as a magical protective field around the patient. I will be able to examine him as if I were wearing thick protective clothing and gloves. Nothing he carries and nothing he does will penetrate the magic while the field is in place.”

“Sounds wise.” I agreed, relieved that such a precaution existed. “Although, might you consider wearing thick protective clothing and gloves as well?” I hedged.

She chuckled but ignored my suggestion.

“Kiera?” I asked before she could begin.

“Yes?”