Page 25

I bite my tongue. The world sways, but I force myself to stay upright.

There’s no time for me to be sick, so I ask Nicostratus to magic me a shield like his own.

He asks why and I tell him a truth: I must get close to sick animals and a shield will be safer than mere cloth over my nose.

Nothing will get past it—neither in, nor out.

With the vibration of his magic glittering faintly around my skin, I ignore the heaviness of my limbs and get to work.

I ask to see the infected horses first, and to Olyn’s gulps, I scrape the pus oozing around the hardened scales on its flank.

“The horses are stronger; their bodies fight the plague better. This pus has become weakened plague. The pigs might fight off weakened plague.”

“You hope to do this on people.” Olyn’s words are not a question. She’s smart enough to understand. “Even if it works, who will let you?”

I grit my teeth against that and a sudden spell of dizziness. I exhale sharply and the world rights itself—just barely .

How long do I have before the fever wins? A day? Less?

Not now. Not yet.

I have to see this through. I finish scraping pus into a vial and hand it to her. “Hold it upright. Don’t spill any.”

I find two more vials in my bag and fill them past the point the cork can hold them too.

Olyn watches me for a beat too long. “You look... flushed.”

I force a laugh, tossing off a hollow smile. “It’s the shield.”

She doesn’t look convinced, but she rushes along with me to the next paddock, where Nicostratus and the farmer have pulled in a dozen healthy pigs.

I hand over the pus. “Did your wife find any angelica root?” I say as I dig in my bag for ground mustiva, oldeaf, and costmary.

Pegus pulls a warty root out from behind his belt and I take it, quickly snatching it away before anyone notices my tremors. I smash the end of the angelica root until I can squeeze its juice into a shallow bowl and gesture for Olyn to hand over a vial of pus.

When all the parts are put together and I have three bowls with differing supportive herbs—all my grandfather’s scriptions according to his research—it’s time to infect the pigs.

“Divide the pigs into three groups. One we cut small crosses, another circles, the last an equivalent sign. When each seep blood, we’ll smear a spoon of the corresponding pus into it. ”

Farmer Pegus can’t bear to watch. Nor can he bear to leave his poor pigs, and holds them through it with his eyes slammed shut.

Nicostratus also finds the sight disturbing and retreats to the fence, leaving Olyn and me to infect each pig.

After three pigs, I’m sweating; after six, my breathing becomes tight and stiff.

I look away from Olyn and shut my eyes for a brief moment until a wave of dizziness passes, then I snap to the next pig and the next.

I glance up at the sun. Two hours before midday. Shivers roll through me.

“You’re looking off,” Olyn grumbles.

I don’t have to mask my discomfort this time. There are too many things to be ‘off’ about. “Pegus said once the pigs get sick, they die within eight hours. We need to wait ten to see if this works. But...”

She lets out an expletive. “They’ll kill two if we’re not back by sundown.”

My stomach twists. “Go.”

“What if they only let one of them free?”

My throat closes. I don’t have an answer for that.

Olyn studies me, then nods sharply.

She pivots and runs before I can stop her.

The hours drag, slow and merciless. My skin itches like fire, raw and unbearable, the effort to hide it becoming agonising.

I dig my nails into my palms to keep from scratching—because if I do, Nicostratus will notice.

And if he notices, he’ll send me back. If I refuse, he’ll knock me out and carry me.

He’ll mean it kindly—he always does.

But kindness is not what I need.

I need someone who won’t coddle me.

Someone who won’t let me fold beneath this.

Someone who will demand I get through it, no matter what.

Someone who will fight beside me until we’ve saved them all.

I need Quin.

I smuggle myself into the shadows of the farmhouse and sag against the timber wall, letting the coarseness scratch for me—

“One pig is seriously ill,” Nicostratus says, turning the corner to me. “Others show mild symptoms but all are still alive.”

I nod weakly. “We need to keep an eye on the grave one.” I use all my strength to push off the wall and follow him at a distance. The shimmer of his shield—the second he’s spelled on me today—round my body seems to be dulling. “I need another shield.”

Nicostratus grimaces and casts his gaze away. He exhales sharply, rubbing his temple. “It’s been difficult to meditate.” His voice is quieter than usual, his jaw clenched. “The smoke—” He swallows hard. “The smell of it...”

He doesn’t finish. He doesn’t have to. The presence of death has thickened in the air as the hours have passed. I understand his difficulties, and yet... I need him to be clear-headed now. I need to stay shielded. I can’t spread this to others, and especially not to my king’s brother.

“I have enough to shield you, or to get you back to Kastoria by sundown. But not both.”

A strange laugh bursts out of me. Carrying me without a shield will infect him. But without his magic, we’ll arrive in Kastoria well past sundown. Will Olyn have convinced the people there to wait? To hold off killing an innocent?

If we leave now, I might save two lives. If we stay, we might save thousands.

But even two lives are still lives.

The decision coils tight in my chest, squeezing the air from my lungs. My fingers dig into my palms, as if pain might force the right choice into me. But there is no right choice.

Every hour that passes brings us closer to proof. Proof means survival. But what if I’m wrong? What if the pigs only appear stable? What if I wait too long and return to dead bodies and no protection from the plague?

Arcane Sovereign!

My shield flickers again. I exhale sharply, my hands flying to my belt—the dromveske, the soldad, the clasp. “Shield me!”

If I fall here, Quin will have no one who will use the forbidden means that his people need. I must keep going for them. I must keep going for him .

I scramble away until there’s a good distance between us and he’s frowning at me over the pigs.

“That’s your decision?” he says. “What about the two—”

“Do it.”

He hesitates a moment, and accepts. In moments my itchy skin also tingles with his protective shield.

“If the pigs are still all alive in half an hour,” I say hoarsely, “it’s hope enough. Then, we’ll run.”

And run we do.

My limbs are heavy, aching, my lungs feel like a snake is coiled tightly around them, but the pigs were still alive .

And that glimmer of light gives me the spirit to chase myself down the mountain, drag myself through a darkening forest. Nicostratus catches me when I tumble at one point, but accepts that I didn’t see that root.

The sun is sinking fast, pinks and peaches stretching across the vast sky.

Hurry, must hurry. Nicostratus helps me into a borrowed rowboat but when he tries to follow, I stop him.

Just in case. I can’t let him get caught in the mess at Kastoria.

Nicostratus stares at me, hands flexing open and closed. “The pigs were getting better.”

His voice is quiet, like he’s trying to convince himself of something too terrifying to say aloud. “Why did you put them back in with the infected? What if they get sick again?”

I exhale sharply and heave the oars into place. “For the people of this kingdom, pray they don’t. ”

Sweating, I pull water as hard as I can, and soon Nicostratus’s watching figure is a slash of red at the river’s bend. Shivers I’ve been holding back unleash and my teeth chatter as I force myself to row, to race against the now-tangerine skies.

In mere minutes, tangerine becomes burned orange.

Stroke. Breathe. Stroke. Breathe.

Faster.

The sky is rust now. There’s no darker shade before night.

Please wait. Wait, wait , I plead in time with the pounding throb in my head. At first glimpse of the luminarium, I scrabble out of the boat and claw my way across the field, calling hoarsely.

I plough forward—

Ahead, Olyn screams and my body seizes with the sound. I glimpse trussed up crosses and two figures tied to them, a farmer raising his scythe over his head as he approaches one.

“No!” My voice breaks with barely any sound.

Olyn thrusts needles at the farmer about to execute a frightened, wide-eyed innocent, and the farmer staggers and turns menacingly to her. I try to run, to cross the dozen-yard divide, but my legs are heavy. I’m not going to make it.

I spy a rock, lunge for it and hurl it with all my remaining energy. It thunks the farmer’s back and he whirls round, startled .

He lowers his scythe and I drop to my knees. “Release them,” I say. “Give us our things.”

I sway on my knees until the hostages are released and another sickly farmer hurls my things to me, my money. My dromveske.

I clutch the dromveske to my chest as I’m wracked with shivers, as the world spins; the figures, the luminarium.

No. Not yet.

Olyn is running, her voice a distant cry.

Not yet. Just one more breath—

The world turns black.