Page 11

N ow that Hellebore was nothing but a queen and wife in name, neither she nor Taiyo wasted any time. The next morning, she was up bright and early to her maids coming into her room, both warily eyeing the belt and outfit they were carrying for her. Although, when Elaine saw the mess Hellebore had made of her wedding dress, she was distraught over the shredded fabric.

Turns out cutting herself out of it hadn’t been that hard given it had only been half completed in the first place.

Also, good to know the Sun Elves were less reserved than the other elves.

Hellebore wasn't prone to fits of elation, but she couldn't stop her savage grin as she took her things from Phoebe. As soon as she was back in her clothes and not draped in Sun Elf colors and styles, she breathed a sigh of relief. An alchemist once again.

Her mask and goggles hung around her neck as she fastened her belt around her waist and hitched her skirt accordingly so it was modest without getting in her way, leaving her boots showing and the elf maidens looking absolutely scandalized.

That was when the connecting door creaked open and Taiyo hovered in the doorway, with only a loose pair of trousers on, causing her maids to startle before quickly averting their eyes. She just grinned at him and said, “See? Now you've got your alchemist. This suits me much better.”

He crossed his arms, dark circles under his eyes. “I have a few important matters to attend to, including seeing the Star Elves off. Phoebe and Elaine will take you to a space I've set aside that should be suitable for your work. It's already equipped with the best that we have. I expect your things will arrive in a few days; it shouldn’t have taken them long to gather them from the academy and send them. I anticipate it will include equipment from your people, and should there be anything missing that you require, we will send for it after. Until then, organize your lab, review the work that I've had compiled, and at noon we'll go to the garden.”

Being given such clear and unquestionable orders didn't grate against her skin. Not now that she was his alchemist.

Phoebe and Elaine led Hellebore to her new lab, and it was about what she expected—not the worst setup to exist, but clearly the Sun Elves weren't equipped for the kind of work she would be doing. She spent the morning reading over the work of King Taiyo's previous experts while she directed Phoebe and Elaine in setting up what she did have and organizing so there would be plenty of empty places for her incoming equipment.

She hoped Taiyo was right about her things including equipment. If Callahan had been in charge of gathering it, she couldn’t be certain she’d be getting anything that would help her.

When Taiyo appeared again, this time at the lab door, he looked less tired, likely thanks to the sun's apex. He was also far more dressed, and she left behind her maids but not a plethora of vials. The glass tubes clinked softly in their pouch with each step as she followed Taiyo, who stayed quiet.

Before they reached the rotting garden, she pulled her goggles down and her mask up before looking up at Taiyo. “We ought to get you some too, if you're going to be the one to come with me every time I collect samples. While I haven't proven it yet, I'd be willing to place good money on the chances this can't be good for you to breathe in unfiltered either.”

“Worried about me, alchemist?” He laughed. “Someone might think you actually have a heart.”

Fine. If he wanted to breathe in poison, he could. If he did keel over, she'd be free from even being his wife in name too. Surely if he died and it was his own stubborn fault, her father would let her return to Chymes since she’d done all he’d asked.

Princess Haruko certainly wouldn’t want to keep Hellebore if that happened.

“Didn't anyone tell you?” Hellebore asked as she turned around and walked backward into the rotting garden, smirking beneath her mask as it muffled her voice. “It should be arriving with the rest of my things. I was going to put its jar by the iris. They’ll look great together.”

His horrified and disgusted expression had her laughing as she pulled her leather gloves on and knelt into the decay.

She brushed her fingertips over the dark, browning petals. She then reached into one of her pouches and pulled out her snips and tweezers, cutting off what she needed before carefully depositing it into her vial.

She quickly collected her first round of samples, sticking to the worst of the rot for this round.

The whole time, Taiyo did nothing but hover at the entrance and stare at her. She was certain she was a strange, uncomfortable sight for him, but once she had what she needed, they departed.

As he escorted her back to her lab, she made a mental note that she needed to set up a sanitization system for leaving the garden and for her lab if she ever potted and brought any of the plants in there.

But for now, she just sent her maids to fetch her something to wear and she discarded the tainted clothes into a corner and slipped into the plain pink day dress they brought her as she went about her work.

She quickly fell into a routine, and by routine, she meant she quickly threw herself into the project, spending all her hours in her lab, breaking only for meals and sleep, seeing Taiyo in passing in the mornings and evenings, when she told him it was too early for her to be able to tell him anything. She didn’t let herself think about the academy, Emerson, Callahan, or Palladia.

That was much easier said than done. During the day, she was completely focused on the rot, reading up on everything the Sun Elves had tried to save the irises as well as the description of the rot that had been slowly taking over their land over the last two decades. At night, however, she was stuck staring at the ceiling, ignoring the soft glow of the iris she begrudgingly watered every morning even though it had no use to her. That was when her memories wouldn’t leave her alone.

One day, maybe Callahan’s lack of faith in her abilities wouldn’t hurt as much. But she didn’t believe the sharp thorn in her side from not being able to say goodbye to her aunt and brother would ever go away.

At night was the only time she let herself feel. When the sun came up, the moon and her weakness disappeared, and she was empty of everything but alchemy.

Her things arrived a week into her marriage, and she left her lab early in the afternoon when she was intercepted with the news. Better to get everything organized so she could move forward with studying her samples first thing in the morning with superior equipment.

She opened the door to her room to see Taiyo already there, surrounded by her trunks and crates and bags. He had one crate open and was examining the chemicals contained in the glass.

He looked up from the vivid blue liquid as she shut the door.

“Looking for my heart?” Hellebore asked with a grin.

He sniffed. “I wouldn’t put it past your people to have managed the feat.”

“Unfortunately, it's still right here,” Hellebore said, pressing her hand over it as she came farther into her room. She moved to open one of the trunks, looking over her shoulder at him as she said, “The organ at least. All it does is pump blood. There's nothing more to it.”

Taiyo huffed, setting the container back in its place before coming up to her shoulder and glancing down at the trunk she had open to see it was full of her clothes. Now she would never have to wear a Sun Elf dress again.

She’d accidentally ruined two already while working on this project.

He looked at her plain blouses and skirts the way his sister looked at Hellebore.

She asked, “Would you rather I ruin all that fine silk or the dresses covered with painstakingly beautiful embroidery that must have taken so much work to artfully create while I'm up to my elbows in plant decay?”

He just glared at the second pair of gloves in the trunk, a gift from her aunt for her sixteenth birthday, identical to her aunt's own favorite pair. Her aunt had wanted Hellebore to have a pair with all her favorite formulas for transmutation. Just looking at the gloves threatened to bring back that pathetic homesickness that had been plaguing her, so she rustled through her clothes, nonchalantly throwing a blouse on top of them as she pulled out a skirt.

As soon as the gloves were out of sight, Taiyo straightened up and started looking about the rest of her things.

Her so-called husband was a foreign creature to her. Maybe once she'd solved the problem of the decay, she'd make him her next subject of study.

The next week, when she needed a new batch of samples, Taiyo came to escort her at noon like before, and when she opened the door, he immediately raised an eyebrow and stared at the bucket in her hand.

“Dare I ask?”

Hellebore just brushed past him. The water in it weighed a substantial amount, and she had no desire to stand around with it. “You'll see.”

Then he took it from her, rolling his eyes and setting off without a word.

She didn’t know what to make of it. Or him. It was a little late to play the gentleman.

But Hellebore also wasn’t particularly desperate to lug it around, so she stayed quiet.

When they arrived, she had him set the bucket beside the door before they went into the garden again.

This time, instead of hovering by the entrance, he followed her through the garden, watching her more closely as she took both the worst rotted irises and some of the medium rotted.

As she carefully snipped petals, leaves, and stems for her study, she looked up at him out of the corner of her eye and said, “Your reports from your past experts don't say anything about the origin, nothing about the enemy you mentioned. I know you said it started here, but someone brought it in here from somewhere else. Having the country of origin of the rot would go a long way in helping me. The solution could be tied to the source.”

Taiyo scowled. “I... I don’t know where they brought it in from. An enemy I should have known better than to trust got in here and introduced the disease in order to weaken us.”

Hellebore clicked her tongue as she corked a vial. “Well, as a strategy, I unfortunately have to give the Moon Elves credit. They were playing a long gambit, and if not for me, it would succeed. I'll look into what they could have brought with them to cause this.”

Now that she'd had a fair number of hours examining the rotting irises, there was something about it that was familiar. Unfortunately, that by itself didn't mean much. Decay was her area of study. If she couldn't figure out why it was familiar, then that sense was of no use.

“Can you do it in six months?”

Hellebore looked around at the garden, then up at the sun. Her breathing came out distorted and heavy through her mask. “There's no other option.”

When they were finished, both covered in the filth, Taiyo shut the door to the garden behind them. “What was the bucket for? You didn't use it.”

Hellebore pulled a piece of chalk out of her belt and started writing on the wall. Taiyo let out a shocked gasp, and he started to lunge for her.

In hindsight, maybe she should have just told him.

Because as she pushed her power into the transmutation, she slammed into the wall while the disinfecting mist scoured over them.

The mist faded and she could feel Taiyo pressed against her, the chalk having clattered to the ground as his hands pinned hers against the stone. She stared up at him, and his fury shifted into confusion as he stared down at her.

She let out a slight chuckle, highly aware that she was at his mercy. “Paranoid much? Or are you just always looking for excuses to get your hands on me?”

Taiyo, however, only narrowed his eyes. “What did you do?”

“I disinfected our clothes so we don't track toxin and rot back through your castle.” Hellebore tried to nudge his leg, but really only succeeded in bringing them closer. She hoped the heat she was feeling flooding her cheeks wasn’t visible. She should have left her mask up. “You’re welcome.”

He stared down at her, his breathing still heavy, not pulling back. This was as close as they'd been since their wedding night.

“Considering my whole purpose here is for alchemy, I assumed you already knew not every use of it is an attack.”

“Right,” he whispered, but he didn't let go or move back. Did he feel this was necessary? Was he really so afraid of what she could do that he needed this to feel safe?

“I did use it to save your life with the sedative, remember?”

Taiyo's eyes drifted down from her eyes.

She took a short breath. “If I wanted you dead, you'd be dead.”

He started to shift even closer, and she didn't even know how that was possible, but then he pulled back slightly, finally loosening his grip on her hands, pinned against the stone.

At least he wasn’t completely flush against her anymore, but he was still far closer than he should be if he was so rightly repulsed by her. He whispered, “Why did you agree to help me? Why not kill me and let my country rot?”

“I have a fascination with decay.” Hellebore didn't pull her hands out of his grip. If this was what he needed in order to trust her, she’d let him have it. “And you read my father’s letter. I don’t have much of a choice. I like living. Being alive is an important element in being an alchemist. Skilled as we are, we haven’t conquered death yet.”

“Witty indifference will get you nowhere. You agreed to help me instantly. You were hysterical with elation over it. You could easily claim to help and do nothing and not a single elf here would be able to know if you were truly failing or faking. Tell me the truth.”

He had her cornered. Literally.

“If you insist… Maybe it was just desperation from you, but you believe I'm capable of this. I'd like to prove you right.”

“That's all it takes to soften your steel, mechanical heart? A little bit of faith?”

She grinned, pushing off the wall slightly and flush against him. “Look all you like, but I warned you. The heart's just an organ, and if it wasn't, I'd have it in a jar where it can do me no harm.”

Taiyo’s breath stuttered, brushing her cheek as he whispered, “You... I cannot comprehend what you are.”

“Now, don't flatter me too much. My ego is already inflated enough from you needing my help.” She tilted her head, his sunlight weaving between them. “I hope in the decades and centuries after me you tell everyone I was beyond your comprehension, your alchemist.”

“I can promise you now, that will not happen.”

“We'll see about that.”