23. Chapter 23
Chapter twenty-three
Cyrus sat in his study, resting his weight on his elbows on the desk in front of him with his hands tented against his closed eyes.
He’d been wrong.
“ Do we know how many? ” he asked Jaem through the blood bond.
He’d asked Jaem to see what he could learn about anything going on between Aleon, Mercia, and the Shadowlands.
Rumors and tavern talks were becoming surprisingly more reliable than official communications.
It had taken a couple of weeks, but Jaem now reported that the combined forces of Mercia and Aleon had been sent to support the Shadowlands.
“ In the thousands ,” Jaem replied, “ but I’m still trying to figure out if that means two thousand or forty thousand. ”
Cyrus pushed a long breath out. It didn’t matter if it was one thousand. It told Cyrus what he needed to know—that the three kingdoms were allied. He’d doubted it, but the proof was clear now.
“ And there’s more ,” Jaem said. “ They were led by the Mercian lord justice. ”
His chest tightened, and he leaned back in his chair. “ My brother delivered reinforcements to the Shadow King? ”
He’d thought Alexander didn’t have the power to inflict the hurt of betrayal anymore. But he found himself wrong again.
“ Is he still there? ” he asked.
“ I don’t know ,” Jaem said. “ I’ll use the blood to call to you when I find out more. ”
Cyrus heard the roar of his name in the hall even before Orion came barreling through the doorframe.
“Cyrus, we’ve got a problem,” Orion said, not even bothering with a greeting. Orion always had a problem, which he then made Cyrus’s problem.
Cyrus didn’t have time for more problems. “What?” he said shortly, already annoyed.
“Joren went to the port two days ago. When he got back, he said he wasn’t feeling well and started running a fever. I told him to take a rest. I didn’t hear anything from him yesterday, and I sent Rev to check on him this morning.”
Cyrus didn’t know who either of those men were, nor did he care, and this story was already entirely too long. “So? He’s still sick?”
“He’s dead. I checked around—he’d taken a shared wagon back. Three others from that wagon have a fever now, and there’s a second man dead.”
Cyrus’s annoyance was suddenly replaced by a sinking weight in his stomach.
This was certainly a problem. A lethal fever could be devastating.
The capital city was dense, especially with all the arrivals they’d taken in over the past year.
Barracks were overrun, single homes occupied by multiple families, and even some market areas had been converted to temporary accommodations. It wasn’t possible to separate people.
“There’s someone else who caught a ride back on that wagon too,” Orion said. “Your healer.”
Cyrus’s eyes darted to him, and he stood abruptly. “Teron?”
The assassin nodded. “I haven’t checked on him,” he added. “I just came straight here.”
Cyrus didn’t wait for him to say more. He nearly broke into a run out of the study and down the halls toward Teron’s workroom, with Orion close behind. When he reached the workroom, he found it empty. He pivoted and quickened his steps even more toward Teron’s bedchamber.
Essandra crossed them in the hall. She paused when she saw him. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
He stopped only briefly. “There’s a fever that appears to be spreading. I’m worried about Teron.”
“Have you tried his workroom?”
“It’s empty. I’m going to check his chamber.”
“I’ll come with you.” They all picked up toward Teron’s chamber, and when they reached it, Cyrus beat on the door.
“Teron!” he called. He beat again. “Teron!”
The healer didn’t answer. Cyrus reached for the handle, but Orion caught him. “You can’t go in there—if he has the fever, you could catch it.”
Cyrus wasn’t too concerned about himself, but he banged on the door again. “Teron!” he yelled.
Still, the old man didn’t answer.
And Cyrus swung the door open. “Stay out here,” he ordered Essandra and Orion.
Essandra grabbed him. “Cyrus—”
“Stay here,” he told her again as he pulled away, and he stepped inside.
Teron’s room was almost as large as Cyrus’s, although he kept it quite sparse. A small writing desk sat against the far wall just under a tri-set window. Long draperies hung in the center of the room, serving as a partition separating his sleeping space.
Cyrus pulled back the drapery, and his heart stopped.
Teron lay in his bed, his face pale, his eyes closed.
Cyrus sprang to him, checking his neck for a pulse. “Teron!” Fever flushed the old man’s skin, and Cyrus let out a breath of relief. He was alive. But the relief was short-lived.
“Teron?” He shook him gently.
Teron didn’t respond.
“He’s got the fever!” he called to Essandra in the doorway. “Is there anything you can do?”
She stepped inside just enough to see him, with a line trenched across her forehead. “I don’t think so, but I’ll go see what I can find in the books.”
“Do it quickly!”
She slipped away in the direction of her workroom.
“Get Everan and Kord,” Cyrus barked to Orion. “Have them check the army, and have our men start going through the people. We have to see if anyone else has caught it and do our best to separate them.”
Orion left quickly to his task.
Cyrus sank to his knees next to Teron’s bed. “Teron?” he called again. The old man still didn’t respond. Cyrus clasped his hand. His eyes burned and blurred, and he blinked them clear.
This couldn’t be happening. What had Teron even been doing at the ports? It wasn’t unusual, he reminded himself. Teron had frequent shipments of books and supplies, and he didn’t like other people handling them.
But why would he take a shared wagon? He could have used a palace carriage, although Teron never took a palace carriage.
Cyrus swore as he raked a rough hand over his face. He could argue why and how and what if all day, but the truth was, he was just angry. Out of all the people who actually deserved something like this, Teron was not one of them.
Or maybe it wasn’t a curse against Teron.
Maybe the gods were punishing Cyrus. They knew what Teron meant to him.
“Don’t take this man from me,” he whispered to them. If he had to pray, he would pray. If he had to beg, he would beg. Teron had always taken care of him, saved him, loved him. Teron was his family, and Cyrus couldn’t lose him. “I beg you, don’t take him.”
Essandra came bustling back in with jars of herbs and a bowl in her arms.
“Did you find anything?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No, but I—”
“You weren’t even gone that long. Go through all the books, all the spells—”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said as she dropped down beside him and dumped the contents of her arms in front of her.
“Witches don’t have healing power. The only thing that I have is a warding spell.
I thought I might be able to cast his fever away, but I found it won’t work on those already infected or those without power in their blood. ”
“Teron has power!”
“But he’s already infected,” she said. “You’re not , though, at least not yet. You have to let me ward your blood.”
“We have to get his fever down.”
“I brought some tanis extract for that.” She picked up a jar with some yellow liquid. “Here—help me get this in him. We can also sponge him a bit.”
Cyrus scooped his arm under Teron and lifted the old man slightly as Essandra poured the liquid down.
Teron coughed and sputtered.
“Essandra,” Cyrus breathed shakily as his eyes caught on the blood that tinged Teron’s lips. “Why’s he bleeding?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. The sickness must be causing it. Cyrus, let me ward you.”
“Where is some water? He needs some water.”
She grabbed his arm. “I have to ward you first. Cyrus, if you get sick…”
He didn’t care about himself. Teron’s fever was dangerously high.
“It will only take a moment,” she said. She quickly mixed the various herbs from her jars in the bowl. Then she made a swift cut on his arm, drawing off the beads of blood that swelled out.
He gritted his teeth.
She mixed his blood with the herbs in the bowl and breathed a spell over it, and a small green flame flared upward. When it died, she closed her eyes in relief. “It’s done,” she said.
“What about you?”
“Let me get some water for Teron, then I’ll do mine.”
Essandra retrieved a pitcher and basin and brought them beside the bed. She poured the water and dipped a clean linen cloth, but when she moved to sponge Teron’s forehead, Cyrus took it from her.
“You ward yourself,” he said. “I’ll do this.”
She let him take the linen to start on Teron while she worked to mix more herbs for her own spell.
Cyrus turned his attention to the old healer. He drew the wet cloth over the old man’s face and down his neck, but as he pushed open the loose tunic to get his chest, he paused. He hadn’t realized how frail Teron had become. His robes hid a lot. Very little flesh covered his frame.
He glanced at Essandra as she pricked her finger and added a droplet of blood to her mixture. She whispered the same spell she’d spoken for him, and again a green flame lit inside the bowl.
“What about Everan?” Cyrus asked. “And Kord and Ram and Orion. And the others?”
“They don’t have power in their blood.”
“What if you bonded them to me? Like you do when we pass through the portal. It’s a physical bond. Would that cover them? I’m warded, so they’d be warded?”
She drew her bottom lip between her teeth. “Maybe? But you’ve only been able to tether three at a time before the bond starts to fall apart. Remember? You won’t be able to cover everyone.”
“What about the general blood bond?”
She hesitated. “That’s a mind bond. I don’t think that will work the same.”
“We’ll still do it. Have people consume it, not just put the blood on their skin.”
“Okay. We can try it.”
“Do the tether for Everan. And Kord and Orion and Ram—
“ Three , Cyrus.”
He stopped.