Chapter 31
“Poison?” asks Edvear, his eyes going wide with alarm.
“I don’t know! Not a poison I’m familiar with! None of the ones I’ve studied make someone so cold.” I run my hands up and down the pile of blankets on top of Stella, trying to warm her with my magic, but it seems to do little good. I wrack my brain, running through the last twelve hours. She came with me to dinner. She didn’t eat anything. I lost track of her for a few minutes, during which Rahk rescued her and brought her back. Neither of them mentioned anything bad happening—someone giving her food or pressing a strand of hair into her hand or even anyone else talking to her. The servants didn’t mention anything.
Had something happened? If not then, when else could something have happened? She was back here the rest of the time—in my arms most of the night. There was a short window when we weren’t together while I bathed, and then again before she climbed into bed with me.
A sudden fear hits me. She had been in my study when I left the bathing chamber. Did she find my stash of poisons? Did she touch any of them? Consume anything? Surely, she wouldn’t be so stupid! I cannot imagine a world where she’d find an unlabeled bottle and just take a swig.
“Did she eat anything?” I demand as Edvear hurries back out the door.
“She had a meal, yes. But it was prepared in our kitchens, and I served it myself. When did she start displaying symptoms?”
“This morning. Once you’ve gotten the doctor, I want a list of everyone who touched her food and a timeline of preparation. I want to know if it was ever left alone, and if so, where and for how long.”
Edvear nods and leaves. Part of me wants to follow him out, to go racing through the hallways of the palace shouting for a doctor myself. But I cannot bring myself to leave Stella alone, shivering so cold.
Steeling my spine against the bitter fear swelling in my soul, I get back in bed. Pulling her so she’s flush against me, I wrap her up as tightly as I can and lay my head against hers. I siphon heat from the air with my magic and pour it out of my hands like water from a glass. It’s not enough. Nothing stops the shaking.
I let my shoulders sag, but don’t stop trying to warm her.
Have I already lost her?
It hasn’t even been three full days since we arrived in Valehaven. How could this have happened? Did my father outwit me somehow? Anticipate some move of mine that I didn’t think he knew? How did he get past my guard? Or was it Princess Listhra, who tried to poison her last night? Did the High King learn of her attempted poisoning and use it as a distraction from his own maneuver?
Stella can’t die. She can’t. She just . . . can’t!
Lulythinar is swiftly approaching, and if she dies now, what can I do? It might be too late to find another wife, which means I’ll be forced into a marriage, forced to sire an heir. Forced to ensure my own death.
But deeper than that . . . I can’t lose her. She’s too good to die. Too bright and beautiful and sweet, and I . . . I . . .
I let out a groan, squeezing her closer to me and pressing another kiss to the top of her head. She has fallen back into sleep, her mouth open and her brow puckered. Her name is another groan on my lips. “Oh Isabelle. My darling Stella. Please, please be alright. Please.”
If the High King killed her, I’ll forget this whole throne overthrowing business. I’ll kill him in cold blood and destroy my claim to the throne. I’ll plunge this whole world into war and leave the fae without a king, and the humans without protection from their rampaging.
A bitter resolve sears like a brand into my soul.
If she dies, this world burns.
The High King took my mother from me. He cannot take Stella too. If he does, he’ll finally know the monster he spawned. It prowls beneath my skin now, ready to rip and devour.
What I’ll do to him will make what he’s done to me look trite.
The door bursts open and I tense, tightening my arms around my wife as though expecting the High King to walk in with a sword and try to kill her this very instant, despite the wards I have on my quarters to prevent exactly that.
It’s Edvear. And a short, round-bellied human doctor with spectacles and a little black bag that he sets on the bed and opens. I recognize him as the traveling doctor who visits the Small Cities.
“If you would please, Your Highness,” says the doctor, coming around to Stella’s side of the bed.
If I would please what? If he thinks I’m going to let go of my wife—
“My lord, he must check her for poison. We must move quickly!” Edvear’s voice, ever practical, rankles down my spine. Nevertheless, I disentangle my arms from around her and sit up.
“Please help me lay her flat, Highness.”
I spring into action too quickly, rolling Stella from her side onto her back. I brush the hair out of her face, my heart hammering, as the doctor pulls down the blankets and presses two fingers beneath her jaw, and another two fingers to her heart. He looks at the ceiling, his mouth moving slightly as though he’s counting.
Next, he pries her mouth wide with his thumbs, peering inside. He pulls a strange instrument from his bag, a long slender piece of wood inlaid with bits of metal, it seems, and lays it on her tongue. After another minute, he peels it up, and sets it on the bedside table, the wet end propped up on a small towel. He doesn’t speak while he works, taking a little dish and mixing two different liquids from vials in it before dipping the instrument into the liquid.
“Well?” I demand, and Edvear shoots me a look like I’m being rude.
“A moment or two for the results, Highness,” says the doctor. “But I don’t think it’s poison.”
I blink. Surely, I heard him wrong. “You don’t think it’s poison?”
“No, indeed. I’m checking just to be thorough.”
“Then what is wrong with her?”
“Seems like blood sickness to me.” The doctor stares down at Stella, a frown on his face. “You don’t come across cases very often, and it varies in expression person to person, but I suspect that’s the case today. Other illnesses make the body hot to the touch as the body raises its internal temperature to fight the illness. This is not that.”
“She’s merely ill?” I ask, not even daring to breathe.
“I wouldn’t say merely ill, as blood sickness can be fatal.”
My newborn hope plummets. “Fatal? What is blood sickness?”
“Aha! Not poison!” The doctor grabs the stick out of the liquid and waves it in front of my face. As if it’s self-explanatory. I narrow my eyes at him and pull my wife back into my arms. Being under so many blankets with her so close should make me blisteringly hot, but holding her is like cuddling an icicle. Just in case she’s aware of what is happening, I stroke what I hope is soothing lines through her hair and down her back.
“What is blood sickness?” I all but growl.
“It is a rare phenomenon when a human comes to Faerieland and breathes in the magic from the air.”
“The air is making her sick?” I ask, alarmed.
“Not exactly. As you know, fae have magic and humans don’t. Most of the time. But very occasionally, for whatever reason or another—fae blood in the bloodline, perhaps, or a fairy curse or blessing—a human is born with magic.”
Static fills my ears. I look down at the delicate woman in my arms, her shivering little shoulders, her gleaming hair. Stella? With . . . magic?
“Human air is stifling for magic, as you are aware. But when a human with their own magic comes to Faerieland, the dense magical air can awaken their powers. This sickness is her body struggling against her awakening magic. It doesn’t happen for every human, but in most cases, it does. If she pulls out of it, her life expectancy will be much greater. More comparable to a fae’s than a human’s.”
If Stella has magic . . . that would change everything. I shove away the rising hope, swallowing hard. “You said it’s fatal?”
“It can be.”
There’s that ragged, desperate hope again, rearing its ugly head. “But it isn’t always?”
The doctor snaps his bag shut, sets it on the bedside table, and plants his hands on his stomach. The look he gives me sends dread pooling in my stomach. “It depends on how strong she is and how strong the blossoming magic is. You . . . have a few options.”
I tighten my grip on Stella, tangling my fist into her hair. “What options?”
He takes a deep breath and lets out a long sigh. Not a good sign. “You can wait and see what happens, whether she takes a turn for the worse or if she pulls out of this on her own.”
“How long could that take?”
“As little as a day, or it could be weeks.”
Weeks? I barely restrain my growl of frustration. Lulythinar isn’t even a full week away. I can’t leave her side while she’s in this state!
And what if she dies, anyway?
“The risks are, of course, that she will not be able to survive the strain of her humanity and magic clashing, or that her humanity will win out and her magic will be extinguished.”
I let out a sigh, dropping my head to rest on Stella’s. “And the other option?”
“We could give her a transfusion of fae blood.”
I look up, glance over at Edvear, who listens silently and says nothing. “A blood transfusion? Why?”
“To help with the developing magic. It’s a more surefire way to not let her magic be overpowered. It’s faster, too.”
“And the risks?”
The doctor adjusts his spectacles, squinting slightly. “Well, fae blood is usually toxic for humans, but in the case of a magical human, it’s less so. Still, there’s always the risk that it’ll kill her. The trick with the blood transfusion is to allow the magic to kill off just enough of her mortality to allow for the magic to bloom, but not enough that she dies.”
I clench my jaw so hard I almost don’t notice when my insides give a small cramp. The poison must not be completely gone yet. It seems like such a trivial thing now. “What is her greatest chance at survival?”
“It’s hard to say, Highness. I’ve only seen two cases of blood sickness in my life. I’ve heard of more, but—”
“Did they survive?”
“Neither, Highness.”
It’s as though my heart has been pinned to the wall, and a line of people keeps taking punches at it. Every moment I dare to hope, another punch is thrown.
“Did either of them get the transfusion?”
“One did. He seemed to fare better, too, before he took a turn.”
Silence falls over the room. The quiet wheeze of Stella’s breathing becomes loud in the stillness.
“And the other cases? The ones you’ve heard of?” I ask.
“I’ve heard of two surviving with the transfusion, and one without intervention. The rest didn’t make it.”
I consider this information as I work my fingers gently through the tangles in Stella’s hair. I just want to go back to last night, to that moment I woke up and smelled her sweet scent, to the feel of her against me when I drew her into my arms. The sound of her little gasps as I kissed her.
Now she might die, and I’ll never have told her that I . . . that I . . .
I squeeze my eyes shut against the sudden and completely foreign impulse to cry. The last tears I shed were for my mother when she died. Perhaps it’s fitting that I shed them for my wife, too.
But not now. Not with the doctor and Edvear in the room.
I need to make this decision. Survival isn’t likely with either course of action. But if she survives this, she’ll be much more likely to live longer in Faerieland if she has magic.
If she pulls through . . . if she does have magic . . .
Her lifespan would be longer. The High King and his plots aside, she wouldn’t grow old and die within a few decades. She could live with me, be my wife—for centuries.
She could be my queen.
The thought fills me with such blistering hope. What if I didn’t have to lose her like everyone else? What if I could keep her? What if I could fall asleep with her in my arms every night? What if we could have children together?
The urge to weep strengthens, almost getting the better of me. I shouldn’t dream like this! Not while she might be dying in my arms right now. But I can’t help it. This is something I could live for beyond overthrowing the High King. This is goodness, happiness, sweetness, fullness unlike anything I could have dreamed of.
I tighten my jaw, hardening my resolve, and press a kiss to the top of Stella’s head. “Give her the transfusion.”
The doctor nods, as though unsurprised. “Then I will need fae blood. Would you like her to have yours, Highness?”
“Mine?” I didn’t consider where the fae blood would come from.
“I have a few vials of fae blood. They’re not particularly fresh, though I have preserved them properly. I keep them in case of emergency, but I prefer to use fresh blood when I can.”
He is not putting some stranger’s moldy blood into my wife. “Yes, yes, take mine.”
“Very well.” The doctor pulls a scalpel from his bag and nods at me. “Let us get a bowl.”