31. Krait
Chapter 31
Krait
A note had been slipped under the bedchamber door when I arrived back that night.
Sybilla is safe but shaken. She’s sleeping in my quarters tonight. I’m proud of you for telling her—she’ll come around. I know it.
-El
It felt wrong not to see the Central Queen curled up in my bed. Most nights, I slipped in after she’d fallen asleep. The rise and fall of her breathing and her little nose whistle had begun to be what lulled me to sleep, and it was hard to drift off without her here.
The look on her face when she’d realized what I’d kept from her had been like a punch to my gut. Before leaving the bell tower quarters, I’d grabbed my list from the drawer, and I scanned it now as I sat up in bed.
The distance between her strengths and faults had shrunk. She came off bullish, but there was a vulnerability to her I’d seen time and time again. There was only one thing that I could possibly add to the list.
VIII. Not ready
How could she be? She’d been failed by the people meant to protect her, by a system in Luz that expected her to marry, and by me, who’d kept the truth from her for far too long. There would be no way she could overcome that. I’d broken the thin layer of trust I’d built.
After shuffling out of bed and crossing the room, I pulled open the bottom drawer of the vanity and shoved the parchment inside. My fists clenched, and I wanted nothing more than to storm into Elsedora’s chamber and make Sybilla talk to me. But that would do no good for either of us.
Instead, I returned to bed to lie on top of the sheets and let the musky, sweet scent of vanilla, tea and lilac envelop me until my eyes grew heavy enough for me to doze.
Sleep was only a temporary reprieve. Hours later, I stared at the dark wood beams of my bedchamber ceiling, trying to will myself to go back to sleep before the sun rose and woke me.
No use.
Groaning, I swung my feet out of bed and ran a hand over my face. After dressing in a brown tunic and dark breeches, I combed my hair and kicked on my boots.
Dawn could only be a few hours away, so I decided to start my day early. The candles in the bell tower wouldn’t relight themselves, and Sybilla’s accusations weighed heavy on my conscience. “ Would you have just left Freya to fend for herself against Death?”
I had let Freya die.
My selfish desire to marry her, to deviate from the prophecy, to build some delusional life had killed her.
By pulling Sybilla into this web, I’d endangered her too. That made my throat constrict.
It wasn’t the same.
Freya could have risen to power in Phynx. She could have changed the realms for the better if I’d only left her alone.
Not letting myself linger on those thoughts, I exited my bedchamber and headed toward the east quadrant stairs. Before I’d reached the bell tower, I heard the patter of someone jogging down the hall.
“Krait!” Her tone jolted me. With a robe haphazardly pulled over a nightdress, as though she’d been torn from sleep, Elsedora reached me.
“What happened?” Panic spiked through the dullness of my exhaustion.
“It’s Sybilla.”
My stomach dropped.
El continued, “She is burning up. I woke to her whimpering—I already called a healer; she is on her way up.”
“Sybilla’s alone?”
“No—I found Ryn first. He is with her now. But hurry.” She pushed me down the dark hallway. The distance to El’s quarters felt miles long, even though it was only a few yards away.
Elsedora rambled. “I shouldn’t have told her about Emmerick, about the deathmark. I found it on his sword’s pommel. What if the stress was her undoing?”
“El,” I grated out. I didn’t have time to react to the confirmation of Mattock being an envoy. “Mortals get sick. She will be alright.” Despite my justification, my heart raced.
By the time we got to the door, Ryn was speaking with the healer. “What is that for?” he asked, gesturing to a vial.
“This will help bring down her fever,” the healer answered.
“Why does she have a fever?” I growled out as I entered the room.
Elsedora couldn’t help but prod me with, “What happened to ‘ mortals get sick—she will be alright’?”
Sybilla lay asleep—if whatever her restless, trembling and labored breath state could be considered sleep. Dark circles had formed under her eyes, and her hair was slicked back with sweat at the temples. Just by looking at her, it was easy to see she was far from alright.
“Why is she so sick?” I demanded.
The healer, a shorter woman with thick blonde hair and brown eyes, grimaced at my words.
I needed to work on my tact.
“There are many reasons a mortal can fall ill. Most of her symptoms are completely normal of a common fever. Did Queen Wymark arrive with any records of health? Was she taking any remedies or tonics?” she asked.
It wasn’t something we’d ever thought about or considered. The vials. Remembering the green liquid spilled across the floor when she’d been attacked caused me to curse.
“We don’t have any records.” The fact I’d missed something so obvious made me want to throw something. “She’d been taking something. It was a green liquid. She didn’t mention what.”
The healer nodded. “Right now, she needs rest, fluids and tonics to control her fever. Do you have a way of tracking down what she was regularly taking? It could have been helping her ward off illness if she’s prone to spells like this. She could recover more quickly if she started taking it again.”
Elsedora added, “When she was awake, she said she hurt and needed Emmerick. It was mostly incoherent, but I caught that much.”
Shaken, I clenched my fists and said, “I’ll be back.”
“Krait, where are you going? Please don’t say Helos.”
I hummed a response and stormed out of the room.
The sight of the sweat on Sybilla’s brow, the paleness of her cheeks aside from the rash across her face, and her miserable expression pulled me apart.
But I wasn’t the comfort she wanted, and if she’d asked for Emmerick, it meant he would know how to help her.
I only hoped that enough of him remained to see reason and that he’d tell me what she needed.
I didn’t want to risk draining my energy by Shadowing the full way to Helos, not with the risk of Caym controlling Mattock. When the Egress dropped me into Helos Castle, guards flocked the hall, but I traveled through the Shadows too quickly for them to get a look at me. Lynx snarled and tried to leap at me, but I skirted them too.
Despite it being before dusk, I found the North King at his desk, writing a letter. Even though I was already in his room, I knocked on the door behind me to announce myself.
Mattock’s head snapped up; his gaze hardened, but there was a gold ring in his irises. A good sign. He abruptly got to his feet.
“Entering my Corridor uninvited is an act of war, Darvanda” he barked. “I have already told your officer that.”
I raised both palms to reveal I had no weapons. “It’s Sybilla. She’s sick. Who am I speaking with right now?”
His expression turned from indignation to concerned confusion. He assessed me. “What are you talking about? And how sick?”
“Fever, chills—she can’t stay conscious.”
Mattock nodded but did not seem shocked. “For how long?”
My arms dropped to my sides as I said, “It came on quickly...sometime through the night.”
I glanced around for Mattock’s broadsword. I wondered how near it needed to be for Caym to reach him, or whether it worked like that at all. We didn’t understand enough about how Caym was infiltrating his envoys.
“She asked for you,” I ground out. “What should we do for her?”
Mattock grimaced. “Has she been taking Mortag’s tonics?”
My posture slumped. “No. What does she take them for?”
Mattock breathed out as though exasperated with me. He had every right to be. I’d allowed his former Queen to grow ill. I hadn’t known what to look for. Those broken vials had been important, and I’d failed to piece it together.
“She struggles with ongoing pain and inflammation. She takes tonics to help reduce it. Go to Healer Mortag in Luz. He has cared for her since she was a girl. He’ll have the right tonics,” he sighed out. “She gets sick frequently. Her body isn’t as good as others’ at fighting off common illnesses, especially if she’s been under any stress. It isn’t something she likes many people to know. She views it as something that could be used against her claim over the Central Corridor.”
At each revelation, the knot growing in my throat thickened. He knew so much about her—so much about how to care for her. He hadn’t even sounded smug as he’d unveiled her deepest anxieties, only downtrodden.
I’d been so careless.
Part of me wanted to strike him for contributing to her stress. But in the months she’d been under my roof, she had been confronted by one obstacle or piece of bad news after another. His being an envoy—it wasn’t even his fault.
I could only grow angrier at myself.
“Thank you,” I ground out and retreated toward the shadows.
Emmerick’s jaw tightened. “Congratulations on your betrothal. If she’s let you anywhere near her while she’s sick, there must be something redeeming about your character.” The sentiment was clipped but seemingly sincere.
It burned at my sense of pride that she hadn’t come to me at all. The straightening of his posture and the light dimming in his eyes told me his next words might not be his own. There were footsteps outside the door.
“We’ll be back to deal with you...” I said to Caym as dark-green smoke and amber flecks filled Mattock’s irises.
At my parting words, a chilling smile spread across the North King’s face. He nodded and said, “Until the next black moon, nephew. I will enjoy your death the most.”
Holding my breath, I sank back into the shadows and parted without another word to visit a healer in Luz. I didn’t bother returning to the Egress; instead, I Shadowed through the breaking dawn.
The guards at the gates of Luz barked orders for me to tell them why I was there. I’d used the entry, out of respect for Sybilla’s new advisors.
“Your Queen requests I speak with her advisors, Fenris and Asterie,” I told them, tapping my boot against the stark marble.
They checked me for weapons before they led me inside.
Only after Asterie had descended the steps did the guards back away, seeming to understand that her power far outweighed their ability to protect her.
“What’s the meaning of this?” she asked.
Judging by the thick purple velvet robe she wore and the hair astray from its braid, they’d pulled her from sleep.
“It is Sybilla,” I said.
Asterie’s brow furrowed. “What’s happened to her?”
“She’s sick—Mattock says a healer by the name Mortag usually helps her.”
“He has not returned. Let me fetch Wyeth. She helped me draw up tonics before Sybilla left. Is she out of them already?”
My heart sank as I realized I’d been right. The green vials were what she needed.
Asterie walked over to one of her guards, quietly giving him orders, and he ascended the steps. She stepped down into the main hall of the palace. Silver-accented sconces and royal blue rugs were laid out down the hall. The marble had been patched, and much work had been done since I’d last seen the space.
Something about being in Sybilla’s home while she lay sick in mine didn’t sit right with me.
“How bad is she?” Asterie watched me like a hawk.
“Bad enough that I visited the North King—bad enough that I am here.”
Her gaze narrowed. “Was there foul play? Poison?”
“No, of course not,” I grumbled.
Asterie’s head tilted.
“Can you go tell your healer we don’t have all night?”
Fenris trotted down the steps in an open robe, wearing trousers but no tunic. He paid me no pleasantries, which I appreciated. “What happened?”
Begrudgingly, I told them of Sybilla’s fever, of our healer’s prognosis—that she would be fine, but that we needed to provide her with the tonics she was used to taking.
It wasn’t long before a petite woman with neat shoulder-length black hair appeared at the top of the steps. She was dressed in a light-green robe and thick black nightdress.
“Nice to see you, King Darvanda,” Wyeth said as she descended the stairs, and her hair flashed green. I’d heard of a kingdom in the East Corridor whose lineage had been cursed with such a truth charm—I had no time to be offended.
Wyeth sized me up and then held out two bright green vials. “I only had enough supplies for a few doses. This should get Queen Wymark through tomorrow, and I can prepare more to send Asterie with after I gather the ingredients.”
Asterie chimed in, “Sybilla mentioned that the tonics she usually takes are blue—do you know of anything anti-inflammatory that would be blue?”
Wyeth tapped her chin and shook her head, “Only garrot root, and that was banned from medicinal use long ago. It’s impossible to find now. Maybe her healer was using bluebell vine tea to lace the healing tonic and make it taste better? There is plenty of that in his quarters.”
I ground my teeth. Garrot root had been one of the magic suppressants used during the Great Wars against my people—the Phynnic had polluted the water with it.
Palming the vials that Wyeth handed me, I looked between the three of them. “Thank you. I’ll send El in the morning to give you word on how Sybilla is feeling.”
Asterie offered me a quiet nod before I Shadowed away from the realm of Henosis and swirled through the darkness toward the Sahlms. I’d be beyond tired tomorrow, but every minute away from Umber House made me grow more anxious.