Chapter Four
“WE NEED TO evacuate the healing ward,” Clament said, throwing his blankets back. He got his legs over the side of the bed and stood, wobbling, but he refused to fall. His knees stabilized, and he headed for the door.
“What? Why? Where do you think you’re going?” Alina gasped out.
Clament didn’t know if he had time to explain, but he also knew he needed Alina’s help to get everyone who might be in the healing ward to safety. He called up his magic, the room taking on a gentle golden glow.
“Sorry about this,” Clament said as he clamped one hand on Alina’s arm and dragged her awareness away with his, along the path his magic carved through the castle. They stopped in what appeared to be a dusty, unused storeroom where five people crouched. They wore dark, nondescript oversized clothes over leather armor, hoods over their heads, and masks covering their noses and mouths. The strip of skin around their eyes was darkened by some sort of powder.
“Shouldn’t we wait till dark?” a woman asked, her voice a hissing whisper.
“Guards expect danger to happen at night,” a man hissed back. “Our source says the damned princely guard dog is gone, and this is the time of day when the ward he’s in is emptiest. We’ll be able to get in, kill the bastard, remove any witnesses, and get out before anyone notices. Prepare yourselves.”
Leather creaked as armored bodies moved and hands were placed on sword hilts. Clament let the magic go, returning to his body with a gasp echoed by Alina’s.
“Where can we hide?” Clament asked.
Alina dropped the tray onto the end of the bed, green goop and tea splashing onto the lacquered wood, and dashed ahead of him into the main ward. Clament usually took his walks around the wide room, so the octagonal space was familiar. Two rows of beds down the middle for short-term treatment, four doors on the back wall leading to private treatment rooms—including Clament’s—two more doors on each side, the left leading to storage and the right to the herbarium where concoctions like the green goop were made. The rest of the walls were absolutely stuffed with cabinets, except for directly ahead where wide double doors were open to the hallway outside.
“Marcia, get Lord Loweseth up. The ward is about to be attacked,” Alina called to a young woman in trainee robes, sitting idly in a chair by the door.
Marcia gaped for a moment before swallowing hard and jumping to her feet. She hurried over to the only occupied bed in the middle of the room and gently shook the shoulder of the young man sleeping there, one of his arms immobilized in a sling. Alina went over to one of the cabinets and yanked the door open, revealing a staircase partially obscured by the healer’s robes hanging inside.
Every inch of space was needed in the ward, so the healers had hung the robes there out of necessity, inadvertently converting a hallway concealed by a doorway into an actual secret passage. Alina pushed the robes to the side, holding them back and waving for Clament, Marcia, and Loweseth to start up the stairs. She closed the door after them and rearranged the robes so they filled the entire space, making it look like a proper closet. It would only hold up to a cursory inspection but would buy them some time.
Clament’s knees were shaking, and he was gripping the banister with both hands to haul his body up by the time he reached the top of the stairs. Marcia helped Loweseth, whose eyes were unfocused and blinking out of sync, and Alina brought up the rear. She hurried forward to guide Clament to one of the chairs arranged in a long row on a balcony overlooking a circular room below.
“This is the observation room into the surgery,” she explained.
A massive crashing noise echoed up the stairs from behind them. Alina let out a squeaking gasp and dashed over to the wall where a number of bellpulls were strung. She gripped the pull with a red string and yanked it frantically for a good thirty seconds before returning to Clament’s side.
“That will summon the guards,” she explained. “Come on. We have to keep moving.”
Marcia hadn’t stopped, so she and Loweseth were halfway down the stairs to the operating theater below by the time Alina levered Clament back to his feet. More of his weight than Clament really wanted to admit rested on Alina as she steadied him with an arm around his waist, his arm over her shoulders. Together they hobbled after Marcia, slowly making their way first to the staircase, and then step-by-step down. They were stumbling their way across the theater floor around the surgery bed and equipment in the center, when another loud crash sounded, and voices began to echo from above. The attackers had found the hidden staircase, which meant in moments he and Alina would be exposed to attack from above.
Clament bit his lip and pushed his legs to a faster pace, his lungs burning as he wheezed for breath. The open doors to the hallway loomed ahead, Marcia and Loweseth already through. Clament and Alina dashed out the doors, right into a group of six soldiers. Clament reeled back, almost knocking himself and Alina over, before he recognized the uniform of the Etoval palace guards.
“Attacking the ward!” Marcia was in the midst of speaking, and he realized she was informing the guards.
“How many attackers? Any hostages?” the man with a captain’s stripes across his chest asked.
“Five attackers. No hostages. We got everyone out,” Alina replied. “But they’re right behind us.”
The captain nodded sharply. He pointed at one of the six soldiers with him. “Sprint back to the guards’ room and get everyone there down here immediately.” The guard took off. The captain pointed to another soldier, a large woman with more muscles than the rest of the guards combined, and then pointed down the hall where the infirmary doors were visible. “Guard the doors. No one comes out. When reinforcements arrive, go in and clear the space, then come through the operating room to flank the bastards from behind. Capture if you can, kill if there’s no other option.” The woman nodded and trotted off, sword drawn. The captain turned to the remaining four soldiers. “With me.”
They drew their swords and marched into the operating theater, but Alina headed off, farther down the hall where she could tuck Clament onto a bench in a convenient niche. He couldn’t watch through the doors from there, although Clament wasn’t certain he actually wanted to know what was about to happen. A moment later, the sounds of battle echoed into the hallway: metallic clangs of blades clashing, grunts and shouts, and moans of pain. A full minute passed and then the thumps of boots stomping on flagstones preceded a dozen guards dashing into view, Prince Fenwick leading.
Prince Fenwick didn’t slow as he passed Clament, although he shot what appeared to be a relieved nod in his direction. Clament must have imagined it, though, because there was no way the prince who had captured him would be relieved he was still alive. Half the group continued down the hall to the waiting guard outside the infirmary doors. The rest were with Fenwick as they all drew swords and headed inside the operating theater.
The battle didn’t last long after that. Fenwick returned, looking disgruntled, his sword sheathed at his hip.
“They killed themselves when they saw they were outnumbered,” he explained. “Poison hidden in a false tooth. I’ve seen it before.” He snorted in disgust.
“Any of ours wounded?” Alina asked.
“Scrapes and bruises, Healer, but you’re welcome to go check yourself. I’ll keep an eye on your patients for you.”
Alina stood and dusted off the seat of her pants before pointing at Loweseth. “That one was thrown from his horse this morning and has a broken collarbone. Don’t let him thrash about. Make sure this one”—she moved her finger to point at Clament—“is still breathing.” She waved for Marcia to follow, and they both vanished back through the doors into the operating theater.
Fenwick glanced at where Loweseth was lying on the floor, clearly still doped up on painkillers and insensible, and then leaned against the wall and switched his attention to study Clament.
“They say the king of Namin is the ‘great all-seeing ruler’ or the ‘all-knowing king.’” The grin Fenwick leveled on Clament was full of mischief, his hazel eyes twinkling in the light of the dim, windowless hallway. “Let’s just say I have some inkling of how everyone managed to evacuate the healing ward before the attackers arrived.” He paused, his grin turning into a frown. “Now we owe you a debt of gratitude in addition to the debt of pain. We will never finish repaying everything we owe you.”
He sounded genuine, and Prince Fenwick was a soldier, not a spymaster with superb acting skills. Clament wanted to believe him.
“They were coming after me. If I hadn’t been there, the healers would never have been in danger.”
Fenwick snorted. “You’re only in the healers’ ward at all thanks to Toval’s incompetence. If we had trained and monitored the soldiers and healers in charge of the prisons properly, you would have still been behind a locked and guarded door where they never would have had a chance to target you in the first place.”
More people jogged into view—soldiers, the other two healers, two more apprentice healers, more soldiers, and the obnoxiously curious who had no logical purpose for being there. Fenwick casually stepped closer to Clament as if he was moving out of the way of the path of those arriving, but he stood in a way that made it difficult for anyone to see Clament’s face.
“The attackers had an informant,” Clament said before his reason returned. Clament firmly believed the attackers had been sent from Namin, which meant either his father or older brother had authorized it. He should have expected this to happen when Toval didn’t simply hang him and be done with it, but he still felt the cold burn of betrayal like a vise around his heart.
“They would have had to, in order to know you were in the healing ward rather than the dungeon,” Fenwick replied, but his frown had turned into a scowl. “Did they say anything specific?”
“That Prince Braxton had left and this time of day the healing ward was emptiest so they would have the easiest time getting inside. Healer Alina and I were more interested in escaping at that point, so I didn’t hear more.”
“It’s more than enough,” Fenwick said, his voice an angry growl. “The list of people who know you’re here in Toval is fairly small. The list of people who knew you were in the healing ward specifically is considerably smaller. And the list of people who knew Braxton was leaving is miniscule. What you told me should be enough to ferret out the informant.”
Alina emerged from the crowd, pushing a wheeled chair in front of her. Clament’s patchwork blanket was folded neatly on the seat. A second chair followed her, but the two healers with that chair went over to gather Loweseth. Alina unfolded the blanket and draped it over Clament’s shoulders, tucking the edges high so it partially obscured his face.
“He can’t stay in the ward tonight,” Alina told Fenwick as she supported Clament in standing on shaking, exhausted legs, then transferring over to the wheeled chair. “We’re going to be weeks repairing everything.”
Fenwick’s mischievous grin returned. “I know just the place. Guarded, yet very comfortable. Do you have a few minutes to spare to come inspect the location with us, healer?”
Alina nodded. “Lead the way.” She took a few extra seconds to fuss over making sure Clament was comfortable, pulling the blanket even higher around his face in the process, before gripping the chair handles and pushing him along the hall after Fenwick. They stuck to less-used hallways, ones without windows so the only light was from evenly spaced lamps. Most of the people they passed wore some sort of servant or secretary uniform, and when they saw Fenwick they bowed low and hurried away without sparing much of a glance at Clament. When they reached a long hallway with widely spaced doors, Fenwick slowed so he was walking next to Alina.
“Were you able to take a look at the bodies?” he asked her.
“A quick one. Just enough to check what poison they used to be sure it wouldn’t spread through the air. I didn’t recognize them, but they each had an odd tattoo behind their right ears. A red star of some kind, but it didn’t look right.”
“Three interconnected triangles, each triangle a different shade of red?” Clament choked out, his voice strangled by the knot in his throat.
“Yes, exactly like that,” Alina replied.
“You know what that star means,” Fenwick said to Clament, his tone curious, but when Clament glanced up, Fenwick’s eyes were sharp and serious.
Clament swallowed hard and then again when the first time didn’t clear his throat enough to speak.
“Tell Braxton I’m ready to talk. About everything.”