Chapter 23 Thessia #2
“I wish to see him,” she replied, as charmingly as she could.
Marko’s apprentice spoke up, flustered. “I’m afraid we cannot—”
“Then I’m afraid I rather cannot endorse your expansion into Mythria,” Thessia interrupted, with full imperial loftiness.
What good was queendom if one could not get what one wanted some of the time?
When the healer began to protest, Thessia started to spin like she intended to show herself out.
Marko held up his hand, silencing his student and halting Thessia. “We . . . can arrange a meeting,” he said in displeasure.
“But the scribe must sit it out.”
Thessia met Celine’s gaze. The condition was dangerous. Thessia, isolated, in this place of warped, whispered magic, without
the one person who could fight their way out if everything fell apart.
But . . . they needed to find Ario.
“Of course,” Thessia conceded, keeping her composure.
Be careful, Celine mouthed when the healers led Thessia from the common room.
Thessia followed the healers up staircases their tour had passed by. If possible, the Pale Palace’s hollow, echoing silence
only deepened with the climb. They entered the highest tower, the elegant spire Thessia had seen from the carriage that looked
like the palace’s spine pointing skyward.
When they reached their destination, Thessia noticed the heightened security. They passed bars of whitened metal, guarded
by unmoving hand magicians.
She felt herself start to sweat as the healers led her to the hall’s farthest door. What would she find inside? Implements
of morbid torture? Gruesome medical misdeeds? Or—the instruments of her own captivity, or worse?
The door swung open.
It was . . . nice inside.
Thessia exhaled. Strangely enough, the room resembled the comforts of the franchised inns springing up in Mythria. Without
personality yet pleasant. The white stone gleamed cleanly in the daylight. The gauzy curtains over the small window were still.
The plant in the corner, of the same kind growing outside, seemed to be flourishing.
That was good, Thessia reasoned. If the healers could keep plants healthy, perhaps they could keep princes healthy, too.
Upon this thought, Thessia found the object of her quest.
Ario lay in a clean bed by the window. While his eyes were open, gazing out toward the glimpse of daylight, they were . . .
vacant. He did not move or respond when Thessia and her cohort entered the room.
Chills ran over Thessia’s skin. She rushed to his side. When she clutched his hand, she found his palm clammy, his fingers
ungrasping. His pallid unresponsiveness did not change.
No. No. Real fear hammered on the gates of Thessia’s heart. How? What had happened? Ario looked genuinely physically uninjured. No
head wound. No bruises or bloody bandages. Given how obviously unwell the prince was, she found only small comfort in the
confirmation of the reliability of her own memory. What had thrust the emotional young man who’d fled the Realm Chalice into
this state?
She was desperate to wake him. Inspiration struck her. “Ario, you do not look yourself. Put your worries . . .” She struggled.
“Up on the shelf,” she said, concluding the rhyme.
This poetry thing wasn’t easy. She would stick to queendom and questing, she decided with new empathy for Ario’s creative
plight.
When her rhyme elicited no response—none whatsoever—Thessia knew the fault lay not with her poor lyricism. Or not entirely.
She rounded on the healers, her panic mounting.
“What’s wrong with him?” she demanded. “I see no injury.”
Master Marko looked on with something like sadness. Feigned? Thessia wondered. “The crown doesn’t wish for us to speak of
it,” he replied.
No. Cheap political excuses would not waylay her. Not while her friend suffered. “How am I to know that you haven’t done this to him? He looks like he’s under the effects of some curse.”
Marko looked more impatient than indignant. “We would never, Your Highness.”
Thessia strode right up to the healer. “Explain what’s going on or I’ll be forced to tell the scribe out there what’s happening
in this place of healing,” she said, emphasizing the word with venom. “Mythria has a free press. She won’t be stopped.”
The master healer held her gaze with an impressively stony resolve. Then he gestured to his party.
“Leave us,” he ordered.
While his cohort filed out, Thessia realized she was alone. Entirely alone, except for Ario. Without guards. Without witnesses.
The healer sat on the sole footstool in the room. He winced at the pressure on his knees.
“Please,” he murmured. “Stay your quill. The crown gives us very few resources. We do what we can.”
Master Marko’s voice held raw despondency. Thessia covered her shock.
She studied him, seeing with sudden sympathy what his statuesque demeanor concealed. He was no skeleton, no reptile. He looked
like a weary man with an impossible job.
In this kingdom, where Thessia was learning that nothing was what it seemed, she should not have been surprised.
“The crown would rather the people they send here be forgotten,” Marko continued. “But we truly care for everyone who comes
our way. People with inconvenient or difficult maladies deserve to be treated with respect. We . . . do what we can with what
we have,” he repeated. “With magic or medicine, we seek to stay pain or prolong life. But most patients we receive have been
sent here to die.”
He gestured to the crown prince.
“We suspect that Prince Ario has been poisoned,” he explained gravely. “But nothing we do seems to help.”
Thessia blinked. She struggled to accept this information.
The healer was openly admitting that the king and queen .
. . wanted Ario forgotten? While he succumbed to poisoning?
Why hide his state unless . . . Could the royal couple have been the ones to poison him?
Days after the death of their eldest son?
She looked desperately for flaws in the plot, possibilities unaccounted for.
She found none. The scribesheet reports of Ario being injured were . . . lies, easily disseminated by the crown.
“What—” She gulped. “What poison could do this?”
Forlorn, Marko studied the prince. The man was not without compassion, Thessia recognized now. “We suspect cinderflower extract,”
he replied. “It’s a newer creation, one produced only in Vestriya and with terrible costs. We’ve seen more and more cases
of it. In small doses, it’s a painkiller, harmless and undetectable. In larger ones . . . there is no treatment.”
“Is it . . . fatal?” Thessia forced out.
Marko eyed the motionless prince.
“No patient has survived longer than a fortnight,” he said.
Tears leapt into Thessia’s eyes. A fortnight. The prince did not have long, then.
It struck Thessia how deeply this wounded her. She hardly knew Ario. Yet in every moment with the young prince, she’d felt
the incandescence of his spirit. His frivolity was just passion by another name, his poetic indulgence only the embodiment
of his confidence and zeal. He was joyful, and kind, and dying.
A stirring in her dress pocket pulled Thessia from these mournful ruminations.
Thinking of Ario’s beloved snail having to lose him, she stifled a sob. When she lifted Benjamin from her pocket, the snail
pointed his eye stalks with intent toward the prince.
Gently, Thessia lowered the colorful creature onto Ario’s cold hand while Marko’s wispy eyebrows rose. She’d hoped that Ario could say hello to his pet. Not that they would need to say goodbye.
The snail slimed with determination up Ario’s arm to his chest, right over his heart. When Benjamin started twirling his stalks—his
sign of want—Thessia could hardly watch. She knew the depth of the snail’s emotions was profound. In his way, Benjamin was
expressing his desire for Ario to return from his poisoned stupor, to—
The prince’s eyelashes fluttered.
Thessia startled. Benjamin had elicited the only movement Thessia had yet seen from the convalescing prince. Was she imagining—
No. With Benjamin suctioned over his heart, Ario’s breathing evened and deepened. His eyes moved to his snail with unmistakable
clarity. Color started to return to his cheeks!
“How— What—” Marko had risen to his feet. “What is that—snail?” the old healer uttered.
“His name is—” Thessia started, offering the only explanation she could.
Ario sat suddenly upright.
“Benjamin!” the prince exclaimed. Thessia recognized the rapturous look that entered the young man’s eyes. “Oh, my joy, it knows no limits— No,” he interrupted himself, focusing with effort. “Wait. Yes! Oh, my heart could never fail under the care of my precious snail!”
It was then that Thessia knew the crown prince was going to be all right. She smiled.
“Remarkable,” Marko exhaled in wonderment.
“He is,” Ario replied fondly while the snail swirled his stalks.
“The snail’s slime,” Marko said. “It’s miraculous. It’s a natural antidote!”
“Slime?” Ario repeated. He looked up in indignation. “Don’t be ridiculous. This is just like one of the great poems, where
a slumbering prince is awoken by the power of true love!”
“My . . . prince,” Marko managed. “I assure you, it’s the slime.”
“True love is not always romantic, my dear man,” Ario pronounced with certainty. “Sometimes your soul mate is your pet, your
snail, your Benjamin.”
When he gazed down, Thessia really did see the height of poetic emotion in the prince’s eyes.
The old healer cleared his throat. “Not to belittle your . . . feelings,” he said, “but may we take a sample of that true-love
slime before you go?”
Defying royal orders, the Pale Palace released Ario upon the prince’s near-instant recovery, having no desire to hold someone
against his will. The healers promised not to inform the Vestriyan crown of the prince’s departure until forced to. This,
Ario pointed out, would require his parents actually visiting him, which they would not do.
He remained weak, although he could speak and stand. Thessia held him up while they returned to the carriage where Celine
waited. Upon seeing them, Hugh leapt out, his surprise unhidden.
“Good day, King Hugh.” Ario greeted him enthusiastically. “My snail has saved my life!”
“I— What?” Hugh asked.
When Thessia passed off the prince to Hugh, their fingers brushed. She ignored the frisson of heat.
“Thessia and Benjamin saved me from death by cinderflower extract,” Ario explained with a conspiratorial grandeur that was
ill-fitting in describing one’s own poisoning.
“Cinderflower?” Celine startled. “You’re sure?”
“You were poisoned?” Hugh said.
“Yes and yes,” Ario confirmed. “Unfortunately. Likely by my parents.”
“Why would your parents want to poison you?” Celine asked.
Ario shrugged as if contemplating the realm’s many wonders. “They had Ezio killed. They hired a Deathrose Guild assassin,
who framed Galwell, but I knew it was them, because they hated how popular my brother was. He was planning a coup,” he informed
the group matter-of-factly. “While I mourned my brother, they prepared for me a very terrible soup. Poison, I now know.”
“And after killing Ezio, they . . . wanted to kill you, too?” Celine asked.
“Yes, well, I said I would expose them. My brother deserves justice,” Ario replied. He stroked his snail happily. “Hence the
soup.”
The questing party exchanged glances.
“That was . . . very heroic of you, Ario,” Thessia said, speaking for everyone.
“Eating soup? I suppose in some circumstances soup can be rather heroic. When it’s very hot, certainly, or—”
Thessia restrained her laughter. “No. Threatening to expose their crime.”
“Hm? Oh, yes. I still plan to,” the silver-haired prince replied. Hero or not, he looked preoccupied with his pet for the
moment. “I just need proof.”
Thessia considered this, for her own heroic heart had started to pound. “Maybe if we can follow the trail of the poison? Trace
it back to its source,” she ventured.
“I—” Celine began, a shadow flickering over her face. “I might know exactly where to look.”