Standing before one’s own mortality, titles meant nothing.
“Can we do anything more for them?” she asked weakly, clearing her throat, trying to find strength and authority. But there was none.
“We do all we can. We’re not prepared for an outbreak of this size… But at least, by the time we lead them here, they can’t seem to feel pain.”
Vi looked back to the pit. They were doing their best.Thiswas their best. It was horrific and inhumane—Vi could see that. What she couldn’t see was another solution. Her mind had gone as blank as the milky eyes of the nearly deceased.
“I didn’t want to upset you.”
“I know.” She swallowed hard. “I’m not upset.” It sounded like a lie. She didn’t rightly know what it was. She didn’t even know how she felt.
“Well, I brought you here first to see if you saw your kin… if she’s already in the pit, there’s no way we can get to her,” he said solemnly.
I have a job to do. Vi put the words on repeat in her mind. She couldn’t balk now. She balled her hands into fists to keep them from trembling.
“Let me look.” Vi began to walk the length of the pit, looking at the men and women of all shapes and sizes. Luckily, it was a full moon, so she could make out most of them. The majority were Northern, making the few Westerners and one or two Easterners easier to pick out. Finally, Vi shook her head. “I don’t see her.”
“Then you may be in luck. If she’s not out here, she has some of her mind left.” Darrus started back toward the door.
Vi reached out, grabbing his sleeve at the elbow. “Can nothing more truly be done for them?”
“Do you have an idea? Because the clerics have come up with nothing.” The question sounded genuine, as though he’d take any answer she could offer. When she said nothing, he spoke again. “Some have suggested mercy kills… But we’re clerics. We want to heal. Not slay. And if there’s a chance to find a cure—a chance for just one person to be saved—we want them alive to see the next dawn.”
Vi gave a small nod. “I understand.”
“You do?”
“I do.” The lie was said with confidence. She said it because she knew that he needed to hear it. But in truth, she had no idea what her stance was on the matter. “You’re doing all you can… and I thank you for it. So let’s move on.”
They retraced their steps to the entry, then across and through the door that had been on her left when she entered. The two clerics she’d seen were busy mixing some salve in a large vat in the corner of a completely new room. Vi could smell their potions through the filters of her mask. Both looked up as they entered.
“We’ll do a round,” Darrus announced. The two gave nods, then ignored them as Darrus led her into a secondary hall.
The echoes of soft moans and groans filled her ears. Unlike the guttural, almost beast-like noises of the pit, these sounds still seemed distinctly human. They were aware of pain still, Vi realized, thinking back to what Darrus had told her.
“Go ahead and look,” Darrus instructed quietly. “I’ll stand guard by the door and stall if those two get suspicious. Be as quick as you can.”
“Thank you.”
Vi slipped off down the hall, looking at the cells on either side. At first, they all contained multiple people who looked relatively normal; they raised their heads, weak and listless, as she passed. But the further she walked, the fewer people were housed together, until ultimately the sickest among them were contained in isolation.
It was there, almost all the way in the back, that Vi found the spice seller Grendla.
She was slumped in the back corner, a curtain of black hair covering her face. Her hands were at her sides, upturned, legs straight out, as though she was bearing the ravages of the disease on her body for all to see. She looked as limp and lifeless as a doll.
Vi crouched and then, as if sensing her, Grendla’s face jerked up.
“Who?” she hissed slowly, her all-white eyes unseeing.
“The crown princess, Vi Solaris,” Vi announced softly. Let the woman tell the clerics the princess came to visit. Vi doubted she’d be believed.
The woman smiled. It stretched between two gnarly red veins on either side of her cheeks. For a brief second, Vi was reminded of the crescent scar that ran along Taavin’s face.
“You came. I knew you’d come.”
“I have to ask—”
“But you’re too late… too late. I don’t have it.”
