His love would be a waste if she could not ensure he had more than a few days left to make use of it.
Hellebore was up to her elbows producing enough of the tincture for it to be delivered across the kingdom in time for the irises to be back to full health just in time for the eclipse. Haruko oversaw the distribution and riders and wagons were in and out of the courtyard every five seconds the same way Hellebore’s maids and the other servants were in and out of her lab every five minutes to collect the next batch. Taiyo made a surprisingly competent assistant, ensuring she was able to keep up with creating the supply needed for a whole kingdom.
By the time they’d finished, with only one batch left, she shut the door behind Elaine and looked over at Taiyo. He hovered by the last batch. He raised an eyebrow. “Is this just in case?”
“I thought… I thought we might do the garden here together.” Her voice came out weak and breathy and an unsure smile flickered across her lips.
He lit up brighter than the sun, and within seconds they were out the door with the last batch. They would have run through the halls—totally unbecoming of two monarchs—if there wasn’t the risk of dropping the batch of vials. Instead, they went as fast as they dared until they came through the door and stepped into the rotting garden. With their droppers and their vials they went iris by iris until they had distributed it all. Taiyo turned on his heels. “How long until it’ll take effect?”
“By tomorrow morning we should see them start coming back. And within three days…” As Hellebore looked around, she took a deep breath. All these irises, would they be enough to cleanse Taiyo’s blood? They had to be. There was no other option. “We’ll be ready to start on you.”
But even with her confidence, it was only a theory. What if she was wrong? Now that the chance to try was within her grasp, what if she still failed?
That night, Hellebore’s head rested on Taiyo’s chest, listening to his heart sluggishly thudding along.
What if she still lost him?
She could not sleep. She could not wait for dawn to begin ironing out the details. She hoped Taiyo would forgive her this one last time sneaking away with the eclipse bearing down on them.
She ducked into her lab, checking in on the only iris left. The only one in the castle brought back to full health, still missing the bloom she cut off it. Her wedding iris. The others had been taken and sent to the farthest edges of the kingdom, closest to the Moon Elves so they could use them in an attack.
She brushed her fingers gently over the petals. If it was supposed to be some superstitious symbol of the health of her marriage, what did it say that she’d healed it?
Hellebore opened up her notebook and carefully measured how much magic her Sunrise Iris held. If every individual irishad a level around that average… Or was it based on the number of blooms? If the more blooms there were, the more magic they held, the better. If each bloom held around the same amount as hers…
Were there enough irises in the garden to cleanse him?
She was not going to be able to sleep peacefully by her husband’s side until she knew exactly how many blooms the garden had. She’d sleep when Taiyo wasn’t dead.
She ran through the empty halls, notebook in one hand and key in the other to the secret passageway. But when she reached the corridor, instead of the smell of rot greeting her, it was something else.
Something worse.
Smoke.
She ran faster, flinging open the door, yelping as the metal knob burned her. She was immediately blasted with a painful, searing heat. Hellebore recoiled instantly, eyes watering and stinging from the smoke. She coughed and opened her eyes to see the massive flames tearing through the garden.
The orange and red flames were blinding, making it impossible to see anything else.
No.
It was because there was nothing else to see. Everything that mattered had already been overtaken by them. The whole world in front of her was on fire.
Hellebore’s whole world was up in flames.
All the irises were burning.
Taiyo’s life was burning before her eyes.
Hellebore screamed, clutching the castle as the boiling heat and the flames creeping toward her hem kept her from being able to run into the garden. Her knees buckled as tears spilled over and her keening tore through the night.
The fire raging in front of her didn’t care.
It just kept burning.
Taking her husband with it.
She clutched at her heart. She’d been right. Oh, how much she wished she hadn’t been. Seeing the rot on the iris was nothing compared to this agony.
