“Oh, don’t speak too soon, elf. I’m here to make sure my sister hasn’t lost her mind. Don’t think you’re off the hook with me.”
Taiyo extended his hand regardless and smiled. “I look forward to proving myself. As well as showing you my gratitude. I’m told I have you to thank for returning my blood and therein saving my life.”
Callahan eyed it for a moment before taking it and shaking it. “You’re welcome. And I expect even more gratitude after you hear the news I’ve brought from Chymes.”
They started making their way inside and Callahan looked around and lowered his voice. “Once the healers at the academy declared her stable enough to travel, I escorted our aunt to our father personally. Even if I hadn’t, we met up with the guards he sent to bring her in not long after we left the academy. So it wouldn’t have been long either way. Her arm was a lost cause by the time the palace healers looked at it, while Father pulled together a trial. It wasn’t hard to convince Emerson to throw her under the wagon just by telling the truth. Of course, Father easily forgave me for the role I played and was happy to pin the whole mess on her and charge her with the crime of possessing elf blood as per our treaty. She was found guilty; not even she could talk her way out of it. Sentenced to house arrest at the palace for the rest of her life, stripped of all titles.”
Taiyo kept his expression neutral and his gaze ahead as Hellebore’s mind whirled, processing everything Callahan said.
“But that’s not all of it. She got… rowdy during sentencing and the guards had to step in. Even with a bad arm, she wasn’t easy to subdue. When the guards took her down, she started bleeding.” Callahan paused, lowering his voice ever further. “Her blood was black.”
Hellebore came to a screeching halt, and Taiyo quickly pulled all three of them into the closest room, a random sitting room in the empty guest wing of the palace.
“What do you mean, she bled black blood?” Taiyo hissed.
“Exactly what I said.” Callahan raised his hands defensively. “It looked like yours.”
“How is that possible?”
Hellebore grabbed Taiyo’s sleeve, closing her eyes. “The sedative.”
“What?” Callahan asked.
She opened her eyes and let go of Taiyo’s sleeve. “I did it. When I transmuted the sedative into her blood the way Emerson did the paralytic into mine, that’s what caused it. My hand was covered in Taiyo’s blood, so when I grabbed the sedative, some of it got onto the herbs. When I transmuted the sedative, the blood on it went with it. I put the rot in her blood.”
Callahan shook his head. “Well, you’ve stumped every healer in Chymes. They’re giving her about ten years before it kills her.”
“Sunshine?” Taiyo whispered, hand running up and down her shoulder.
“I’m… I’m alright… I don’t… I mean, I didn’t mean to, but… I don’t want her dead, but what she did to you, Taiyo…” Hellebore closed her eyes and took a deep breath before opening them again. “I don’t know what to feel.”
Callahan shifted his weight. “What I didn’t mention, if this helps, was house arrest wasn’t the first sentence she was given. Originally, she was found to be a traitor, and you know how our father deals with traitors.”
Hellebore was never going to forget the letter their father had sent outlining what he’d do if she broke the engagement and condemned herself as a traitor.
Execution.
“When she started bleeding black and the healers investigated it, he changed it to house arrest, since she was going to succumb to the disease eventually. If anything, you gave her a few extra years. Although, I don’t know if the two of you think that’s worse.”
Taiyo murmured, “I wouldn’t wish that rot on anyone, even her.”
Hellebore remembered how it felt to have the corrupted blood running through her veins even briefly… Taiyo had been living with it for years.
Maybe this was a much better punishment for the crimes she’d gotten away with for years.
Taiyo’s fingers laced through hers and he squeezed her hand gently.
“Well, what’s done is done. I can’t change it now.”
Callahan took a seat on one of the chairs, quickly changing the subject. For someone who would one day be king, he wasn’t very skilled at handling serious and delicate discussions. “Of course, now the King’s Alchemist’s position is open, and guess—”
“Emerson, obviously,” Hellebore said as she sank into the sofa across from her brother. Taiyo sat next to her, arm draped across the back as she leaned into his side.
If she didn’t know how offended he’d be by the suggestion, she’d encourage her brother that he could learn a thing or two about being a king from Taiyo. They still had a lot of ground to cover for Taiyo to win him over.
Callahan gestured at them. “Nauseating. Are the two of you going to be like this the whole time I’m here?”
“Don’t act like I didn’t catch you with a chambermaid in the east corridor last winter,” Hellebore said, and Callahan flushed immediately, pulling at his collar. “Don’t complain, my husband and I are hardly worse than that. Need I remind you exactly what I saw with your—”
