“Here you go.” Leelah comes to the rescue, holding the bag out for the soldier.
He blinks, then turns his head back to face her. “Thanks,” he mutters, taking his order from her.
“No charge,” Leelah says, her voice tight. “Thank you for your service to the king.”
The Alpha grunts his assent, and leaves.
My shoulders droop and I let my breath ease out of me. Being the object of that stare was intense. If Ma ever finds out I drew the attention of a big bad Alpha—twice—she’ll never let me come to the market again.
“Are you all right?” There’s a little crease of concern on Leelah’s brow.
“Of course. But Matron started feeling sick last night. Should I be worried?”
“Was she flushed?”
I hesitate, trying to remember how she looked the last time I saw her. “Maybe a little?”
“Oh, no.” The furrow in Leelah’s brow deepens before she mutters under her breath, “The Red Death.”
My heart drops straight through my stomach into my boots. “That doesn’t sound good,” I manage.
“It hasn’t been confirmed yet but there are whispers that this is another curse just like the Red Death. Of course, it might not be—”
“A curse? What sort of curse?”
“It starts with a rash. The skin turns a deep crimson. Then a wheezing cough. A fever. Then…” She bites her lip. “It gets worse. The whole body gradually hardens—like it’s turning to stone.”
Oh fuck, this is not good at all. As much as I want to run away, I need to hear all of this. I have to be able to help Ma if this is what she has.
“Victims of it feel like they’re burning, like they can’t breathe, and sleep is impossible due to the pain. Death is slow… but inevitable.”
“How slow?” I croak. I feel dizzy.
She shrugs. “Depends on how healthy the person was to start with. Days… weeks… when it last swept the kingdom, sometimes people were able to hang on for a month or more. But not many.”
“Did anyone survive?”
“Not until they found the cure.”
A surge of hope bubbles in my chest. Leelah should totally have led with this tidbit. “What is the cure?”
“I don’t know. The king discovered it, before he vanished. The curse vanished with him.”
“Vanished? But I thought… Everyone’s been complaining about the tithe. If there’s no king, whom do they pay it to?”
“The soldiers collect the tithe and send it to the capital—Medea City—where the king’s advisors rule in his stead. No one has seen the king since his parents died. Rumor has it he lives…” She turns and angles her face to the high cliff towering over the village. A broken wall of gray-green stone lines the rocky crag, surrounding a ruined turret. Once, I was tempted to hike the hill, but every path I found leading up to the top was blocked by a thicket of thorny vines.
“Up there? But those are ruins.” I peer up at it, blocking the suns with my hand so I can see better.
“Are they?” She raises an eyebrow. “Things aren’t always what they seem. Rumor has it the king is there, lying in stasis, protected by his magic.”
“Magic?” I can’t disguise my incredulity. Granted, there are some pretty weird things around here, but… magic? Seriously?
Leelah’s looking at me like I’m nuts for sounding skeptical. “Yes, magic.”
“I tried to hike up there once,” I offer. I wanted to get a glimpse of the sea on the far side of the castle. “There are a lot of brambles with wicked thorns.”But no magic,because magic doesn’t exist.
Leelah frowns like she heard my unspoken doubt. “They say when the king and queen died, the prince came into great power. But he was so saddened by their deaths, he wept for a year. And everywhere his tears fell, the thorny vines grew.”
