“Is it the rot?” Leland asks, pressing a handkerchief to his face. The smell is vile, but it’s nothing I haven’t endured for years. I roll the body over. There’s very little helachite rot can do to a man already poisoned by it as I have been.
“Blackwell, are you mad? Don’t touch it!” Leland shouts, but I ignore him. The rot seems to be coming from the servant’s mouth, as though it’s pouring from within.
“Get Princess Genevieve,” I order a nearby servant. Leland looks perplexed. “The queen will do nothing. Get Prince Gabriel as well. Tell no one else what you’ve seen.”
Pryor glances down at the spreading mess on the carpet. “I’ll get Queen Kalise. She should know as well.”
Leland steps closer to the body, but I wave him back. I can’t have the Prince of Icelantica exposed to helachite rot.
“Oh, it’s fine for you to endanger your life, Blackwell, but not mine? I see,” he protests, though he stays back.
“The damage was done to me long ago. You know that.”
Leland shakes his head. “Right. Your former life in the hardscrabble mines of northern Naseria.”
Gen arrives quickly, dressed in a robe, her hair tied back in a loose braid—and I think back to the sheer nightdress she wore in the glasshouse. The swell of her soft, unbound breasts must be hidden just beneath the thick fabric she wears now.
Leland doesn’t seem to notice the precious jewel before him, and that makes my frustration throb inside me. He doesn’t deserve her if he cannot even see what’s before him.
“What’s happened? I was told there’s been an emergency,” Gen says as she approaches the body. She covers her ungloved hand and gasps as she studies the dead man.
My words come out harsh as I tell her, “You have a problem, Princess. A very big problem on your hands.”
She looks from me to Leland. “I see that. Did anyone witness who killed this man?”
“We found him in the passage. The servant girl was screaming,” Leland explains, just as Gabriel arrives. Behind him, Queen Kalise carries one of her foxes. She’s dressed in a robe, her short bob slightly mussed as though she’d already been in bed. Her other fox circles her feet, then pads toward the body.
She gives a sharp whistle, and the fox tucks itself around her ankle. “This is unacceptable,” she hisses, fixing Gen with an icy stare.
“Well, it’s not Genny’s fault!” Gabe retorts. “How can we have a dead servant in the halls of Fairbright?”
“Dead from rot—because your country has allowed it to go completely unregulated,” Kalise counters.
“What would you suggest we do, Queen Kalise?” Gabe’s tone is cutting as he gestures toward the scene.
“First of all, grow a backbone and stop allowing one woman to make bad decisions. Leland, I don’t know if you should continue with this.”
I rise from my kneeling position, wiping my hands on my trousers. “You’ll regret not forming an alliance if the Wylan situation isn’t dealt with swiftly. You think this is a problem? Just wait.”
Gen frowns at me. “What do you mean, exactly?”
“He’s referring to the Wylan forces massing at the border,” Gabe interrupts.
I shake my head. “That’s not what I mean. They’re weaponizing helachite in ways that should never be allowed.”
Gen gives me an exasperated scowl. “Why didn’t you say so sooner, K—Mr. Blackwell?”
Leland looks between us but says nothing as Queen Penelope strides into the corridor. “No!” She glances around the group. “What are you all doing standing over this man’s body? Can’t you see he’s contaminated? Are my other children here?”
“Only Gabe and I,” Gen answers.
The queen gives an authoritative dip of her chin. “Get this mess cleaned up. Not a word of it, do you hear me?”
So the truth of a death—possibly a murder—in Fairbright is to be buried? I should have assumed as much.
“There needs to be an investigation,” Gen insists.
The queen’s eye twitches as she studies her daughter. She looks as though she’s about to rebuke her, but her expression softens. “Yes, you’re right. Of course. Gabriel, can you make a formal report?”
