We could go home.
For a moment, she was tempted, but that wasn’t her. She didn’t walk away and leave everyone else in danger. And more than that, this might be her chance to finally understand what really happened to her brother.
She straightened her shoulders and stepped inside. The clinic was bright and warm, decorated in soothing cream and forest green. An enormous window—made of expensive Kwanam glass—let daylight in to shine warmly on a waiting area beside an array of potted plants. Bitter aloe, everlasting silverbush, and viper’s hemp with thick, green leaves gave the air a welcoming fresh scent.
A doorway opened into the emergency room on the left. More massive Kwanam-glass windows let an abundance of light into that spotlessly clean room. Rows of shelves held bandages, emergency ointments, viciously sharp scalpels, and the best mirrored lanterns to direct bright light even at night.
On the right, a corridor held five closed doors leading to wards, private consulting rooms, and a large storage room. At the far end of the reception area, through an open archway, a working area held six desks in pairs, overseen by floor-to-ceiling bookcases loaded with tomes and manuscripts about every kind of illness and ailment imaginable. A locked door at the back led to a tiny healer’s room with beds for those on night duty.
Two of the desks held healers—Nolan and Sarwin—both filling out paperwork. They would have made early rounds in the ward already, but they wouldn’t have started the drop-in clinics yet. The remaining healers would be on rotation, some sleeping, some making visits through the castle and the barracks, others still on secondment with the troops arriving home from the border.
This had been Izzy’s life. She’d worked here, laughed here, and cried here. She’d grown up in an apartment just a short stroll away. She’d visited her father here, sat at his feet and played while he fulfilled his duties as physik general. She’d apprenticed here. In these rooms, she’d learned how to tell a family that their beloved was gone, how to save a life, and how tobring a new one into the world. She’d brought Rayan’s body here after he died.
And Luka saidhewas her nursemaid. Mother of the Weave. The storm inside her tried to rise once more, but she pushed it away.
Nolan called a greeting as she made her way into the room, and she returned his welcoming hello. He was a good-looking man, capable and charming, with a ready grin and striking amethyst scales.
Sarwin looked up and gave her a far more reserved nod. Although they’d worked together off and on, they’d never quite been friends. After Izzy bought her shop and left the castle, even the small amount of mutual professional regard that used to be between them had cooled to frosty disinterest—if not outright disdain. She couldn’t imagine their relationship would improve now that Sarwin expected to be lead healer looking into Narya’s death… and hadn’t planned for Izzy to be involved.
Sarwin was also attractive, with his thick brown hair and green eyes. Physik General Melo wasn’t with them, but she was striking too—tall, strong, and powerful, with the aura of a woman who had experienced enough to know exactly what she was capable of, and it was a lot.
Could one of them have enticed Narya out of the castle somehow, only to murder her in the darkness? If anyone knew the perfect spot behind the ear for a slim blade to kill quickly and cleanly, certainly a physik would. Could they be smuggling something? Drugs from that locked stockroom? Something worse?
Her beast shuddered in her belly. It was nauseating to think that someone she knew well—a healer, someone she’d worked with and trusted—could do such a thing.
The sound of boots ringing on stone broke the peace, and she crossed her arms over her chest with a sigh. She didn’t have to turn to know exactly whose boots they were.
Told you, her beast muttered smugly.
She ignored Luka as he strode up and stood by her side. Nolan and Sarwin watched them with raised eyebrows as, with a quiet snick of a door, Melo emerged from the furthest assessment room.
“I see you’ve decided to grace us with your presence, Helper Izabel.” Melo joined them and settled her hands on her hips.
Izzy hadn’t been a “helper” for many years, but she ignored the comment. It seemed that now they were out of the queen’s chambers, they were back to outright animosity. Melo was a decade older than Izabel, but they’d climbed through the apprentice ranks together. Izabel, with a lifetime of learning at her father’s side to complement her own natural ability—and yes, the advantage of being brought to the clinic from before she could talk—Melo with a burning ambition and fierce intellect to complement her formidable talents. They’d gone to the front together, Melo in charge of her unit, and returned to the castle to take up their places at the same time. Izzy had thought they could be friends. Melo had not.
And now, here they were again—Izzy standing between the very two people she’d left the castle to get away from.
Luka grunted. “Mistress Izabel is not your helper.”
Oh good, she was back to Mistress Izabel.
Melo narrowed her eyes. “Everyone helps here, Knight Commander, even you.”
Luka’s scales gleamed as he replied. “Very true—” He grinned, teeth flashing. “—Helper Melo.”
Melo’s spine snapped even straighter, bronze scales burnishing her throat, and Izzy could imagine exactly where thiswas headed: toward an argument she didn’t have the time or the energy for.
She stepped between them and forced herself to smile. “Good. So we’re all helping. I apologize that I couldn’t be here earlier. I was meeting with the prince. Can you point me toward Narya’s body? I would like to examine the victim so I can report back to our queen.”
“She’s in the assessment room at the back.” Melo folded her arms over her chest, her face tight. “I want a full written report.”
“Of course,” Izabel replied smoothly. There was no point in picking a fight. She needed to work in this clinic, at least for a few days. “I’ll get that done for you as soon as I’ve reported to Queen Danikha.” She hefted her bag more firmly over her shoulder and walked away before anyone could argue with her.
Luka is following,her beast chortled. Izzy held in a sigh.
She let herself into the assessment room, noting that it was the same one Melo had come out of earlier. The examination table in the center held the body covered in a sheet. An array of mirrors cast and directed brighter light into the room from a sunroof in the ceiling, while a desk and bookshelves stood to one side. A long counter with a bowl for handwashing and an array of surgical implements lined the opposite wall.
Izzy didn’t want to examine the body again, but she still intended to do it well. It was worth taking the examination more slowly and making use of the light, in case there was anything she’d missed. She dropped her bag on the desk and set to angling the mirrors before shooting Luka a quick glance. “You can go. I don’t need you here.”
