When I looked at Stryker, his brow was knit. He seemed lost for words.
“You’re not in trouble,” I said, speaking for Stryker. “We’re sorry for what happened with the driver.” I pushed more of my calming magic on the family, trying to help them feel peaceful and safe. “We only want to help. Would you please let me dress your wound?”
I thought for a moment he would refuse, but the soothing emotions I was pouring on them must have finally started to work because the family broke apart and turned to us,each of the children clutching one of their parents.
I gasped when I got a look at them. Black veins webbed out from their eyes, weaving across their faces and disappearing under their clothes. The father was by far the worst, but the mother and both children showed signs of a similar ailment, whatever it was.
“The plague,” one of Stryker’s guards shouted behind me and then I heard their feet running in the other direction. The plague? Like the one from the letter sent from Stryker’s brother Roan?
I tried to move closer to the family, these fae needed help, but Stryker’s arms wrapped around my stomach and he hauled me back into his chest.
“What are you doing?” I complained as I squirmed against him.
“Can’t you see?” he snapped. “They’re diseased. Contagious.”
I glanced back at the family and they’d shuffled even farther away, cowering from us.
“You don’t know that,” I said to Stryker and then called out to the family. “What happened to you?”
The father and mother exchanged a glance.
“We’re not contagious. We’re cursed,” the father said, once again speaking for his family. “All the unseelie in the Northern Kingdom have been struck with it. Those of us with stronger magic have been hit the hardest: some unseelie have been in a coma-like state for months. None of our healers have been able to help, and every day we grow weaker. It won’t be long until I’m unable to provide for my family. My brother lives here in the Eastern Kingdom and offered to shelter us.”
A curse? And just in the Northern Kingdom?
“Has this curse spread to anyone in the Eastern Kingdom since you crossed the border?” Stryker asked, his voice sharp with concern.
Fear flashed over the unseelie’s face, but he shook his head. “No. It only affects unseelie who were within the boundaries of the Northern Kingdom when the curse hit on the night of Lord Zander’s marriage to Lady Dawn. I swear it.”
That reminded me of how the curse on Faerie started in the Summer Court and only passed through the realm one court at a time. Could the Northern Kingdom curse be somehow linked to the same curse on Faerie, or was it just a coincidence it had only struck one of the Ethereum kingdoms?
“And you say only the unseelie have been affected?” I asked.
He nodded.
I glanced over my shoulder at Stryker. “Let me go,” I demanded. “I’m in no danger.”
He looked down on me with tight features. “We don’t know if what he says is true.”
I could make him tell us the truth, but there was no time for that. Even now I worried for the fae because his green skin had gone deathly pale. He was losing blood, and curse or no curse, he needed someone to tend to his back.
“Well, if he’s lying I’ll just be one less problem you have to worry about,” I snapped and then ripped out of Stryker’s grasp. I had no doubt he could stop me with only a flick of his magic, but he allowed me to cross to the family.
The father let me tend to his wound and I was relieved to see that even though it had bled a great deal, the cut wasn’t as deep as I feared.After cleaning it the best I could, I slathered ointment on it and used the small strips of tape as stitches to pull the cut together. Then I covered it with clean bandages and gave the leftover supplies to his wife, who accepted with profuse thanks.
I couldn’t really do anything to help this family. I knew nothing of this curse or how to stop it, but I hoped my kindness helped in some small way. I was about to turn to leave when Stryker appeared next to me holding a bulging pack.
“Some clothes to replace your own, food, and coin,” he said as he handed over the bag to the father. “I will also lend you one of my horses. Just set it free when you reach your brother’s home and it will know how to find me.”
He snapped his fingers and one of his guards leapt off his horse and handed Stryker the reins.
“Thank you, m’lord,” the father said, his forehead practically touching the ground with how deeply he bowed. When he straightened there were tears in his eyes.
Stryker nodded stoically and then laid a hand on my arm. “We should continue our journey so we can reach the inn by nightfall.”
We’d done all we could for the family, so I nodded and after bidding them farewell, followed Stryker back to the carriage. I peered up and noticed that the driver had been replaced. I don’t know what happened to the first one, but I hoped he was punished in some way. The man who had given up his horse for the family now rode next to the new coachman on the bench seat.
We settled back into the carriage and Stryker rubbed his bottom lip as we started forward once again.
