Blood Ties

by Lindsay Buroker

  “She’s not coming.” Targyon set his glass down. “Nor is Father.”

  “To visit?” Jev thought he’d seen Targyon’s parents at the coronation.

  “To live here. You remember I told you they work as professors in Rokvann?”

  “I seem to recall a tale of them falling madly in love and your mother neglecting to mention she was the king’s sister until they were engaged.”

  “Yes, unlike her other siblings, she always thought our government system and the notion that some people were born the superiors of others complete ludicrousness. She didn’t want to support it. Her first suggestion to me was to dissolve the monarchy and establish something democratic.”

  “That would go over well with zyndar families.” Jev didn’t mind chatting with Targyon, but he did want to find those lineage books before he fell asleep. And he still needed to locate people who’d cared for the princes when they had been sick and could describe their symptoms.

  “Naturally. I’d be assassinated before I could more than make a suggestion to the court.” He took another drink, a bracing one. Maybe he had dumped some alcohol into the beverage. “I’m already being pressured to sign a bunch of documents that more or less affirm that I’ll maintain the status quo. I know it would be safest for me to do so, as has been hinted at not obliquely. But… even though I wouldn’t attempt to push my mother’s suggested reforms through, I would like to make some changes. To make a difference.”

  “Might I suggest that it would be best not to rock the boat in the first year of your reign? Let the Orders and your court relax a bit. Your advisors must be as edgy as you as they wonder what they’re getting. Later, you can gradually institute some changes, maybe once you’ve put more people that are going to support you into positions of power. It’s favoritism, granted, but it’s something that’s expected. You would be foolish not to make sure you have supporters around.”

  “That’s why you’re here.”

  “Oh? You think I’m going to support you? As your former commanding officer, it’s my job to ensure that you do your morning exercise routine and clean your boots and rifle every night before you go to bed. That’s it.”

  Targyon’s second smile seemed more heartfelt.

  “I was hoping my parents coming to stay here would be support too,” he said softly. “They would give me advice I could trust, no ulterior motivations. And I’d have normal people to talk to at meals. I understand why they want to stay in Rokvann, as they’re both still working and have no interest in retirement. My mother’s barely turned fifty-five, and Father’s not much older. But a selfish part of me hoped they would come here for me.” Targyon ran a hand along the closed lid over the piano keys. “I thought I might find it comforting down here.”

  “Among the books?” Jev knew Targyon would prefer his science texts to whatever paperwork he’d been referring to.

  “Yes. And the piano. We had one in the house when I was growing up. I enjoyed playing. And…”

  “And?”

  “This is silly, but as a boy, I’d drape blankets over the piano and hide underneath whenever there was a thunderstorm. Or I was afraid of anything.”

  “So, I’m lucky I didn’t find you sprawled down there among the dust balls?”

  “It crossed my mind.” Targyon looked wistfully between the piano legs, but he stood up instead. “I’m sorry, Captain. I whine to you every time you show up.”

  “You can whine to me.” Jev opened his palm. “Though I hope you’re less open with people you don’t know as well.”

  “I clam up around most of them. Growing up in Rokvann was a blessing, but a curse, too, because I know so little about the castle and this life. The staff. I don’t know who to trust, and I’m still concerned about the possibility of…” Targyon met Jev’s gaze. “Is your case progressing at all?”

  “Not as quickly as Zenia would like.” Jev smiled. “I think she expected to figure everything out the same day and have a report on your desk by dusk.”

  “I would have been amenable to that.”

  “We’re working hard.” Jev hoped he hadn’t implied he expected this to drag on for months. “In fact, I came down here to do some research related to you and your blood. I don’t suppose you know where books are that detail your lineage?”

  “I could find them easily enough.” Targyon’s ears perked as he turned toward the card catalog.

  “Er.” Jev hadn’t meant to put him to work, but he had to admit Targyon would be a better researcher than he unless they found pages that need translation. “Good. We can look together.”

  “What are we looking for specifically?”

  “If any of your ancestors died the same way as the princes did.”

  “Oh.” Targyon paused with his hand on the cabinet of drawers and grimaced over his shoulder. “Do you think that’s likely?”

  “I don’t know, but I talked to Lornysh—did you know his people have some interesting ideas about where humans, orcs, dwarves, and elves originally came from?—and he suggested we figure out if this disease had ever struck before and if there was a mention of it anywhere. It’s possible someone researching your bloodlines chanced across the information and saw an opportunity.”

  “The elves have an evolution hypothesis. I’m aware of it.” Targyon turned back to the cabinet, pulled out a drawer, flipped a few cards, then grabbed a lantern and headed for a corner of the library. “I’m not aware of any diseases that struck my family in the past, but I’m ashamed to admit I haven’t studied my own lineage that much. The future has always drawn my interest more so than the past. To my father’s consternation. He teaches global history at the university in Rokvann.”

  Jev followed his king, having a notion that he shouldn’t let Targyon out of his sight as long as the bodyguards weren’t around.

  “Ah, here we go. Everything you wanted to know about the Alderoth family line, plus fifty or sixty tons of paper more.” Targyon spread his arms, shining the lantern on a bookcase stuffed with scrolls, boxes of letters, and old books with yellowed pages trying to fall out. “I wonder if anyone has mapped it out in a nice chart? Fifteen-hundred-odd years might defy the constraints of a scroll though. That’s a lot of parchment. A whole flock of sheep would have been sacrificed.”

  “I was going to feel guilty about foisting my work onto you,” Jev said, accepting the lantern Targyon handed him, “but this is the most excited I’ve seen you since we spent that night decrypting that dwarven courier’s message.”

  “You know research and solving puzzles get me excited. I’d happily work on this with you in the Crown Agents’ office, but I fear people would be reluctant to speak openly with me around.”

  As Targyon removed books and scrolls, handing some to Jev and piling more into his own arms, Jev thought about mentioning Zenia having a similar problem when it came to Order representatives, but he doubted she would want him sharing her difficulties with the king.

  “I also fear I might get myself in trouble if I were seen openly poking into the mystery of my own coronation. Like I might seem ungrateful and intractable and—” Targyon grunted as he pulled out a final thick book and headed to the nearest table. “I don’t know, Captain. Am I being paranoid? They chose me, so someone must want me here. I just don’t know if I’m what they expected.”

  “Were you what your parents expected? You’re not very zyndar-ish.”

  “Neither are my parents. My mother didn’t think my father was from a zyndar family at all when they first started seeing each other. I think she wanted to marry a commoner. Maybe to ensure her children would never be considered for the throne.” Targyon carefully set down his collection. “Alas for her, Father is from the Mayjarin family, the seventh son of a minor zyndar prime. No chance of him inheriting. Or so you’d think.” Targyon spread a few scrolls, then made a delighted noise, almost like a cat’s purr. “There are genealogical charts. But look at that tiny writing. This is going to take a while, especially in this light.”


  Jev brought over more lanterns while Targyon used books to pin down the corners of four scrolls’ worth of charts. They had to drag over a second table to fit everything.

  “I assume we’re looking for Alderoths who had oddly short lives?” Targyon glanced at Jev.

  “I think that’s all we can hope to deduce from those charts.” Jev waved at the trees of who married who over the centuries, where they had come from, and the children they had spawned. Dates indicated how long each person had lived, but there was no other information there. “It’s certainly possible that older people could have died from the disease, too, but cause of death won’t be listed on there, I assume.”

  Targyon bent low over one of the charts. “No. And I can tell already that a lot of my ancestors died young. It seems that being royal wasn’t an antidote to the short life expectancy that plagued the kingdom until rather recently. Nothing here about pustules on the bodies of the dead.” He grabbed a pencil and a stack of papers from a box on a nearby table.

  “Pustules?” Jev asked. “Is that one of the symptoms?”

  “All three of my cousins had them near the end.”

  “Do you know the rest of the symptoms?” Jev didn’t see how he could, since Targyon had been with him sailing back from Taziira when the princes had been afflicted and died.

  Targyon straightened, drew a folded sheet of paper from an inside pocket, and handed it to Jev before returning to his bent stance. While Targyon started writing down names, dates, and ages of death for notable people, Jev unfolded the paper. The symptoms were listed in a neat column. Jev recognized Targyon’s tidy handwriting.

  “I did a little research of my own,” Targyon said, anticipating Jev’s next question.

  “To find out if you recognized the disease?”

  “To find out if… to know what to expect if some of the symptoms start appearing. In me.”

  “Ah.”

  Jev imagined how he would feel in Targyon’s place, returning to his homeland only to learn that he had to go be king and live in a castle and a city that had belonged to his ancestors and relatives but never to him. Knowing his cousins had all died recently in this very castle. Lying awake at night, wondering if what had killed them was gone or if virulent bacteria still lurked in the halls, waiting to jump into his skin…

  Jev didn’t know if it was allowed, but he patted Targyon on the back.

  Targyon looked at him curiously.

  “Just checking for pustules,” Jev said.

  Targyon grunted. “Those come last. The fever is first. And fatigue.”

  “If it helps, you look perky for this hour.”

  “Because you gave me research to do.”

  “Have you taken the symptom list to a doctor to see what one thinks? If you didn’t hear already, Dr. Bandigor was dead when we went to question him.”

  “I heard. I took the list to Dr. Astnar.” Targyon scribbled two more names on his paper.

  “The army’s Dr. Astnar? The man who said amputation never slows a good man down for long?”

  “I was fairly certain I could trust him.”

  “But he’s a field surgeon, not a… researcher of rare diseases.” Jev didn’t even know what such a doctor would be called. Nor did he know for certain this disease was rare.

  “Which possibly explains why he didn’t have any ideas.”

  “Can I take this list?” Jev held up the page. “I’m planning to speak with a medical expert at one of the universities. Or maybe that unicorn doctor at the Second Korvann Hospital. Their kind are reputed to be indifferent to politics, economics, and humans in general, except as specimens to study.”

  “Take it. I’ve got it memorized. I did consider visiting Dr. Oligonite, the unicorn, but there’s someone else I came up with who may even be a suspect.”

  Jev slipped the paper into one of his pockets. “Oh?”

  “Zyndari Dr. Ghara Nhole. She’s a scientist, a mad scientist if the tales are to be believed. She appeared in the newspapers a few years ago in relation to the wheat and barley crops that were annihilated by locusts. You were gone but may remember news of famine back here in Kor.”

  Jev nodded.

  “She predicted that it would be a horrible year for locusts months before they showed up. Based on some climate and weather analysis, I gathered, but the common and uneducated, being what they are, came up with notions that she’d caused the locusts because she predicted them. There were riots outside her university office. Since then, she’s stayed in her family’s castle and avoided going to the city.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “I looked her up back then. She studied medical science as well as environmental science at Trakmeer University and was at the top of her classes. She published a research paper on ingested anti-fungal and antimicrobial substances being useful for fighting infections. She may know something about diseases that strike down certain families.”

  “I can take Zenia and go out and see her.”

  “Don’t tell her I sent you. In fact, don’t tell anyone I’m doing research on this at all, please.”

  “If anyone asks if I saw you tonight, I’ll say you were merely snoozing under the piano,” Jev said.

  “That could still happen.”

  While Targyon wrote down more names, Jev sat at the table and opened one of several books that had been written over the years on the Alderoth family. If their ancestors had been known to suffer from some blood disease, maybe a scribe of the time would have mentioned it. Tomorrow, he would head out to Nhole Castle.

  The sooner he and Zenia got to the bottom of this apple barrel, the sooner Targyon could rest a little easier. Not, ideally, under a piano.

  7

  Zenia spooned small bites from a bowl of cinnamon-dusted porridge while agents ambled into the kitchen to join her. She had selected a table at the rear, so they wouldn’t be interrupted often, though the banging of pots and scrapes of spoons in the main part of the kitchen did mean there would be noise. This, however, was where the staff ate, and the Crown Agents, if they chose to eat in the castle, were included in that category.

  She hadn’t expected to dine at the royal table every day, but she couldn’t help but feel this was a demotion, at least in social standing, from being a temple inquisitor. She had been near the top of the food chain there, dining with the other senior mages at the same table as Archmage Sazshen.

  Not that such things mattered, Zenia told herself firmly. Jev would likely plop down next to her with his own porridge and not think it insulting for a zyndar to eat in the kitchen with the staff. He truly was the least egotistical zyndar she’d met, though, as he’d once implied, ten years in the field had helped cultivate that. Sleeping on the ground in the elements and eating from a common cookpot must have rubbed away some of his delusions about the superiority of the nobility.

  Every time the door opened, Zenia looked up, expecting Jev. She’d mentioned when they parted the night before that she wanted to have a staff meeting this morning to hear if the rest of the agents had found anything useful. She also wanted to get to know them better, to start to get a feel for who she could trust.

  “What’s going on, ma’am?” Lunis Drem, one of the younger Crown Agents, asked. A woman in her late twenties who wore her thick brown hair up in a strict bun, she had been promoted out of the city watch’s investigative division.

  She was, aside from the secretary, the only other woman in the office.

  “I want to hear what you all think,” Zenia said, deciding that most of the staff had arrived and that she could start without Jev, “about who wanted King Targyon on the throne and why he might have been chosen.”

  “The archmages of the Orders chose him, as they always do.” Brokko frowned at her, managing to avoid eyeing her chest this morning.

  Zenia wondered if Jev had punched him yet. Not without her there to watch, she hoped.

  “But did they decide of their own accord or were there outside pressures?” Zenia
asked, thinking of how seldom Sazshen had mentioned the king or her thoughts on the succession.

  “I think one of the underworld criminal organizations may have played a role.” Lunis leaned forward, clasping her hands. “May I share my hypothesis with you?”

  Two men groaned. Zenia, believing she may have found an eager-to-prove-herself colleague she could understand completely, nodded.

  “With King Abdor gone for so many of these last ten years,” Lunis said, “the underworld guilds have taken advantage, many of them growing bolder and more powerful. Tiger Hunters, Future Order, and the Fifth Dragon have all increased the sizes of their territories and extended their reach outside the capital. Far outside. We’ve inspected shipments and found they have trade relations with other nations.”

  A door opened, and a yawning Jev walked in, his hair mussed.

  Zenia waved for Lunis to continue with her report but scrutinized Jev as he approached, surprised he had been late. And also surprised he was wearing the same clothing from the day before.

  As if he’d spent the night here. Or… with some woman?

  Zenia frowned at herself and stomped out the jealous thought before it could take root. Besides, if he did sleep with a woman, could she blame him? She never had accepted his offer of a date.

  And why hadn’t she?

  She would enjoy spending time with him in a non-official capacity—once they solved their current case. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that she might enjoy it too much, as she had that kiss they had shared in his castle—when she should have been going after that artifact. What if they dated and she ended up succumbing to temptation and having sex with him? She didn’t want to put herself in a situation where she ended up with child, not when she had a new career to establish and certainly not when she wasn’t married. And she couldn’t imagine Jev proposing to her. Even if he was less zyndar-ish than most zyndar, he was still the oldest son and heir to his father’s estate. His family would have expectations, expectations she did not have the blood to meet.