Blood Ties

by Lindsay Buroker

  She nodded. “Far more like a virus than a poison. It would have taken a couple of days for the bacteria to colonize the body in numbers great enough to make the host ill. I wasn’t there for the princes’ deaths, and I can only guess how long the castle staff kept their illnesses quiet before journalists found out, but I’d guess another three to seven days for the initial symptoms to turn deadly.”

  “Leaving plenty of time for whoever infected them to get away,” Zenia said grimly.

  Jev winced. What if the criminal had fled the kingdom right afterward? He would have to check to see if anyone had gone missing in the castle right before the princes got sick. Of course, their culprit could still be in the castle, not believing this would ever be linked to him or her.

  “Is there a cure?” Jev asked. If the person was still there and had more of this substance…

  His gut twisted as he remembered the note. The culprit might even now be close enough to Targyon to strike.

  Ghara lifted a shoulder. “Magic is currently the most effective way of destroying bacterial infections. I’ve done some work with fungal extracts—fungi and bacteria are natural enemies, you know—but it could take months, if not years, to run experiments and find something guaranteed to work.”

  “They would have tried magic on the princes,” Zenia said. “Dr. Bandigor had a dragon tear.”

  “It’s possible the bacteria resisted the magic or that the doctor assumed he was dealing with a virus instead of this. It’s not like mountain pond water is a frequent drink in Alderoth Castle. I assume.” Ghara clasped her hands behind her back. “It’s also possible the doctor chose not to figure out what he was dealing with. Was he questioned?”

  “He would have been, but he was dead.”

  “You’d think multiple doctors would have been brought in to try to save the crown princes,” Zenia said. “This isn’t adding up for me.”

  “It’s also possible the bacteria were armored with magic,” Ghara said, “thus to increase their resistance to doctors with dragon tears.”

  “Who would have the power to do that?” Jev asked. “Any doctor with a dragon tear?”

  “Not any, but I could do it if I was wearing one of my dragon tears.”

  “One of?” Zenia blinked.

  Ghara nodded. “I had one carved to assist with scholarly work and one to assist with medicine.”

  Zenia clenched her jaw but didn’t say more. Jev reached out and touched her sleeve, knowing she still smarted over losing access to the dragon tear the Order had given her. Lent her.

  “The average healer in the capital isn’t well studied on bacteria,” Ghara said, “so there are few in Korvann that I believe could be responsible, but I can make a list for you.”

  “I would appreciate that.”

  “Could an elf do it?” Zenia met Jev’s eyes. “Their magic is innate and comes easily for them, right? So they wouldn’t even need a dragon tear?”

  Ghara sniffed. “I suppose a properly trained elf would have the ability to manipulate bacteria with magic. A dwarf, too, but as I mentioned last night, they’re not known for their advanced understanding of the scientific world. I’m also skeptical an elf ever grew bacteria and fungi in a lab dish and could tell you which was which under a microscope.”

  Jev, thinking of Lornysh’s advanced, or at least different, understanding of the races and the world, was far less skeptical.

  A knock sounded at the door. Their leaky cottage was popular.

  Zenia was closer, so she walked toward the door first, but Jev watched, ready to spring to her defense if any trouble presented itself.

  “Captain,” a familiar voice said. It was the steam-carriage driver. “We’ve got the vehicle fired up, and we’re ready to take you back whenever you’re ready.”

  “Thank you. That will be soon.” Zenia looked at Jev.

  He nodded at her. They needed to get back to the castle with this new information as soon as possible.

  “Yes, ma’am. We’ll bring it around.”

  “Here.” Ghara handed Jev a list with only four names on it. “I know all these men, and it’s hard for me to imagine any of them helping to commit murder, but…” She shrugged. “I suppose anyone can be extorted by an underworld guild.”

  “Yes. Thank you for your assistance.” Jev accepted the list.

  He would visit the four doctors, but he also wanted to speak with Lornysh again. He had no proof that an elf had been involved—and as he’d considered before, he couldn’t guess why one would have targeted the princes instead of the king making war on their people—but a means of attacking that originated in nature was exactly the kind of thing elves liked. His instincts, honed by all those years surviving on their continent, itched like mad.

  “You’re welcome.” Ghara smiled at him and held his gaze for a moment before waving and heading out.

  Zenia frowned.

  Jev hoped that smile didn’t mean he needed to worry about Ghara’s mother visiting his father soon. He didn’t have time to deal with people proposing marriages right now.

  “You ready to go?” Jev asked Zenia when they were alone.

  “Yes. One of us should talk to those people, but one of us needs to start interviewing the castle staff too. To see if we can chance upon the person who delivered the bacteria. We also need to warn Targyon not to eat or drink anything that doesn’t come out of a common pot.”

  “And to beef up his security.” Jev touched the letter that had been delivered the night before. “If we don’t stop our investigation, he’s going to be in more danger than ever.”

  “We can’t stop. You can’t give in to criminals.”

  “In theory, I agree, but it’s not entirely our decision. It’s Targyon’s life at stake.” Jev imagined their monarch hunkered under a piano draped with a blanket. “I need to talk to him before we do anything else.”

  Disappointment flashed in Zenia’s eyes, and Jev wagered she had never in her life stopped an investigation because of a threat.

  If the threat had been made on Jev’s life, he wouldn’t have, either, but he had more than himself to think about here. A lot more.

  12

  Zenia shifted on the hard chair, her butt half numb after three hours of reading. Why, when almost everything in the castle was padded, did the tables in the library have such hard chairs? Did royalty not spend much time in here researching?

  She shook her head and turned the page in the scintillating tome she was reading, Lives and Deaths of the Royal Family During the Twenty-fourth Century After Founders. She’d already skimmed through a list of lives and deaths from the previous century, and she had books that went back further sitting in a stack on the table.

  She would check those later, if need be, but she remembered Ghara’s comment on how the illustrator of that bacterium cell must have had a dragon tear since magnifying devices had been in their infancy at the time, about a hundred years ago. Thus, the cause of Mountain Illness wouldn’t have been known much before then. It was still possible some ancestor of Targyon’s had been afflicted and died centuries back, but what were the odds that someone seeking a slow-acting way to kill the princes would have gone back that far in the history books? It was possible nobody had used the history books at all, but Ghara had said the bacterial infection was only fatal to some animals and people. That made it an iffy way to deliver death unless one knew for certain it would work on a person.

  “Hm, what’s this?” Zenia paused her finger near the end of the chapter on Dorsezrath the Destroyer, a king who’d reigned a hundred and fifty years ago. “Dorsezrath, known to enjoy hunting as a hobby, was on one of his frequent trips to the Izstara jungles for a safari when he contracted what was believed to be Mountain Illness. He died unexpectedly on the journey back to Kor, which led to his son Tiumen being crowned.”

  Zenia turned the page. The next chapter started off with Tiumen.

  “Well,” she murmured, turning back and sliding a piece of paper in to bookmark the spo
t. “There you are. The possible link.”

  She looked at the front of the book. The cover and spine had been hand-embossed, but the letters inside had been inked with a printing press. She suspected numerous copies of the book were in libraries around the country. And if one were to search through the entire series—she eyed the book stack—would one find that more Alderoths had succumbed to the bacteria?

  As a city-dweller, her lip curled at the idea of sucking up water from an algae-covered pond, but it was only relatively recently that humans had collectively decided hygiene and clean water were important for health. Probably with the invention of those old microscopes and the realization that all manner of tiny life forms lived in droplets of water.

  “Captain Cham?” a woman asked in a tentative voice.

  Lunis Drem stood several paces away, a thick folder clutched to her chest.

  “Yes? You have something to report?” Zenia had tasked two agents to do preliminary research on the staff and visitors of the last couple of months, and also to find out if anyone had left the castle right before the princes’ deaths. Lunis hadn’t been in the office at the time, so she shouldn’t be on the assignment, but maybe the others had sent her up with their report?

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Zenia waved to one of the chairs at the table. She made sure her bookmark was in place and closed her book.

  “Zyndar Dharrow said to add the Night Travelers to our list of criminal guilds that we’re tracking, so I went and visited all of our spies in the city to get the latest on them and also on Future Order and Fifth Dragon.”

  The Crown Agents also had spies in the city? Zenia needed to find that handbook—and a roster, it sounded like—and learn more about her duties and how everything was done. As soon as they got to the bottom of this case…

  “There are so many reasons they might have wanted a younger, more naive king on the throne. Do you want to see my findings? How’s your investigation going? Do you think we’re getting close?” Lunis slid into the chair beside her and laid her folder on the table. She looked curiously at the stack of history books but didn’t ask about them.

  “Yes, please tell me what you’ve found.” Zenia smiled encouragingly.

  Lunis reminded Zenia of herself, and she looked forward to getting to know the woman better.

  “I knew you’d be interested.” Lunis smiled with relief and opened her folder. “Zyndar Garlok told me not to waste his time with the guilds. He hasn’t even been in the office for days, but he’s certain one of the Orders is behind the deaths. Or that the founders themselves wished it or that the princes simply died of natural causes. How ridiculous is that?” Lunis glanced at the door, then lowered her voice and her head. “Sorry, ma’am. I shouldn’t say that about a zyndar or one of our colleagues. I’ve just been so frustrated.”

  “I understand what it’s like to be frustrated. Zyndar can be difficult.”

  “I know. But Garlok isn’t as bad as that odious Brokko. He always…” Lunis glanced at her chest.

  “Yes, I understand that too,” Zenia said dryly. “Jev has offered to punch him if he ogles my breasts again. I can bring you in to watch, if you like.”

  “I’d rather punch him myself.”

  “Is that allowed among agents? I haven’t seen the handbook yet.”

  Lunis snorted. “I don’t think so, ma’am.”

  Zenia pointed at Lunis’s folder. “Tell me what you’ve found, please.”

  Zenia wanted to find Jev and tell him what she’d found—he’d planned to talk to Targyon before heading off to question the doctors Ghara had listed—but she would be foolish not to listen to the other agents in the office.

  “It’s clear Fifth Dragon is particularly active right now, though it’s actually Future Order that’s perpetrated more crimes. And you may find this interesting. Archmage Sazshen of the Water Order has put out a bounty and ordered the watch to issue a warrant for the arrests of Iridium and Brick, the Future Order leader. She’s saying they’ve grown too powerful and become a threat to the king and kingdom.”

  “Huh. That’s the equivalent of declaring war.” Zenia, remembering how Sazshen had once told her to choose her battles carefully, was surprised she would pick a fight with the guilds. She promptly worried about Rhi and the other monks and mages she knew in the temple. They could be targets for assassins making preemptive strikes for their guilds. “You mentioned the Night Travelers. How do they tie in?”

  A throat cleared behind them before Lunis could answer.

  “Captain Zenia?” a page asked. It was the same boy who’d warned them about Iridium the day before.

  “Yes?”

  “Zyndar Dharrow is in a meeting with the king, and they wish you to attend.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Oh, drat,” Lunis said as Zenia stood up, grabbing the book so she could show them both the link to the past. “I’d hoped to share everything with you and get your opinion.”

  “Can you sum it all up in a report?” Zenia smiled, pleased someone in the office wanted her opinion. So far, the men had been… if not dismissive then far more likely to curry favor with Jev.

  “Yes, of course, ma’am. I won’t go home until I have it on your desk.”

  “Good.” Zenia patted Lunis on the back. “Thank you.”

  She left Lunis pulling out a pencil and writing furiously on a blank sheet of paper.

  The page led her through the halls of the castle and to the king’s office where the secretary outside knocked on the inner door for her.

  “Come in,” came Targyon’s young voice.

  The bodyguards standing to either side of the door looked at the thick book in her hands but must not have deemed it a dangerous weapon they had to take from her. Surprising, given its heft. She wagered she could knock someone unconscious with it, if not with the weight then with the boring content.

  Inside, Jev leaned against the king’s desk with his arms folded. Targyon had his back to the door as he poked at a bookcase along the far wall. Zenia was prepared to curtsy and greet him appropriately, but he didn’t look in her direction. He crouched and pulled on a yellow-spined tome.

  A click sounded, and a small portion of the bookcase swung outward.

  “There we are,” Targyon said, sticking his hand into the hole. He unclipped a keyring from his belt and inserted a key in a lock to open a vault door.

  “Is it a sign of your trust in us that you’re doing that while we’re in the room?” Jev asked. “Or do the cook, butler, and cleaning staff all know that’s there?”

  “I wouldn’t want the inside of my vault to get dusty.”

  Zenia watched curiously as Targyon drew out a black, velvet-covered box. Jev didn’t appear surprised by either the existence of the vault or by their king pulling something out of it. But he was much closer to Targyon. He likely expected to be included in secrets and intrigues.

  Targyon grabbed a kerchief and dusted off the box.

  “Did you find something interesting?” Jev pointed at the book in Zenia’s hands.

  “Not exactly interesting, but pertinent to our investigation. Are we still, ah, investigating?”

  If Targyon had decided he didn’t want to risk continuing while there were death threats aimed at him, Zenia didn’t want to admit that she’d been investigating in the library all afternoon.

  “Oh yes. His Royal Highness assured me he wouldn’t hide under the piano and that he wants us to find the guilty parties. Promptly.”

  “The piano?” Zenia asked.

  Targyon smiled lopsidedly at Jev. “Is it necessary for you to share all my confidences with her?”

  “You just opened your secret vault in front of her. I assumed she’d been welcomed into the fold.”

  Zenia wanted the piano story, but Jev didn’t explain further.

  Targyon opened a drawer and pulled out another key, which he inserted into the lock on the box.

  Jev caught Zenia’s gaze and pointed to the book, raising h
is brows. “Want to share what you found while we’re waiting for the unveiling?”

  Targyon snorted. “I’m not that slow. It’s just triple protected. I’m fortunate Dazron made a will and thought to explain the various vaults around the castle in it.”

  “I found an Alderoth that died of the Mountain Illness.” Zenia glanced at Targyon, assuming Jev had briefed him already. “Dorsezrath the Destroyer about a hundred and fifty years ago. It happened while he was on safari on another continent and sounds like he was infected naturally rather than as the result of someone’s assassination attempt, but it does suggest an Alderoth would be susceptible to the bacteria.”

  “Dorsezrath was my uncle’s great grandfather. Uncle Abdor and his sons are—were—direct descendants.” Targyon grimaced as he fitted a third key into a lock inside the box. “I guess I am too.”

  “So, if someone was doing their research,” Jev said, “they would know the family is susceptible.”

  Zenia nodded, staying silent as she noticed a soft silver glow now emanating from the box. Dragon tears? When she’d had one of her own, she would have been able to recognize the magic of others nearby, but now, she could only guess.

  “I have decided,” Targyon said as he laid out dragon tears on his desk, “that I’m done being afraid and worrying day and night that someone is out to get me. I’m here now, and I’m going to do my best to remain here. Even if I believe I was chosen for the wrong reasons—the right reasons for some but the wrong reasons for the kingdom—I’m going to do my best. And I’m prepared to confront people and try to get the truth straight from their mouths.” After Targyon had laid out eight dragon tears, he lifted his gaze and looked at both of them. “I’m going to host a reception tomorrow night, and I shall require attendance from invited guests. From all the leaders in the city and also from everyone on our suspect lists.” He smiled at them.

  “That’s… bold, Sire,” Zenia said.

  “Targyon the Bold. I like the sound of that even if it lacks alliterative flair.” Targyon picked up one of the dragon tears. “I’ve never tried to use one, and even if I have the aptitude, I doubt I could master it in two days. Zenia Cham, you have experience using a dragon tear, and I would be honored if you carried one as captain of the Crown Agents and used it to help protect my interests.” His lips twisted. “And me. I want you at my side at this gathering, using your instincts and an appropriate dragon tear to tell me who’s lying when I bluntly ask if they had anything to do with my cousins’ deaths.”