Chapter Text
The fire had burned low as Diamant dozed in the armchair at his brother’s bedside, Alcryst’s limp hand resting in his own. Their parents had been called away to other duties a few hours before, but Diamant refused to leave. He alone could be spared to sit with his ailing brother, and Alcryst needed his family now.
Alcryst had woken up once, still weak from pain and the poison thrumming in his veins. He’d managed to drink a mug of bone broth and a dose of Dr. Hauyne’s pain remedy before lapsing back into a fevered sleep. He’d been weak and confused, convinced they were still in the wagon on the road home, but the doctor had assured them that that would pass as he regained his strength.
Diamant closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose with two fingers. His head was throbbing from lack of sleep, but he did not dare leave his brother’s side. When he opened his eyes, he found a familiar red-hued gaze staring up at him, from a face made pale by pain and illness.
“Alcryst?” Diamant leaned forward, brushing the backs of his fingers over his brother’s cheek. “Are you awake?”
His brother nodded slowly. “Where are we?” he asked, his voice lough and rough.
“We’re home, Alcryst. In your room.”
Tired eyes swiveled as Alcryst took in the familiar surroundings, and he nodded again. “Hurts.”
“What hurts?”
He raised a hand to touch his chest, hissing when his fingers brushed the poultice Dr. Hauyne had secured over his wound. The hiss led to a coughing fit, and Diamant gently levered his brother up to ease the strain on his lungs. He rested one hand against Alcryst’s chest as he coughed, frowning at the way the muscles spasmed under his touch.
“Here, cough into this,” he said, holding a folded white cloth in front of his brother’s face. He buried his own disgust as Alcryst did so and pulled the cloth away a moment later to examine it.
The phlegm had a greenish tinge to it, but there was no trace of blood. He shook his head sympathetically and set the cloth aside, easing Alcryst back onto the bed when his coughing finally ceased.
“I need to send for the doctor,” he explained as he tucked the blanket back around Alcryst’s chest. “I’ll be right back.” He caught Alcryst’s hand and gently squeezed his fingers, his heart sinking at the sight of the bright red scars now twining around his wrists.
The rope that had bound him had bit cruelly into his skin, and though the torn flesh had healed it was not without scarring. They would fade in time, but so soon after his injury they were still an angry red.
Dr. Hauyne replied to his summons with commendable speed. Within a quarter of an hour, the doctor was at Alcryst’s bedside. He examined Alcryst’s wounds, felt his pulse, checked his reflexes, and listened to his chest with a thin brass cone.
“Lung fever,” he announced, stacking another pillow behind Alcryst so the younger prince could sit up comfortably. “It’s not uncommon with wounds like yours, Prince Alcryst. It’s still mild,” he added, turning to include Diamant in the conversation, “I see no reason you can’t make a full recovery.”
Diamant nodded, while Alcryst slumped exhaustedly against the pillows. “How do we treat it?”
The doctor already had a scrap of parchment in hand and was writing out a list of instructions. “Keep him warm but let him have as much fresh air as he can tolerate without taking a chill. Change the bedding at least once a day, more if he breaks into a sweat. I can blend a few tonics to ease the discomfort in his lungs, and an ointment of camphor for the spasming muscles in his chest and back.”
He smiled then, passing the note to his assistant. “There’s no sign of infection in the wound,” he continued, “and the poison seems to have run its course. Lung fever can bring its own complications, but the prince is still young and strong. If you’ll excuse me, I shall inform the king and queen of my diagnosis.”
Diamant tilted his head in acknowledgement. Dr Hauyne bowed to him, then to Alcryst.
“Rest well, princeling,” he said, before turning to leave the room.
Alcryst’s gasp was almost too faint to hear. When Diamant turned to look at him, he was alarmed to see what color he’d had leeching from his face, his eyes round with shock, his entire body trembling.
“What is it?” Diamant asked. He knelt up on the bed, resting one hand on Alcryst’s shoulder and the other on the side of his face, turning his brother to face him. “Alcryst, what’s wrong?”
“He…he called me…”
Diamant shook his head. “He called you…? What did he…princeling?” The word tasted foul in his mouth. Calling Alcryst that had been one of Pyrite’s fouler habits. Diamant didn’t approve of the nickname, but as Alcryst never protested he’d never confronted the man.
Oh gods…Pyrite.
Diamant whirled around to stare at the door, then back at his brother. Alcryst had caught his sleeve, staring up at him with wide, scared eyes. “Don’t leave me,” he pleaded.
He gathered his brother close, bowing his broad shoulders over the boy’s slender frame to hide him. “I have to go,” he murmured. Alcryst sobbed and clung to him, fear rolling off him in palpable waves. “I have to tell Father, Alcryst.”
Alcryst was trembling. His sobs gave way to coughs, and he collapsed in Diamant’s arms as what strength he had fled in the face of his affliction. Diamant cursed and held his brother close, cupping the back of his head with one broad hand.
When his brother finally calmed, Diamant lowered him back against his pillows. He leaned down enough to press their foreheads together, frowning at the surge of heat blazing through his brother’s body.
“Alcryst,” he pulled back, cupping a hand around his brother’s face to catch his attention. “I’m just going to the door, all right? I need to send one of the guards to fetch Mother.” He waited until his brother nodded, then hurried to open the door enough to poke his head out.
And stopped. There were no guards. Alcryst’s chambers were supposed to be guarded around the clock, until the extent of the conspiracy was discovered. He looked up and down the hall, but as it was close to the servants’ dinner hour there was no one to be seen.
For a moment, he considered stepping out into the hall to find the closest servant or guard—or fetch his mother himself. But the thought of his brother, only so recently returned from the edge of death, left helpless and ill and fearing for his life all alone without even a guard at his chambers brought him up short.
Then he saw her. A flash of honey-colored hair above a fur-trimmed jacket. A slender, lithe form he used to chase through the gardens of the Somniel.
“Citrinne!” he called, waving to his cousin. She gathered her long, courtly skirt in one hand and ran toward him, breaking the illusion she tried so often to maintain of a stately lady of the court.
“Prince Diamant,” she panted when she reached his side. “How is…is Prince Alcryst…I came as soon as I heard.”
“He’s here,” Diamant said, gesturing to the room behind him. “Can you fetch my mother?”
“Of course. Where is the queen?”
“She had to meet with a delegate in the rose parlor, she should still be there or close at hand.”
Citrinne bobbed her head in a brief curtsey, turning on her heel to hurry away.
“Citrinne’s here,” he said as he pulled himself back in the room. He crossed over to sit on the edge of the bed at Alcryst’s side, curling an arm around his brother’s shoulders to support him. “She’s gone to fetch Mother.”
Alcryst nodded. He was no longer trembling, but he seemed to have lost the strength to hold himself up. He sagged against Diamant, breath hitching in his damaged lungs. Once again, Diamant’s mind turned to the past. How far back did Pyrite’s betrayal go?
A tap at the door drew him out of his thoughts, and he felt Alcryst shrink further against his side as the door creaked open.
Their mother, Queen Opal, entered with Citrinne on her heels. “Is everything all right, my loves?” she asked, leaning over the bed to caress Alcryst’s cheek. She frowned at something she saw there, her red eyes shifting to Diamant. “I’ve already spoken with Dr. Hauyne and passed his instructions along to the housekeeper.”
Diamant sighed, taking his mother’s hand as she sat in the armchair at her son’s bedside. “I’m afraid this is regarding Dr. Hauyne, Mother. I have a terrible suspicion.”
…
Morion stared at the top of his desk, anger building in his heart, as his son and wife explained what they’d learned. “Who is with Alcryst?”
“Citrinne and Amber,” Diamant replied. His retainer had returned midway through the conversation with the queen, and readily agreed to keep guard outside the prince’s bedchamber.
The king nodded. “And the doctor?”
“I don’t know if he’s in the castle,” Queen Opal said. “He wasn’t in his offices. Ferrus is conducting a more thorough search as we speak, and I’ve sent a message to his family home in town in case he went there.”
Their minimal leads seemed to be disappearing faster than they could grasp them. Morion pushed away from his desk and stood up, striding out of the room with a sweep of his cloak. He heard Diamant’s sure footfalls behind him, then the softer step of the queen, as he led the way through the halls to the dungeon beneath the keep.
“The prisoners were brought in a few hours ago,” he explained over his shoulder as one of the guards unlocked the entrance to the cells. “I think it’s time they answered a few questions.”
Diamant caught his arm as he strode through the doorway. “Are you sure you should be doing this, Father?”
Morion shrugged him off. “It’s only a few questions, son. I’m not going to reach through the bars to break his neck with my bare hands.”
His son sighed, which he ignored as he continued down the hallway to the cells that held their newest acquisitions. He looked between the two arrivals for a few moments, before settling his gaze on the one-eyed man in the cell to his left.
The man, lounging on the cell’s bare cot, grinned up at him. “Well, well. Seems like I’ve earned a fancy visitor.”
Morion glanced to the side, relieved to see that Diamant and Opal were keeping out of sight. “Your name?”
“Call me Flinch.”
“No.”
Flinch threw his head back with a throaty laugh. “’S the only name I have, your kingliness. Unless you’d like to give me a new one?”
Morion leaned against the bars, glowering at the man. “You have information I need. Flinch.”
The man held Morion’s steely gaze with an insouciant grin. “Is it about the man who murdered your darling boy?”
He struck the bars, making them ring under the power of his fist. His temper was worn thin, like ice in early Spring, and every word or smirk from the man in the cell was cracking through it. “Prince Alcryst lives,” he hissed.
“The squeaker’s alive?” Flinch raised his eyebrows in a gesture of surprise, which Morion was sure was faked. “Well, well. Guess all my work was for nothing.”
Morion slammed a hand against the bars again, ignoring the warning hiss from his son. “Who sent you?”
“Squeaker’s a better name than Alcryst,” the man continued. “Fitting, too. You should’ve heard his little squeaks when I hit him. Or maybe you already have? Big brute like you and a little runt like him. Say, what’s it like to put your hands around his throat? Have you tried that?”
Diamant was hauling him away. Morion struggled against his son’s grasp, barely aware of the oaths he was swearing at his captive.
“Did you hear what he said,” he spat, when Diamant finally released him.
“Of course I heard,” Diamant replied. His eyes were hard with anger, but he was managing to reign in his temper with more success than his father. “The question is, why?”
“He raised a hand to your brother! He’s bragging about it!”
“But why is he bragging,” Opal cut in. “We have to think, my love. Why would he brag about it here? To you?”
Morion huffed out a sigh that shifted to a deep growl as he turned away from his family to pace in the small space. They were back in the hall beyond the cells, well away from sight or sound of the prisoners.
“To make you angry,” Diamant said after a few moments. Morion met his gaze, and Diamant nodded. “Everyone knows you would do anything for your family, Father. That you would bring vengeance down on anyone who hurt us. He’s trying to feed that vengeance.”
“He wants you to kill him.” Opal’s voice was soft, and when Morion looked at her she was staring off into the distance. Her eyes were tight, her fingers pressed to her lips. “Why else would he anger you here? What purpose would it serve?”
She met his eyes then, and in her gaze he saw the cunning, clever woman who’d won his heart so many years ago. Under the veneer of queen and mother, Opal was still a devious tactician and strategist. “Why does he want to die?”
“Talk to him again,” Diamant urged.
Morion shook his head. “I’m too angry. I won’t expose your mother to his treachery…that leaves you.”
Diamant nodded. “Of course, Father.”
He watched his son pass through the door to the cells and followed at a short distance with his wife at his side. They stopped, just as Diamant had before, out of sight of the man in the cell.
“Flinch.” Diamant’s strong voice echoed down the corridor.
“Princelet.”
Diamant ignored the jab. “You were working with Pyrite to lure my brother out of the castle. Why?”
“I’m just the muscle. All I did was follow orders.”
“Whose orders?”
“The Cabal of Stone.”
Diamant didn’t react to the name. The Cabal of Stone was a name out of legend, from the years of powerful families warring to unify Brodia. It was supposedly an organization of disgruntled citizens from the lower classes, who hired assassins from Elusia to eliminate those above them so they could seize power for themselves.
More importantly, they were only a legend. There was no proof of the Cabal of Stone actually existing, though radical groups claiming that name appeared from time to time.
“Was Pyrite your only contact in the castle?” Diamant asked.
“Why don’t you ask him? Oh, you can’t.”
“I’m asking you.”
“You can’t ask him because he’s dead. That’s a hint, princelet,” Flinch’s voice rose, no doubt losing his own temper at Diamant’s steadfast carriage. Morion’s heart was swelling with pride. Diamant hadn’t let any emotion color his voice, and from what he could see the prince was still standing in the center of the corridor, hands behind his back, at a perfect parade rest as though this was a conversation with one of the castle guard.
“A hint,” Diamant said dryly.
“You a moron? Hmm? Ask yourself who killed him.”
“He was killed for stabbing my brother.”
“Was he?” Flinch cackled. “Are you sure?”
Diamant turned and stalked away as Flinch’s laughter echoed behind him. He met his father’s eyes and shook his head. “I don’t like his implications.”
“Your scout acted to protect Alcryst,” Opal said, looking from her son to her husband. “Didn’t he?”
Morion held Diamant’s gaze, reading the flicker of uncertainty in his son’s eyes. “I suppose we’d better find out.”