trying to comfort him and that would serve nothing. If he burned himself out here, the city would need all the mages it had left.
The fever might not be the work of spirits as the superstitious claimed, but so much suffering still attracted them. The mirrors in the room were draped with black silk, the windows warded with salt and silver, but even now something skittered over the shutters, larger than an insect. Those mages who weren’t tending the sick spent the nights hunting newly fledged demons.
He stood, wincing as his joints creaked, and limped toward the bed. “Lychandra.” His voice broke on her name, hoarse and ugly.
Bruised lids opened and golden-brown eyes met his. Lucid now, at least, delirium fled. No wonder people thought the plague demon-born, when victims died bloody and raving.
Her lips cracked as she smiled. “You’re as stubborn as Mathiros.” Her voice was soft and ragged. “Find someone else to save—it won’t be me.”
He pressed a cup of willow bark tea to her mouth. She coughed around the swallow and bloody saliva flecked her lips. The physicians had shaken their heads when she first vomited black blood, said she was beyond their skill. She was likely beyond his, too, but he had to try.
Kiril sucked in a deep breath and tried to clear his mind. The magic answered slowly, scraping like broken glass in his veins. A cool draft whipped through the room, fluttering the bed hangings and rattling the shutters. Lychandra sighed as it breathed over her skin, respite from the fever’s heat. Kiril laid a hand on her brow and she gasped.
His vision blurred and he saw with otherwise eyes—illness hung on her like a pall, swirled dark and yellow-green as bile inside her. Contagion flared like an asp’s hood as his magic lapped over the queen’s skin; it had feasted and grown fat in three days, while Kiril had only worn himself dry. His power broke, splintering ice needles inside his chest. He fell to his knees beside the bed, jarring bones even through thick carpets.
Lychandra turned her head and pink saliva dripped onto the sweat-stained pillow. “Kirilos—” Her long brown hand touched his, burning his numb fingers. “No more. You’ll only hurt yourself. Please, let me see my husband.”
He nodded, climbing shakily to his feet. Hard to breathe around the pain in his chest. He’d seen this woman a glowing bride, listened to her curse in childbirth. He hadn’t thought to stand her deathwatch, too. Pins and needles stung his hand as he opened the door.
The king’s face only made it worse—skin ashen, eyes black pits under his brows. Mathiros read defeat in Kiril’s expression and let out a sound neither sob nor howl. He shouldered the sorcerer aside as he rushed to his wife.
Isyllt followed the king into the room and stepped into Kiril’s arms. She cupped his face in white hands and kissed him, the familiar scent of her hair filling his nose. Her grey eyes were shadowed and dark with worry; he winced from his reflection there. So tired. So old.
“You have to rest,” she said. “You’ll kill yourself this way.”
He would die, sooner or later. Sooner every year. Leave her grieving beside his bed like Mathiros beside Lychandra. He lowered her hands away from his face. She was too young to be a widow—certainly too young to be his. He might have told her so, but he couldn’t get enough breath. His chest ached like a bruise.
“Kiril.” Mathiros’s voice cracked on his name. “Is there nothing—Anything—” Tears soaked his beard, splashed his wife’s hand. Kiril wanted to cringe at the pain in his eyes. “You can’t do this!”
Whether he spoke to Kiril or Lychandra or Erishal herself, the sorcerer couldn’t say. His palms slicked with cold sweat and Isyllt’s hand tightened on his.
Lychandra’s eyes sagged and she whispered to her husband. His name turned into a cough and she gagged, turning her head to vomit. Mathiros flinched; the liquid that soaked the side of the bed was watery, clotted with blood dark as soil or tea dregs. Her organs were failing, and no skill or magic could undo the damage now.
The king knotted his fist in the gauzy curtains as if he meant to rip them from the bed. “Kiril, please!”
Kiril closed his eyes. Mathiros hadn’t pleaded with him, with anyone, since he was a child. He’d never been able to say no to the boy.
The queen hitched and shuddered, twisting stained linen. Isyllt gasped—she felt it too,