without tasting the blood of Rimians and Naloreans. And then there’s the question of weakness. Animal blood does not give us the strength we’ve grown accustomed to. The strength we need to keep the empire united and unbreakable.”
“Yeah. You’ve mentioned that. I just… It’s an obvious cultural difference,” I said. “Have you lost anyone to Black Fever, yourself?”
Her gaze lowered, lingering over Merus’s swirling capital letters at the beginning of each long paragraph describing Clara’s descent into darkness and death. “My mother. Shortly after I was born. She was one of the last victims of the Black Fever five thousand years ago.”
“I’m sorry,” I replied. Losing a loved one like that had to be one of the worst things anyone could ever experience. Even so, Valaine spoke in favor of drinking Rimian and Nalorean blood. “I can only imagine how hard it is to grow up without a mother.”
“I wouldn’t know, since I didn’t have one,” she said, wearing a sad smile. “But I appreciate your kind words.”
We didn’t say anything for a while. My gaze wandered across the remaining two pages of Merus’s account. Valaine noticed, pointing at the last passage. I read it out loud.
“After she stopped eating, Clara began to wither. She was down to the bone, her skin cracking. Black blood began to seep through, and soon she was coughing it up, as well. Everything inside her was liquefied and corrupted, beyond repair, beyond healing. All I could do was give her essence of the yellow poppy, which eased her pain and let her sleep. By the eighth week, she was gone, and so was my bloodline, for I had already lost my wife, and bringing Clara into the world had been a miracle.” I paused, taking a deep and almost painful breath. I could practically feel his grief piercing through the words and stabbing my heart. “Poor Merus.”
“If you can help us beat the Black Fever, I think Visio will forever be in your debt,” Valaine said. “I believe your resources are greater than ours, where scientific development is concerned. Our magic has done little to nothing against the outbreaks. Yellow poppy has been the only improvement over the past two million years.”
“I would love nothing more, but we’re still about five thousand years away from the first symptoms, aren’t we?” I asked. “From my understanding, the Black Fever goes completely dormant for ten millennia, and it is almost impossible to identify during the off periods. Or am I missing something?”
Valaine nodded slowly. “You are. Can I trust you?”
I blinked several times, surprised by her response. There was just so much to unpack in just a few words. But I had to be honest with myself on this, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to be honest with her. Could she trust me? Would I even think to betray her?
What if I’d have to choose between breaking her confidence or that of my team? I’d have to figure it out, eventually. For the time being, I settled on being honest in the short term. “You can trust me, Valaine. I wouldn’t do anything to deliberately hurt or jeopardize you,” I said.
She got up, motioning for me to follow her. “Then come with me. And promise you won’t tell anyone about what I’m about to show you, until I speak to the others. You need to see this, in the meantime.”
“See what?”
She didn’t answer.
We left the library and moved through several narrow corridors I hadn’t even known about. They were part of a restricted area of the palace, I realized, noticing the absence of servants. Gold guards patrolled the hallways, but they didn’t engage with us. They frowned at the sight of me, of course, but Valaine was quick to give them brief nods, as if to say, “It’s cool, he’s with me.”
We went down a spiraling staircase, and the lights dimmed, reduced to mere amber flickers on the dark limestone walls. Eventually, we reached the underground of the palace’s south side, where a sprawling infirmary had been set up. The hall itself was huge, filled with beds that had been neatly lined up in tight rows.
The entrance was reinforced with black steel gates, on which a lock hung, clasped between the links of a thick chain. Valaine produced a key, which she used to get us through. Only as we got farther did I fully understand what I was looking at.
“There is something the high priestess didn’t tell you,” Valaine said. “To be fair, barely