“I know the house,” he said as they turned past the well. “It backs onto the grain store. Come—this way will be quicker.”
He offered her his arm, and she took it, letting him guide her through the narrow lanes. Elsa darted ahead like a sparrow.Stone gave way to packed earth, fences leaning close on either side, until they stopped before a shed with a sagging roof. The girl hurried through the door, shouting for her mother.
Inside, the air pressed damp and heavy. On the mattress by the hearth, a dark-haired boy lay curled, sweat glistening on his brow. His chest rose in shallow, frantic bursts. JingYi rushed and sank to her knees beside him. One glance, then another, and her stomach hollowed.
His nails—tinged a sickly purplish-grey.
His lips—cracked, ringed with sores at the corners.
She sucked in a sharp breath. The sight was more familiar than she’d ever wanted it to be.
“My lord?—”
Alexander had already stepped closer, saw what she saw, and his jaw hardened.
“The same,” he murmured grimly, only for her ears, “as the woman you found in the lake.”
CHAPTER 23
ALEXANDER
Daan, son of Holm, one of Ulrik’s cousins. Alexander remembered when Holm had been crushed dead hauling timbers, and Daan had stepped in to help with chores. At thirteen, Daan was still a boy, forced to shoulder a man’s responsibility.
His chest clenched. But one look at his wife, kneeling with her sleeves rolled above her elbows, told him she was nowhere near giving up. The fire caught the barest sheen of sweat at her temples. Her hands moved without hesitation: unfolding a cloth, laying tools out in tidy rows, unfastening a bottle stopper with one thumb.
And he stood at her shoulder with nothing to offer. No foe to fight, no order to give. The enemy was invisible, and the only weapon was her knowledge. He could only watch the woman he’d deemed inadequate wage a war he didn’t understand.
Daan looked smaller than Alexander remembered. Firelight carved shadows into his hollow cheeks—too sharp for a boy of thirteen. His breath was shallow, his lashes trembling but never lifting. His mother Elswyth hovered near the wall, wringing her apron.
“Highness,” she whispered. “He’s been like this since last night. His fever was so high, he couldn’t even speak.”
JingYi felt the boy’s pulse, eyes closing in concentration, listening to a rhythm beneath the skin no one else could hear or decipher.
“Was he able to eat or drink?” she asked.
“Boiled water, but he retches if he takes in more than two sips.”
JingYi unfolded a bundle of dried leaves on her lap, laying out barks, roots, and blackened bulbs.
“This isn’t an ordinary fever,” she said. “The poison has entered the blood and disturbed his energy flow. The heat is rising toward the heart”—she drew back Daan’s collar to show the blotches staining his chest—“and the hair loss tells me the marrow is compromised.”
Her gaze rose to Elswyth. “You did the right thing to keep him warm. But this fever is poison, and it’s sunk too deep for cool cloths to help.”
The wordpoisonstruck. Elswyth’s face crumpled. She pressed the apron to her mouth, fought for composure, and managed to speak. “I don’t know how he caught this . . . this terrible illness. He did errands, water runs, lifting for the older boys. But I didn’t think—” She swallowed hard, eyes fixed on her son.
One look told him she was afraid. Deeply, helplessly afraid.
“He only wanted to help his family,” he calmly said. “Who can blame him?”
Still, his mind drifted to the corpse. JingYi’s suspicion had haunted him: purple limyerite poisoning. Now here lay a boy bearing the same signs, and the thought was a knife against his throat.
Had Daan come into contact with it too?
How?
During his father’s time, no one under eighteen was allowed near the mines, and no one without proper clearance was permitted anywhere near the west shaft where the purple crystals grew.
“Has Daan been working at the mine?”
