Greave didn’t understand how anyone could have celebrations when there was clearly so much sadness and evil in the world. He sat in the castle’s library, away from the need to be involved in any of it, knowing that his presence would only bring down the others there. His father, in particular, seemed to look on him as an intrusion, and had since the day his mother had fainted and fallen and struck her head on a step, the blow sharp, and sudden, and fatal…

“I will not think of it,” Greave said. “I will not.”

It was hard not to think of his mother, though, when he saw the echo of her features every time he looked in the mirror. His brothers looked more like their father, with Rodry’s blond hair the only hint of her, but Greave… well, his features were as soft and delicate as a man’s might get, his hair falling in waves, his hands not calloused by swordplay and his body slender at twenty. Every glance at himself brought back memories of the blood, and then Greave had to retreat here, to the only place that seemed safe.

The library was one of the largest outside of the House of Knowledge, with shelf after shelf of tomes stacked high, copied by the finest hands of the scholars, or by the monks of the Isle of Leveros. There were works here that dated back before the division of the kingdoms, and Greave found that it was the only place in which he felt truly at home.

He started to read through Brother Marcus’s Quotations on a Forthright Life, since the long dead monk was considered an authority, and since Greave had made it his mission to read through the entire contents of the library, but he found that he couldn’t get very far before his thoughts raised natural objections.

“‘A good man is upright and willing to trust others,’” he read, then shook his head. “But what if the people he trusts are not worthy of it, or betray him? And this… ‘a man should strive for hope in all things.’ Was he not looking at the world when he wrote this?”

Greave set the book aside and turned to LeNere’s On the Machinations of Government, long derided by the House of Knowledge as simply a defense of evil actions. Greave could see that, and he could certainly never imagine the destruction of entire families that the man seemed to argue for, but there were passages that simply seemed to speak to him.

“‘The world is a bleak, cruel place,’” he read, “‘and a man involved at court must recognize the truth of this. To imagine it happier, to trust or to be kind to one’s enemies, is not a virtue, but a vice, for one with power must protect the lives of those he serves by any means.’”

Was serves the right word? Did LeNere truly conceive of rulers as serving those they ruled? Perhaps Greave would write something on it and send it to the House of Scholars to prove how much he deserved to be there, or perhaps he would write a play where a ruler who truly believed that was taken advantage of by his entire court…

“Greave? Are you going to miss all of the celebrations?”

He turned at the sound of Nerra’s voice, standing and going to hug his sister. There was always something so delicate and fragile about Nerra that it almost made his heart break.

“I’m hardly the best at them,” he said.

“Because you don’t get enough practice,” she replied. “I’m sure there will be any number of beautiful noblewomen down there. Perhaps you could dance with one.”

Greave shook his head. He couldn’t imagine them being interested in him. Couldn’t imagine anyone seeing him as something other than an impediment to their happiness. “What about you?” he asked. “You look like you’ve been out in the forest again.”

“I have,” Nerra said. “It’s the only place I can be and not worry about people watching me.”

“You had your sleeves up?” Greave asked, suddenly worried. He knew about his sister’s condition, knew enough to know that people would call for Nerra’s death if they found out.

“It’s fine,” Nerra said. “I’m fine…”

“You don’t sound certain,” Greave said.

“I… had a fainting fit,” Nerra said.

“Another?” Greave shook his head. He was sure they were getting closer together. “You see, that’s another reason for me not to go down to the party. I need to stay here and look through more of the books in case there’s a cure for you.”

“Don’t you think someone would have found it if it were here to find?” Nerra countered. “You’re just trying to get out of dancing.”

“So you’ll be running straight down to the hall?” Greave countered. They both knew she wouldn’t. That many people always raised too many risks of someone seeing the scale sickness on her arms.

“I need to find Physicker Jarran,” Nerra said. “I… need to discuss some things with him.”

“About your condition?” Of course it was. The healer was one of the only ones outside the family who knew about Nerra’s sickness. He was also the only one who had been able to so much as slow it. But even he didn’t have a cure.

“Promise me you won’t spend all your time here?” Nerra said. “Lenore would love to see you down there, I’m sure.”

“I’ll try,” Greave promised, although he knew he wouldn’t make it. He had too many books to get through.

***

It seemed to Greave that a man could read for a lifetime and not find what he needed in the castle’s library.

“I will find it, though,” Greave promised himself. He knew he had not always been the best brother, but in this, he would not fail his sister.

He plunged into the stacks, hunting for medical tomes the way Rodry might go into a forest after a boar. Greave set aside works on the higher forms of philosophy, on the correct way to cut a canal system, on the supposed foundations of magic, looking only for something that promised the secret workings of the body. Greave half-remembered a text with a green cover by the ancient physician Velius, and set about searching.

Of course, there were many green covers in the library, but Greave worked his way through them, one by one, setting aside a tome showing a sword master’s techniques, a work on the design of the bridges so vital for Royalsport.

Come on, he willed himself. Remember the title. Remember.

Then suddenly, as he poured through books, it came to him:

On The Body.

Greave shouted aloud in delight, thrilled it came back to him. A slim, green volume.

Yet recalling the title was not, he knew, the same as having the book itself. Surely, it must be in here somewhere?

With even greater urgency, Greave poured through stacks of books.

“It has to be here,” he said. “It has to be here.”

“What has to be?” a woman’s voice asked.

Greave looked up and instantly froze. The young woman who stood before him was as close to perfect as he had ever seen. She had to be around his age, slender and red-haired, with green eyes that seemed to be questioning the world around her with every glance. She wore a dress of grays and silvers that she somehow managed to make look anything but ordinary, and her smile… her smile was the most beautiful thing Greave had seen. The jewelry she wore suggested that she was noble born, for who else could afford so many gold and silver rings and chains? She had a ribbon of the same silver twined into her hair, the end of it spilling down over her shoulder.

“I… I’m looking for a book,” Greave managed, remembering to breathe. “I’m sorry, who are you? What are you doing here?”

“I’m looking for you,” she said. Her voice was as beautiful as the rest of her, seeming to sing with the notes of the country far beyond the city. “My name is Aurelle Hardacre.”

Greave recognized the name of a minor noble family at once, but he still couldn’t fathom the rest of her presence.

“You’re looking for me?” he said. It made no sense.

“Where my family has its estate, they sing songs about the beautiful prince who sits in his library, wrapped in sorrow,” Aurelle said. She glanced away for a moment. “You sounded too good to be true, yet here you are.”

Too good to be true? Greave didn’t know about that. He knew that some people found his features attractive, but he’d never been ruggedly handsome in the same way his brothers were, and anyone who did like him quickly drifted away once they learned about the true him.

“Shall I help you to pick some of those up?” Aurelle asked, moving to assist Greave in lifting the books that he’d scattered so far in his search.

“No, you don’t have to, it’s all right,” he managed. How could the presence of a woman he’d only just met make him feel as if the world were tilting this way and that? It made no sense.

“I want to help,” Aurelle said. “Oh look! A copy of Francesca di Vere’s love poems! They’re so beautiful, aren’t they?”

Greave wanted to say that none of them was as beautiful as her, but he didn’t have the words for it. “I haven’t read them,” he managed instead. It occurred to him that this was a chance to learn something about her. “Are you here for the wedding?”

“I am,” Aurelle said. “My family is just important enough to be invited. Although I’m quite lost here. The castle is far larger than I expected, and as for the city…”

“Perhaps I could show you around,” Greave blurted, even though he hadn’t meant to do it. Even though he had so many more important things that he should be doing.

“I’d like that,” Aurelle said. She held out her arm. “Now? Since you’ve finished looking for your book, I mean?”

Greave knew he couldn’t tell her that the love poems weren’t what he was searching for, that he still had a book to find, without explaining what, and why. Well, he could, but then it would look as though he had no interest in her, and that simply wasn’t the truth. Instead, he stood straight, took the book of Francesca di Vere’s poems, and took hold of Aurelle’s arm.

“I would like that too,” he said. After all, how long could this take? Whatever secret was hidden away in the library, it would still be there when they were done.

And he would find it, whatever it was.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Nerra went to Physicker Jarran’s quarters and knocked, the strange scent of the place striking her as she did it. There was always a mix of rot and brightness about the place, the sharpness of the herbs he worked with mixed in with the decay of those bodies of criminals he kept for dissection.

“Enter, enter!” he called out in a jolly voice. For someone who worked with the dead and the dying so much, he always managed to sound more cheerful than he had a right to.

Nerra pushed open the door and stepped inside, trying to leave it as long as possible before taking another breath there. The quarters were large, on the bottom level of the castle, with window slits above whose light was patterned by fragments of stained glass. Most of the light came from candles kept in jars, carefully just far enough away from whatever the physicker was working on in that moment that they wouldn’t set light to it.

The room had probably once been a crypt or a chapel, with slabs that now held bodies in various states of dissection, and one whole end of the room given over to living quarters, a layer of rugs and carpets marking it out as different from the rest. There was a desk there, a large board filled with chalked observations, a bed, and a table with chairs around it.

Physicker Jarran was a large man whose frame was barely contained by the robes of the House of Knowledge. Currently, he wore an apron over them, and was working on cutting up the arm of a body on one of the nearer slabs. Nerra tried not to stare in horror at that sight, even though she’d been down here plenty of times before for lessons.

“Why are you cutting up someone’s arm?” Nerra asked, and she was sure some of her disgust at it leaked through.

“The House of Knowledge says that no knowledge is ever wasted,” Physicker Jarran said. “In this case, by better understanding the workings of the arm, I might be able to do more to help those who have injured theirs. It is a study that would help you greatly, if you truly wish to heal others.”

Most of the herb lore Nerra knew, she’d learned from the physicker. To her parents, it had just been her taking an interest in her treatment, yet the physicker had quickly seen her interest and taught her far more, to the point where Nerra could recognize almost any plant in the forest and its properties. Even so…

“No, thank you,” she said. Some things just weren’t for her.

“I wasn’t expecting you here for a lesson today,” Physicker Jarran said.

All of Nerra’s brothers and sisters had taken lessons from the physicker, since as a graduate of the House of Knowledge, he could teach reading, writing, history, and philosophy as easily as any scholar of the House of Knowledge. Nerra’s lessons had featured increasing amounts of herb lore once he had seen she was interested in it, along with knowledge of other places she knew she would never live long enough to see. The physicker was also one of the few people who knew the truth of her condition, since he’d been the one trying to at least slow it for years now.

“I don’t have a lesson today,” Nerra said. Suddenly she was nervous, finding herself wondering if she should be there at all. “I… guess I’m supposed to be at all the feasting.”

“With so much feasting, who could attend it all? Even me?” Physicker Jarran countered, with a pat of his stomach. “Why are you here, though, Nerra? It’s not to join in my research.”

“I…” Nerra wasn’t sure whether to just come out and tell him what she’d found or not. She thought back to her worries in the forest: that someone would take the dragon’s egg and destroy it, or dissect the dragon within. She knew she couldn’t take that much of a chance, but she still needed to know more than she did.

“What do you know about dragons?” Nerra asked.

“Dragons?” Physicker Jarran asked, raising an eyebrow. “I’d have thought that was more Master Grey’s field than mine.”

“You know he won’t answer,” Nerra said. Master Grey rarely said anything about dragons, even though the rumors said that he’d seen them, fought them…

Physicker Jarran took off his apron and came over to the living area, sitting down in one of the chairs at the table. It creaked under his bulk.

“I may know some things about them, certainly. I have read of them, in the House of Knowledge.”

“What can you tell me about them?” Nerra asked. “And about their eggs?”

“Their eggs?” Physicker Jarran said.

“How would I know for sure if one were real, for example?” Nerra asked.

“That is easy,” the physicker said. “It wouldn’t be. Preserved dragon eggs are so rare these days…” He spread his hands apart. “A real one would be about this big, if I recall the books correctly. It would have veins of red or gold or green running through it. The shell color would reflect the color of the creature within, and… well, the sources say that the egg would be warm of all things.”

Nerra’s breath caught. Every detail fit with that of the egg she’d found.

“This is a curiously specific thing to ask about, Nerra,” Physicker Jarran said. “Has someone offered you a cast of a shell? I know that there is a market for such things, and people think they know what to look for. They see a large egg and assume it must be a dragon’s.”

“Well, I wanted to know more about dragons generally,” Nerra said. The more she could find out, the better. “Where do they come from? How do they grow? What do they eat?”

“Generally, anything they want,” Physicker Jarran said, and it took Nerra a moment to realize that it was his idea of a joke. “According to the books, dragons are creatures of power. In both the magical and every other sense. Their very beings are conduits for power, letting them soar, and shape that energy into fire or lightning or mist or shadow. They are long lived, each living a thousand years if they do not die in combat, starting to wane only in the years after the dragon moon. They are said to roost among volcanoes and places of fire, the heat of them warming their eggs when they lay them, just before they die.”

“They lay their eggs immediately before they die?” Nerra said.

“There is a kind of sense to it,” the physicker explained. “With creatures so long lived, if they birthed their young earlier, they would soon overrun the world. They would be raising their own competitors. Look at people.”

“I don’t understand,” Nerra said.

“Don’t you? You have seen how families can be complicated. How many times in human history have sons and daughters risen up against their parents, or brothers and sisters gone to war? It is a story as old as time.”

Physicker Jarran’s expression turned serious. “You’re asking about dragons. Where do they live? If there are any left out there, they live beyond the realms of men, in the fire places. They are powerful, powerful enough that the kingdoms were separated in the war against those who ruled using them. But they are also not a subject you should waste your time on, Nerra.”

“Why not?” Nerra countered.

“Because we both know how little time you have. How bad is your sickness now? Are the herbs I recommended slowing it?”

The suddenness of the question caught Nerra by surprise. So did the sharpness of it. “I…”

“Show me your arms,” he insisted.

Nerra rolled up her sleeves, letting him see the scale sickness there. Pulling on gloves, he poked at the flesh, apparently watching the way the dark lines there distorted at the touch.

“In spite of our efforts, the sickness has progressed,” he said. “I am sorry, but at this rate of progression, you will either die or be transformed in a matter of weeks.”

“Transformed?” Nerra said. She’d heard of the things the scale sickness could do, but she hadn’t believed them to be real until now.

Physicker Jarran went back to his chair. “You have heard the stories.”

Nerra nodded, buttoning her sleeves once more. “What’s the truth, though? I thought that it was all made up, that it was just that people had seen the scale pattern and thought it meant something.”

“You thought that people did what they always do, and surrounded the truth with so many stories and half-truths that it became obscured?”

“Yes,” Nerra admitted. “I thought… when they sent people away, I thought they just died. I thought that all the fear was because of the way it could spread.”

“You thought, or you hoped?”

“I… hoped,” Nerra admitted.

Physicker Jarran shook his head. “The scale sickness is a transformation. People die when their bodies are not strong enough to complete it. The results… you have heard of the horrific beasts of legend, the things that populate Sarras.”

It wasn’t a question, but Nerra nodded her agreement anyway. She had heard of them, the things that were not even close to being human. Yet if what the physicker was saying was true…

“Was everything to the west once human?” she asked. Fear was already running through her at the thought. Would she become something… else? Something not human, not kind, not able to do as she wished?

“That is a question that is better saved for Master Grey,” Physicker Jarran said. “He knows more of the truth of these things than I.”

Nerra could only admit that he had a point. Master Grey knew as much as anyone alive about the strange and the unseen, yet she didn’t want to talk to him about this, couldn’t risk it.

“I must ask again,” Physicker Jarran said. “Why are you asking about things like dragons, Nerra?”

“I…” Nerra thought about telling him, she honestly did, but she couldn’t bring herself to, not yet. “I just wanted to know more about them.”

“Ah, I thought that you had heard one of the old stories,” the physicker said.

“What old stories?” Nerra asked.

“That of all the attempts to halt the scale sickness, only one cure has proved certain: cracking a dragon’s egg and consuming the yolk within.”

He watched Nerra as he said it, so Nerra kept her shock off her face. Even so, it ran through her like a jolt of lightning, seeming to spread through every part of her at once.

“A…cure?” she said, afraid to ask.

“A rumor of one, a note in the books,” Physicker Jarran said. “But there are no real dragon eggs. It is the only reason I have not told you this before. I would not want you hoping for an impossible thing.”

Except that it wasn’t impossible.

She could be cured. Cured.

She could live a normal life, not as a freak, but as a regular girl. Instead of counting down the days to her death, she could count the days of her life before her.

She jumped up, knocking over a table, and ran for the door.

A cure lay just beyond the castle walls. And she knew exactly where to find it.