Light the Reign (The Forgotten: Book 3) (12 page)

They slinked through the plants of the
gardens, hugging so close to the rose bushes that once she had to
pause and untangle herself from the thorns. They finally reached
the guard post and searched the dark faces for that of Sir Ruawn.
Finally, Layna spotted him; the one who was peering intently at the
gardens rather than out into the city.

She touched Gryffon’s arm gently and the two
of them rose out of the shadows and strolled over to him. The
moment they showed themselves, the sounds of weapons being drawn
immediately sounded in the quiet night. Three guards surrounded
them before they had taken more than a few steps.

“Who goes there?” one of the guards demanded,
squinting his eyes to see their faces. Recognition suddenly dawned
on him and he hastily lowered his weapon, waving off the others
which were pointed at them. “My apologies, Majesties.”

“No apology necessary,” Gryffon told him,
“We’re glad to see our guards so efficient at their duties.”

Sir Ruawn had made his way over to them and
he gave each a short bow. “Your Majesties. Are you absolutely sure
you want to go out into the city? It’s not safe.”

“We have to,” Layna said, “How else will we
know how our people are doing?”

“That is our job,” he countered, “What would
we do if we lost both of you?”

“Well, that’s why you’re coming with us,
isn’t it?” Gryffon said cheerfully, but Sir Ruawn did not look
happy. No doubt he did not appreciate the extra pressure to keep
them safe. She felt for him, but felt more strongly that her
presence was needed in the city.

“Were you able to get the chokeroot?” she
asked him.

He nodded and gestured to a sack behind
him.

“Excellent,” she nodded, and Gryffon went
over to pick it up. Sir Ruawn tried to beat him to it, but Gryffon
batted his hand away good-naturedly.

“You don’t want your king getting all soft,
now do you?”

“No, sir.” Sir Ruawn sighed. No matter how
many interactions they had with the man, he seemed unable to forgo
the formalities and simply call them by their names, or at least
not address them with titles every single time. A simple ‘sir’ was
as informal as they were likely to coax out of him. Amelia was
always rebuking her for her attempts to remain informal with those
around her. She insisted that it created an atmosphere for
disrespect. The thought of her friend gave Layna a pain in her
stomach. The woman was stabilizing with the new delivery of
chokeroot, but the curse had already progressed to an alarming
stage before they had caught on to what it really was. If only they
hadn’t overlooked what a danger it posed!

Gryffon’s hand on her shoulder suddenly
brought her back to the present and she looked around, realizing
that he and Sir Ruawn and his men were all staring at her, waiting
to get started.

“Sorry,” she apologized, “Shall we?”

Sir Ruawn gave them another bow and led the
way out of the guard tower, looking this way and that with his
weapon drawn before advancing farther along the street. After a few
blocks of painfully slow progress, Layna exchanged a glance with
Gryffon. He just shrugged, and she bit back a sigh.

Resigning herself to the slow progress, she
turned her attention to the streets. At first, there was no sign
that anything untoward was amiss in the city. But soon, the
evidence of the curse and the resulting chaos of it all became
apparent. There were shops whose owners were likely currently
locked out of the city whose windows had been smashed in and the
contents of the store looted. She made a mental note to have
someone make a list of these so they could be compensated and had
to muffle another sigh. She had no more people to send out.

They finally came to the area where the
entrance to the hidden tunnels was and after making sure that no
one was watching, Sir Ruawn waved them inside. From there, he said
they could make their way to any part of the city easily and
without being seen. The progress underground was much faster, and
soon they climbed up to the less-affluent end of the city. They had
decided that it was likely that there would be street-people there
who may not have been able to get out to the chokeroot booths in
order to get any and would be a good place to start.

Almost immediately after returning
above-ground, they could hear moaning down one of the alleyways.
Sir Ruawn immediately held up his hand for them to stay put while
he edged along the side of the buildings to check it out. Layna
watched as his form retreated down the street, and she itched to be
out there with him. The thought surprised her; she had changed a
lot since meeting Gryffon.

Smiling, she gave him a quick kiss, and he
looked at her with a confused look. She just gave him an impish
grin. Before he had come into her life, as a simple maid, the girl
she used to be would never have wanted to be out in the action.
She’d probably be curled up in bed, terrified. Gryffon – and their
adventures – had definitely changed her for the better.

Sir Ruawn had reached the corner of the
alley, and he cautiously poked his head around. Slowly, he
unplastered himself from the wall and turned to squarely face the
opening. After a moment, he looked back at them and waved them
forward.

They quickly scampered down the street,
gathering around the mouth of the alley to see what the disturbance
was. As it came into view, Layna saw that a dark shape was huddled
along the wall next to a pile of barrels. It was this person who
was moaning. The man looked up at them and started in surprise. He
obviously hadn’t noticed Sir Ruawn’s approach nor heard them
gathering around.

As they drew closer, Layna could guess why.
His face was already beginning to form pustules, and his eyes were
taking on a reddish haze, one of the last symptoms of the disease.
No doubt the pain and confusion these and the other symptoms caused
made him less than observant. Gryffon hefted the sack he had slung
over his shoulder to the ground before him and took out the
chokeroot. Prepared, the root resembled an edible, if bland,
cracker. The spell which they had formed to make it more effective
had already been performed on it so that they didn’t have to worry
about having a mage within the dome not taking the suppressant, and
it had been mashed into a patty shape.

Gryffon handed the chokeroot patty to the
man, who took it warily, eyeing the thing. “Eat this,” Gryffon
directed him gently, and at his glance towards the fountain out on
the main street, one of the guards read his mind and hurried to get
the man a drink. He returned in short order with a cup of water and
handed this to the suffering man as well.

After a bit of urging, the man finally
brought it to his lips and nibbled a bit off the edge. He wrinkled
his nose, then stuffed the whole thing in, chugging the water down
afterwards. The effects of the suppressant were instantaneous and
Layna was glad to see that not only would it stop new ones from
forming – at least for a while – but it seemed to also be making
the existing pustules lessen in size almost immediately. It could
just be her imagination, wanting it so badly to make her see the
shrinking size, but she hoped it was real. The man did became more
lucid, and they were able to get him to understand that he should
eat one of the patties every few days, and more if he felt the
disease was progressing. They really had no idea what the optimal
amount to take was, but more didn’t seem to have any negative
effects, aside from the dampening of talent, so they didn’t see the
harm if he did take more at once.

They left him with a good supply of them, and
asked him to spread it around that this was a way to keep the
disease at bay, and that anyone could get it by talking to any
royal official for free. He was very surprised at this news, which
disheartened Layna, seeing as they had tried so hard to get the
word out about it. Obviously, as they had feared, the people were
not listening to the royal decrees.

They made the rounds around as much of the
city as they could during the dead of night, stumbling across many
more people who had not heard of, or taken advantage of, the
chokeroot being passed out every day. They even had to take one
citizen back to the palace to hold in one of the cells because she
was simply too far gone. Her eyes had already turned completely
red, and she didn’t respond to words. They gave her the chokeroot
anyway, but it was likely she was already walking dead.

Exhausted and discouraged, Gryffon and Layna
made their way back to their royal suites, successfully sneaking
back in without being noticed. Once out of their dark clothes,
Layna collapsed onto the bed, throwing her arms out above and
behind her and sighing loudly.

“Depressing, wasn’t it?” Gryffon commented,
his usual optimism dampened by the clearly sad state of the
city.

“Very much so,” she agreed around a yawn,
closing her eyes. The bed moved as Gryffon sat on it next to her
and she shifted so that her head was lying in his lap. He stroked
her hair absently.

“I’ve been trying to brain-storm ways to get
more people aware of the chokeroot, but it seems that we’re already
doing all we can. Without magic to help there are just too many
nooks and crannies that people are hiding in to get the message out
to them all.”

Layna sat up and positioned herself behind
Gryffon, massaging his shoulders. He dropped his head and let out a
moan as she ran her fingers along the base of his neck and down his
spine. “I feel that we made at least a small dent tonight,” she
said, “although having Sir Ruawn insist on checking every shadow
before allowing us to move down a street I’m sure kept us from
doing two or three times as much good.”

“I agree,” Gryffon mumbled, his voice muffled
by the angle he was craning his neck into her massage. “I vote that
we sneak out without Sir Ruawn tomorrow night.”

“Sounds good,” Layna nodded as he turned to
face her.

He leaned in for a kiss, but before the two
of them got any farther than briefly meeting lips, they were both
fast asleep, sprawled across the plush bed.

*

Katya surreptitiously glanced over at Petra
out of the corner of her eye. They were almost back to the Kanza
tribe, and the girl was fidgeting nervously. She fingered one of
the flowers as she walked, hardly watching the ground in front of
her. Katya knew the girl was debating whether or not to take the
flower herself.

Before they had found it, there seemed to be
little doubt in her mind, but now that it was actually before her,
she seemed to be having second thoughts. Katya could sympathize. As
much as she hated knowing that her body and mind had been sculpted
into the perfect killing machine for the purpose of carrying out
Karl’s whims, now that she was free of him, she could appreciate
their value.

Perhaps now that Petra had a way to be free
of them, she felt more in control of them, and could see their
value as well. Hopefully, the fact that it had been only because of
her unique ability had they found the plant at all would help her
realize exactly how valuable her traits really were.

Katya shook her head. It shouldn’t matter to
her anyway. She looked over at Hunter instead, who was walking next
to her, his eyes roaming the landscape around them. She moved
closer and took his hand. A gesture of affection she had never
before been able to understand, she now couldn’t seem to get enough
of it. The feeling of his hand wrapped around hers simply made the
world a better place.

“How much longer until we’re back?” she asked
him.

“I estimate it should be within the hour,” he
answered, using his free hand to shade his eyes as he looked up at
the sun.

“Do you think it will really work? And that
they’ll really give over the stone? I got the feeling that this
mission was just a way to get rid of us. What if they go back on
their word now that we’ve actually succeeded?”

Hunter shrugged. “I guess we’ll just have to
wait and see.”

In just under an hour, they found themselves
strolling back into the Kanza encampment. The Kanza leader watched
their approach with a cool expression.

“What news do you bring?” he asked, with a
tone of smugness that left Katya little doubt that he thought it
impossible for them to have found the field.

Petra moved forward to speak for them. “We
found it,” she whispered, barely audible, and held the flower she
still held out before her. It had wilted during the long, hot trek
back to the camp, but it was plain to see that it was indeed a
yellow flower.

The Kanza leader scoffed. “You bring us back
a pathetic dead flower and expect us to believe that you found the
way to reverse the changes that all our mages couldn’t do?”

Petra’s face scrunched up in anger, but
before she could snap a response, the others in their party wheeled
the cart forward and opened it to reveal the contents. They had dug
up and transplanted several of the plants into the cart in order to
bring back a full sample to the Kanza, knowing they might be
difficult to persuade.

Several people in the gathering crowd gasped,
but the Kanza leader was still not impressed. “What does this
prove?” he sneered.

“We understand you will want to see it work
before you are willing to release the stone,” the Dena’ina leader
put in, “So we have gathered several of the plants so that you may
put together an expedition of your own to proceed outside of the
protection area and test the effectiveness of the plant yourselves.
We won’t ask for the stone until you are satisfied.”

The Kanza leader’s temples bulged as he
gritted his teeth. “Fine,” he finally said shortly. “I will head
this expedition myself to see the results first-hand.”

“And I shall come as well,” another put in,
and then another until a group of ten or so of the Kanza had
volunteered to be the test group of the plant.