Flipping the page, I found an illustration in which Merus had done his best to describe the extraction process with a large, metallic syringe.

“In her fourth week, Clara could no longer consume blood. I’d barely managed to feed her a few ounces every day, but she couldn’t stomach that anymore. I tried giving her water, and, while she did take a few sips, it resulted in a violent fit of vomiting. Everything that came out of her was black and gooey.” I kept reading but was forced to take a pause, breathing deeply. “You poor thing.”

“Tristan?”

Valaine’s voice echoed through the library. For a moment, I thought I’d merely imagined it, though I would’ve welcomed her presence to soothe some of the gloom that had taken over. Reading about the effects of the Black Fever was downright heartbreaking, gut-wrenching, and everything in between.

It made the Aeternae’s decision to keep drinking Rimian and Nalorean blood all the more difficult to stomach, given the risks that they subjected themselves to. It dawned on me then that maybe part of the reason they allowed the consumption was knowing that the Black Fever would break out every ten millennia. Maybe they did it to prevent overpopulation? No, that didn’t make sense. The Aeternae’s birth rate was low, anyway.

“Tristan,” Valaine said, tearing my attention from the yellowed pages. She was standing next to my study table, watching me with a mixture of curiosity and concern. “Are you okay?”

“Yes. I’m sorry. I wasn’t paying much attention to the world around me,” I replied, offering an apologetic half-smile. My mood was already elevated, merely upon seeing her.

She’d settled for a simple red dress with a black bow at the base of her neck. It softened the contrast between her pale skin and her dark-as-night hair. She pointed at the chair next to mine.

“Mind if I sit?” she asked.

“Not at all, please,” I said.

“Where are the others?”

I thought about it for a moment, as if catching up with reality. Merus’s writing wasn’t just compelling but also surprisingly engaging. I’d imagined losing myself in a good fantasy story, certainly not in a paper describing the effects of the Black Fever outbreak from five hundred thousand years ago.

“In one of the study rooms, with Aeternae blood and all that jazz,” I replied, smiling. “My sister’s probably trying out all the weapons in the training hall.”

“And you’re here, all by yourself,” Valaine said.

I shrugged. “I like books.”

Perhaps I should’ve come up with something wittier, but to be honest, I had a hard time focusing whenever Valaine looked at me. She leaned over the book, frowning as she recognized the text.

“Merus Corinth,” she murmured. “You’re reading about the Black Fever.”

“I admit, I’m fascinated. Though I wouldn’t want to witness an outbreak of it, myself,” I said. “I’m just trying to understand how it’s been going on for so long, and why you’re all still drinking Rimian and Nalorean blood, despite the risks.”

“We’ve already explained why. You’ve experienced it yourself.”

“Even so, I’m sorry. I have a hard time with the concept. Every ten thousand years or so, the Black Fever comes back and kills a million Aeternae, if not more, and yet you keep drinking the blood, even though you know the risks.”

Valaine nodded slowly. “It’s hard to accept, I know. I suppose we simply prefer the risk—given the long windows between outbreaks—to living an eternity 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 anyone knows about this.”

“About this room, you mean?”

At the far end, three Aeternae were unconscious, lying in their beds, with wet cloths on their foreheads. A Rimian nurse cared for them, wiping them down and trying to keep them as comfortable as possible. It didn’t take long for me to quickly recognize the symptoms.

“About them,” Valaine said, nodding at the Aeternae.

Their skin was pale, almost white as a sheet of paper. The glow of life was gone from it, replaced by the pastiness of a sickly nature. Black veins traveled down their slender bodies, which had been partially wrapped in delicate, white silk ribbons, probably to make them more comfortable. The Black Fever victims—two young males and a female—were in and out of consciousness, barely aware of their surroundings.

“Wait, I thought…” My voice trailed off. “This is what you meant. It’s starting earlier, isn’t it?”

Valaine sighed as we reached the three beds. The nurse offered us masks, which we used to cover our mouths and noses. “These are the first,” she said. “They fell last week.”

“Is this any good?” I asked, pointing at the mask on my face.

The nurse nodded, looking stern and pensive. “The Black Fever usually spreads through touch and blood. The mask is more of a precaution. Make sure to keep your distance,” she warned me, then scowled at Valaine. “You shouldn’t have brought the foreigner down here.”

“He and his people might be able to help. Just don’t tell Petra or anyone else about our visit yet. I’ll need to consult with my father before I speak to the Lord and Lady Supreme about this,” Valaine replied.

“So, they know,” I breathed.

“They know. Petra is trying some new mazir spells to slow the Black Fever’s progress, but the results have been minimal, at best,” Valaine explained. “We need your help, now more than ever, while it’s still early. While we can still beat it, before it becomes unstoppable and claims too many lives.”