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Chapter 11
The Fever of the Streets: The Water That Whispers
The morning light fell through the frosted windows of the Northern Wing, dim and thin, as if afraid to touch the marble. Amethyst stood before her desk, the pale blue vial from Valleria gleaming faintly beside her notes. Its contents caught the light — soft, unassuming, but deadly.
She had spent most of the night studying it, comparing it with the traces she had gathered from the poisoned lilies. Both bore the same faint metallic shimmer when mixed with vinegar. The same subtle sweetness. The same quiet cruelty.
"Two poisons," she murmured to herself, turning the vial slowly between her fingers. "One meant to silence the palace, one to break the city."
Ana entered softly, a folded shawl in her arms. "Your Highness, you have not slept again."
"Sleep is useless if the people choke in their own water," Amethyst said, her tone sharper than she intended. She exhaled and softened it. "Ana, the reports — the ones from the east quarter. What did you hear from the servants?"
Ana hesitated, glancing toward the open balcony. "They say more people are falling ill, Your Highness. The children first, fever, weakness, then vomiting. The servants whisper it is a plague."
"A plague," Amethyst repeated under her breath. "Or something far more deliberate."
Her gaze turned toward the city beyond the palace walls. The smoke of early morning kitchens drifted through the air, rising above the rooftops of the poorer quarters.
If the Queen had laced her garden, who else was poisoning Rosaire itself?
"I must see it myself," she said finally.
Ana's eyes widened. "Again? After what happened in the physician court? If the Queen discovers you left the palace—"
"She will be too busy arranging her next sermon to notice," Amethyst said softly. "Fetch my cloak. The dark one."
Ana hesitated, but obeyed.
By the time the palace bell marked the seventh hour, Princess Amethyst Celestria Rosaire was gone and in her place walked Laurine, the nameless healer of the streets.
The capital of Rosaire always looked different at dawn. The stones of the main roads gleamed with dew, and the distant spires caught the light like shards of glass. But as Laurine turned toward the poorer quarter, the light changed.
The smell of smoke and damp wood thickened. The air carried the scent of sickness, faint but unmistakable.
The bell above Aito's herb shop jingled softly as she pushed open the door. The warmth of the room wrapped around her like a sigh.
"Aha, Laurine," Aito said, looking up from his counter. His tone was half a tease, half concern. "Back again so soon? I thought the kingdom would have swallowed you whole by now."
"Not yet," she replied with a faint smile. "But if I stayed any longer, it might have."
Aito chuckled, though his eyes betrayed worry. "I take it you've heard, then. The east cul-de-sac, near the canals. The fevers came quickly. Not plague, not quite. Something... else."
"Something that rots quietly," she murmured.
He nodded grimly. "Children mostly. Weak stomachs. Water that smells off. I told the guards, but no one cares about the alleys."
Laurine moved to the shelves, scanning what little stock remained. "Then we'll care for them ourselves."
Aito sighed. "You and your impossible heart. Very well." He began packing dried roots and herbs into small satchels. "Take these... basil, mint, charcoal. You always seem to make more use of them than I do."
She accepted the bundle with a grateful nod. "Thank you, Aito."
"Be careful," he said as she turned to leave. "The fever might not be the only thing waiting out there."
She smiled faintly over her shoulder. "Danger rarely waits, Aito. It moves faster than we do."
By midmorning, Laurine reached the edge of the slums, the same crooked maze of alleys where she had once met Robert and his mother. The air was heavy with the scent of stagnant water and smoke.
Robert's voice broke through the noise as soon as he saw her. "Miss Laurine!" he cried, running toward her, eyes bright despite the grime on his cheeks.
She knelt to meet him, brushing the hair from his face. "Robert. How are you feeling?"
"I'm fine, but... there are others, Miss! Mama said there's a fever again. The children can't keep water down, and some of them—" His voice faltered. "Some of them won't wake up."
Maria appeared behind him, her face pale but determined. "He's right. It started two days ago. The wells near the canal, they say, the water's gone bad."
Laurine's heart sank. "Show me."
Maria led her through narrow alleys that twisted like veins, each turn revealing another home stricken with illness. Families lay on mats, their skin flushed and eyes glazed with fever. The air reeked of damp and sickness.
Laurine dropped her satchel beside one of the children and examined him quickly. His pulse raced, his breathing shallow. She checked his mouth.
Dry, coated white.
And pressed gently on his abdomen.
Dehydration. Possible infection. No rash, no signs of contagion.
Her mind moved quickly through her training, comparing symptoms, ruling out possibilities. Then she noticed the water jar by the wall.
The surface shimmered faintly.
She dipped a spoon into it, lifted it to her nose, and caught the faint metallic sweetness she had come to dread.
Not just poison. The same trace she had seen in the lilies.
The Queen's poison.
But why here?
"Maria," she said quietly, "do you fetch your water from the main well by the east cul-de-sac?"
"Yes," Maria replied, alarmed. "Why?"
"Because someone has turned the well into a grave," Laurine murmured.
She poured a drop of the tainted water into a small vial from her satchel and sealed it. Then she turned to the crowd of anxious faces.
"Listen to me carefully," she said. "Boil all your water before drinking it. Use only clean pots. Throw away what smells strange. I will bring herbs and solutions to cleanse what I can."
The people nodded weakly, desperate and fearful.
Maria's voice trembled. "Will it stop, Laurine? Will it end?"
"It will," Laurine said softly, though inside she felt the weight of a kingdom pressing down. "But first, we must know who began it."
By the time the sun began to fall, she had treated as many as she could. Fever compresses, hydration, tinctures, all temporary measures. Yet even as the patients began to breathe easier, her thoughts lingered on the vial in her satchel.
It glowed faintly under the dying light.
She stood by the narrow canal, the water reflecting her face — Amethyst's face — back at her. For a moment, Laurine saw both worlds overlapping. The doctor who had once treated the poor in another life, and the princess trapped in a kingdom of poison.
She closed her fingers around the vial. "If this is what you've done, Isadora," she whispered, "then I will heal this city, and make your lies rot in the same water you poisoned."
As dusk settled over the slums, she began her walk back to the palace.
But someone was already following her.
A shadow kept pace at a distance, cloaked in gray, eyes sharp beneath the hood. When she paused at the edge of the square, he did too. When she turned down the narrow lane, he moved silently after her.
At last, when she reached the outer gate that marked the border between the noble district and the slums, she stopped abruptly.
"I know you are there," she said without turning. "How long do you intend to follow?"
A voice answered, calm and familiar. "Long enough to see you walk into danger again."
She turned sharply. A familiar face that she cannot pinpoint.
"You... saved me," he said softly, voice carrying the faint edge of awe. "I... thank you."
Recognition sparked in her mind — the alley, the blood, the fear. "Yes," she replied gently. "You are... well now?"
He nodded. "I recovered. I am... Eloquin."
Eloquin.
The man she had saved a month ago. He stepped out from the shadows, his cloak drawn tightly against the wind.
"I see," she said, smiling faintly. "I am Laurine."
"Laurine?" he repeated, as if tasting the name.
"Yes," she confirmed, carefully. "A healer. That is all you need to know of me."
Eloquin inclined his head. "A healer... who saves without asking why. The streets hold a rare kind of courage indeed."
"Are you really okay now?" remembering his delicate situation where he was bleeding in pain, slumped in the back alley.
"You should not be here," she added, though her tone softened.
"Neither should you, healer," he replied quietly. "The city is restless. The wrong people are asking about the woman who cures without prayer."
Her pulse quickened. "Then perhaps they should learn that healing is not blasphemy."
His lips curved faintly. "Careful, Laurine. The Church calls curiosity a sin."
"So do tyrants," she said. "But that never stopped me before."
A flicker of admiration crossed his face, quickly hidden behind restraint. "Then at least allow me to walk you back. You saved my life once. It would offend my honor if you were hurt before I returned the favor."
She hesitated, studying him. There was something about his posture — disciplined, precise — that didn't belong to a man of the slums. But his eyes held sincerity, and exhaustion, and perhaps something else.
"Very well," she said finally. "But keep quiet. The walls have ears."
He smiled faintly. "I am used to silence."
They walked together beneath the gathering dusk, their shadows stretching long upon the cobblestones.
Neither of them noticed the second figure watching from the rooftops above, still, patient, and cloaked in black.
_______________________________
The night air was colder when Laurine returned to the palace.
The scent of the slums clung to her cloak, smoke, damp earth, sickness. She carried it with her through the quiet marble corridors, a reminder that no wall of gold could keep the rot from seeping in.
Ana rushed to meet her in the Northern Wing, her eyes wide with worry. "Your Highness—"
"I told you," Laurine murmured, removing her cloak, "when I leave, you must not wait by the window. It draws suspicion."
"But the Queen's attendants passed by twice today," Ana said in a whisper. "They were asking questions. About your movements. About the court physicians who were dismissed after the incident."
Laurine's steps faltered. "Dismissed?"
Ana nodded. "Master Geroth was among them. He left the palace this morning, quietly, but not freely. They said he was reassigned to the southern abbey. That means exile, Your Highness. And... there are whispers that he was heard defending you."
Laurine's hands went still. "Defending me?"
"He said you were not dangerous — only... different."
For a long moment, Laurine said nothing, surprised by the fact that she was defended by the old physician that once doubted her ability.
The Queen's retaliation had begun, then. Not through confrontation, but through pruning. One by one, those who spoke her name with respect would vanish.
She drew a slow breath. "Ana, prepare my workspace. I need clean beakers, vinegar, and salt. And... the vial from my satchel."
Ana blinked. "The one from the slums?"
"Yes. I'm testing the water."
The moon had risen high above the Northern Wing when the faint scent of chemicals filled her chambers. Laurine leaned over the desk, candlelight flickering across glass and parchment. The vial of water from the slums stood before her, glowing faintly under the flame's reflection.
She added a drop of vinegar, watching as the liquid shifted from clear to clouded gray... the same reaction she had seen before.
Metallic contamination.
She reached for another vial, the remnants of the blue poison from Valleria, and mixed a trace of each. For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then, the water shimmered with a faint, silvery gleam.
Her breath caught.
The two substances reacted. Perfectly.
Different sources, same composition.
"The same poison," she whispered, "one in the court, one in the streets. The same hand moves both."
Ana stood near the doorway, pale. "Then whoever poisoned the servants also poisoned the people?"
"Not whoever," Laurine said quietly. "Whomever they serve."
The words lingered in the air, heavy and unspoken.
She took up her pen and began writing.
Connection confirmed: identical reaction between palace compound and east quarter contamination.
Conclusion: Contamination deliberate. Distribution through water channels beneath palace wall possibly diverted through royal herb suppliers.
Probability: High-level interference.
Her quill trembled slightly. High-level. That could only mean one thing, the Queen's control through the Church's physician supply line.
If the poison could spread through the slums unnoticed, it could be tested there. Refined, perfected, before being used elsewhere.
She sat back, pressing a hand to her temple. "They are using the people as subjects."
Ana gasped softly. "But why?"
"Because cruelty makes better data than mercy," Laurine murmured bitterly. "They experiment on those no one counts. The poor die quietly."
She stared at the map of Rosaire spread before her. The slum wells were marked along the eastern canal, fed by the same aqueducts that supplied the lower palace gardens, the Queen's gardens.
The truth was there, in the flow of water itself.
Far from the Northern Wing, in a dim candlelit chamber beneath the western fortress of House Valleria, the same discovery was being reported.
Lucien Devereux Valleria stood before a long table, maps and vials spread before him. His lieutenant, the same scarred man who had visited the palace — stood across from him, a faint shadow of respect in his tone.
"The contamination runs through the east canal, my lord," the man said. "Our scouts traced the source to the Queen's purification mills. The same water runs to the palace gardens and the slum district."
Lucien's expression did not change, but his jaw tightened. "Then it is not random."
"No, my lord."
He turned the small vial of blue liquid in his fingers, watching the firelight reflect on it. "And the princess?"
"She tested her sample, as you expected. Identical findings."
A pause.
Lucien's gaze lifted. "So she has begun to see the structure of the rot."
"She has, my lord."
The corner of his mouth curved faintly, not amusement, but something closer to admiration, buried under caution. "Then Rosaire has a physician who sees through its faith. Dangerous indeed."
He placed the vial down carefully. "Keep watch over the wells. If she returns to the slums, she is to be protected, not followed. I want her alive long enough to understand what she's walking into."
The lieutenant hesitated. "And if she looks too closely, my lord?"
Lucien's eyes flicked toward him, sharp as steel. "Then we decide whether truth serves the fire — or must be buried beneath it."
In the palace, Laurine pressed the last of the notes into her hidden drawer. The candle burned low, nearly consumed.
Ana had fallen asleep by the table, her head resting on folded arms, her face illuminated by the flickering flame.
Laurine smiled faintly. "You deserve better than this world," she whispered.
She stood, stepping onto the balcony. The air was cold, filled with the scent of rain and stone. Below her, the moonlight glimmered across the palace gardens — the Queen's sanctified soil, watered by poisoned veins.
If her mother had died by the same hand that now poisoned the streets, then the cure could not be made in prayer. It would have to be forged in defiance.
The world would call her heretic.
But her mother had been called the same before her.
Laurine lifted the vial to the light, the silver shimmer reflecting across her face. "I'll find your truth, Mother," she whispered. "Even if it means walking through the blood of saints."
Far below the balcony, in the courtyard's darkness, the shadow that had followed her earlier — Eloquin — leaned silently against a pillar. The faint torchlight caught the edge of his eyes.
He had seen her return, seen the glint of the vial in her hands, seen the quiet fire in her expression.
He had once believed she was simply a healer.
Now, he was no longer sure.
He turned toward the garden gates, disappearing into the fog where another shadow waited. The two exchanged brief words in hushed tones.
"The princess knows," Eloquin said quietly.
The second figure, cloaked in black, gave a faint nod. "Then the Duke will not be pleased."
"She's not like the others," Eloquin murmured. "If she keeps digging, she'll find what even your Brotherhood fears."
"Then pray she finds it before the Queen does," the other replied. "Because if she doesn't—" He paused, glancing back toward the glowing windows of the Northern Wing. "—the fire we all serve will consume her first."
That night, as the bells of Rosaire tolled midnight, the Northern Wing stood silent, but beneath the silence, the tide had already turned.
The healer had uncovered the first vein of the kingdom's disease.
The Duke had begun to watch more closely.
And the Queen, in her sanctified halls, would soon realize that her poison had awakened something she could no longer control.