The Blood Spell (Ravenspire, #4)(40)
“Be careful!” Kellan said as she neared the burning man, the prince on her heels. “Don’t take any risks. We don’t know if the flames can spread from one person to another.”
“I never thought I’d see the day when you’d be telling me not to take risks.” Blue circled the man, her stomach pitching at the way his eyes rolled back in his head while his body twitched in pain. There was a strong, sulfurlike smell and something sickly sweet—charing root, perhaps? It was highly flammable when combined with the right minerals. Several minerals would produce fire, but only threffalk could explain the inky darkness of the flames.
There was no counteringredient for burning charing root with threffalk. It simply had to extinguish itself over time.
“Blue?” Kellan kept his voice low and calm, though the horror was still in his eyes. He’d organized the crowd inside the pub and had them all in chairs, their gazes pinned to the man slowly dying at Blue’s feet. She hadn’t realized how easily leadership sat on his shoulders.
She took a step back, sorrow aching in her throat as the man began gasping for breath. “I can’t help him. I think it’s charing root and threffalk, probably with an accelerant or two involved. It’s going to have to burn itself out.”
It took several agonizing minutes for the man to die. And another twenty minutes after that for the flames to burn themselves out. The flames on the street finished burning around the same time, and Kellan immediately sent messengers to the quarter’s magistrate and to the castle. Once he was sure the street was safe, he allowed the pub’s customers to leave. As they scattered throughout the quarter, clinging to each other in shock, Kellan turned to Blue.
“Do you know who could have done this?”
“How could I possibly know that?” She glared at him as if he was responsible for the churning sickness that lingered within her as she took in the bodies strewn about the street.
“Because you’re an alchemist.” He gestured at the street. “This was alchemy.”
“This was magic.” She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered, though the air was still pleasantly warm. “Charing root and threffalk, combined with an accelerant, create the kind of fire that spreads to anything it touches. This fire stayed contained to living things. The pub is still standing. That carriage is untouched. The rest of the street is undamaged, and all of it should be destroyed.”
“So maybe you’re wrong about the ingredients that created the fire.”
Blue shook her head. “I know what I smelled. But regardless of the ingredients used to create the fire, fire spreads. Magic is the only thing that makes sense.”
Kellan pressed his fingers against his eyelids as if trying to stave off a burgeoning headache. “This is going to cause a widespread panic.”
If Falaise de la Mer had someone practicing dangerous magic in its streets, then as far as Blue was concerned, the panic was warranted. She kept her thoughts to herself, however, and simply squeezed Kellan’s arm in support.
She wouldn’t take all the gold in the kingdom to be in his shoes right now. Everyone would be looking to him and to the queen for answers. For justice. For successfully capturing and hanging the perpetrator. And no one even knew where to start looking.
“I have to stay here,” Kellan said. “My mother will be coming, I’m sure, along with the royal magistrate and plenty of guards. We’ll have to canvass the street, question witnesses, if any of them are still alive.” He swallowed. “And then we’ll have to notify the families of those who . . . of the deceased.”
“I’m sorry,” Blue said softly. She could see the burden of his tasks weighing on his shoulders.
“Part of the job,” he said, his voice heavy. Turning, he hailed the approach of the Evrard quarter’s magistrate, complete with a dozen of his guards. “I’m going to have two of these guards escort you home.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I really do.”
“But you need all the manpower you can get.” Blue lifted her chin and found implacable resolve on Kellan’s face.
“I need to make sure you stay safe. This isn’t a negotiation, Blue.”
The warmth that had spread through her while they’d danced returned, and she nodded her thanks. How had she never seen that the prince who dared to risk himself cared deeply about not risking anyone else?
His fingers brushed hers gently as he led her toward the guards, and then he was off with the magistrate to examine the streets while Blue began the long walk home, flanked by solemn-faced guards wearing Evrard green.
SEVENTEEN
THE DAY AFTER the horrifying spell had destroyed so many of his people’s lives, Kellan woke before dawn. A familiar restlessness churned through him, and he prowled his quarters, hunting for a way to quiet it. Usually, he’d sneak out of the castle and cliff-dive into the sea or get in a street fight, but he couldn’t afford a single misstep today.
Today, he was running the royal council meeting. His mother would be watching him with sharp eyes that missed nothing. Hang it, the entire council of head family members would be watching him with sharp eyes that missed nothing.
When he’d agreed last week to head the meeting, he’d figured it would consist of the usual discussions of border issues with some of Akram’s nobility, legal disputes within the quarters that needed a group consensus, questions about taxes, resources, imports, exports . . . the kind of things that could bore a man to tears, but that were essential to the running of a kingdom.