“What takes that lass so long?” Duncan paced back and forth with a thunderous expression.

Seated on the bed, Lorelei had begun to calm down. The fog in her mind cleared and the aching of her body was also slowly regaining its vigor. However, this rapid improvement only deepened her doubts.

“I might have made a mistake,” she whispered and bit the tip of her thumb. “Perhaps we all made a mistake. But it was a good fit. The symptoms were there… right?”

She jumped to her feet and was about to rush to the door when the old knight barred her way.

“Where are you going, my lady?”

“I can't wait for Bessie any longer. I need to see the infirmarian’s notes!”

“You were screaming and bleeding all over the place just a minute ago! If I hadn’t come in…” Duncan shook his head. “Please, lie back down and have some rest. I’ll bring the papers.”

Lorelei opened her mouth to protest but almost immediately reconsidered. Her body did need more time to recuperate. And if she was wrong and what she had was indeed the Blood Plague, she was a walking vessel of the disease.

“Thank you, Sir Duncan.” She sighed defeated and returned to her cot. “I’ll be counting on you.”

“No need to thank me. It’s the least I can do.” The old knight lowered his head. “Noah… The duke told me to look after you and make sure you are safe. I failed on that front.”

“Swords aren’t the best means to ward off a disease.” Lorelei gave him a tired smile.

“They aren’t.” The old knight straightened his back. “I’ll be going now. And I’ll make sure to inform the duke of your current-”

“No.” Lorelei interrupted him and the lump in her throat swelled again. “Before we know for sure what’s going on, I don’t want to needlessly sadden him. Or give him false hopes.”

“As you wish.” Duncan glanced at her with obvious worry. “But shouldn’t I at least inform your sister?”

“Pricilla?” Lorelei was taken aback. “Why?”

“Well, she is your sister. Your family.” After receiving a confused glare from Lorelei, the old knight continued. “Lucas and the priests told me that she asks about you every day. She seems genuinely concerned for you. Especially after receiving the news last night.”

“My sister? Pricilla Orten? Worried about me?” Lorelei’s eyebrows flew up briefly and she scoffed. “Sir Duncan, I don’t know how aware you are of our relationship, but I’d rather believe you if you had said that you’ve seen a flying pig.”

“Adversities change people, my lady.”

“Not Pricilla.” Lorelei closed her eyes and laid back on the cot. “Believe me, my dear sister is either planning a feast to celebrate my death or shaking in terror that she might catch the Blood Plague too. A true Orten thinks only about themselves.”

“You are an Orten too.”

“No. I’m the Duchess of Norden.”

A quiet laughter made her open her eyes again. Sir Duncan stood at the door and gave her a fatherly look.

“Like husband, like wife,” he grinned and left the room.

Lorelei swallowed a chuckle and for a couple of minutes basked in the bitter-sweet feeling of Duncan’s last words. If they survived all this, she was going to confess to Noah.

“Don’t set your hopes too high,” she chastised herself, but a bit of hope sprouted in her heart, driving away her dark thoughts and Pricilla’s image from her mind. She was going to worry about her sister’s sudden change of heart some other time.

***

Pricilla paced in her room like a caged animal, stopping from time to time to throw a distraught glance through the window at the gray sky outside. For goodness sake, it was already well into the sixth month! Did it only rain and snow in these savage lands!?

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

But deep down, Pricilla knew that the bad weather had nothing to do with her foul mood. Actually, it was everything else but the weather that made her furious. And depressed. And terrified. She was locked in a damn convent with a bunch of blood-puking wretches and had no means to escape. What was worse, everyone ignored her, from the priests to the knights, and now even her stupid slave. That damn Bessie had left her for three straight days unattended.

Thinking about the maid made her shiver. There was something strange about her recently. A dangerous, almost inhumane glint in those disgustingly cold eyes. Was it due to the girl’s desperate craving for the potion? Lionel had warned her not to miss a dose, but how could she predict that a one-day trip to the cathedral would turn into an over-a-week-long endeavor?

Pricilla bit her nails and moaned. She wanted out of here! She wanted to go back to the castle. To her father. She wanted to leave this place and return to Limris. To her precious Lionel.

‘But he’d hardly be happy if you returned without fulfilling your assignment,’ whispered a poisonous little voice in her mind.

On the verge of tears, Pricilla stroked her belly, finding minuscule comfort in the tiny life growing inside her. But this morsel of happiness quickly disappeared, displaced by fear. She was well into her third month. It was her luck that she still wasn’t showing, but very soon the window of opportunity would close. She needed to act soon.

From a secret pocket in her skirts, she pulled out the small vial with love-potion Lionel had given her and the satchel with Bessie’s magic powder.

“Now or later… it’d be all the same,” she mumbled, staring at them as if waiting for an encouraging response. “Even the strongest man can succumb to worry and grief. Maybe I’d have to thank that little bitch for contracting the plague?”

Pricilla lifted her head and glanced at the symbol of the two gods hanging over her bed.

“I’ll make sure to pray for your soul, dearest sister.” She shoved the vial and the pouch back in her pocket and went for the door. “And I’ll make sure to console your poor husband.”

***

“Are you really sure?” Lorelei rummaged through the pile of notes, throwing side glances at the very distraught infirmarian.

“Yes, my lady. They all had bloody eyes and bled from all their orifices.”

“But no bruising on the skin?”

“They were all injured in the tower fall, so they did have bruises, but-”

“But there is no way to know whether they were due to the plague or not,” concluded Lorelei and pinched her nose. Then she perked up. “What about the first victim? The novice girl?”

Sweat covered the infirmarian’s balding head and he didn’t dare meet her eyes as he mumbled:

“We… didn’t check. The way she died, there was no doubt what her ailment was.”

“Where’s her body?” Lorelei sprang to her feet, but the priest’s answer destroyed her last hope.

“We cremated her like all the others.” Seeing her dejected look, the infirmarian continued quietly. “My lady, you are grasping at straws. I know the truth is terrifying, but we all need to accept it.”

Lorelei’s gaze wandered back and forth between him to the morose Duncan. She clenched her fists and her eyes stung from helpless fury. It was not possible! She knew there was something. The pieces of the puzzle didn’t fit. What she had felt earlier, as horrendous as it might have been, was in no way as gruesome as the final stages of the Blood Plague.

“But why am I fine now?” she whispered more to herself. “When the bleeding phase begins, it doesn’t simply reverse midway.”

“We should thank the Two Fathers for this miracle!” The infirmarian pressed his hands together.

“Indeed, my lady.” Even Duncan seemed to agree with the priest’s ludicrous statement. “This is Norden, after all. Believe me, between dead bodies strolling around in broad daylight and soul-sucking apparitions lurking in the shadows, a miracle cure is the least unexpected-”

“What did you say?” Lorelei’s eyes rounded from the sudden epiphany.

“I…”

“Soul-sucking!” She almost screamed, not giving the man a chance to speak. “I thought it felt familiar. The pain that made both my body and soul ache! It was like that time I was touched by the dhrowghost’s curse! And the white shimmer? I wasn’t seeing things! It was soul-dust!”

“My lady…” The two men exchanged perplexed and worried looks before the infirmarian dared to speak up. “It seems to me that you are suffering from mental exhaustion…”

“Nonsense.” Lorelei’s eyes sparkled with rekindled hope. “Now it all fits. Sir Duncan, where is Master Castor?”

“What? He…”

“I believe he volunteered to help with the funeral rites.” Instead of the old knight, the infirmarian stepped in. “He has been in the Chapel of Light adjacent to the cemetery.”

“Then what are we waiting for?”

Before the two men could gather their wits, Lorelei bolted past them. As she sprinted down the hallway, she could hear their voices ringing behind her.

“My lady, wait!”

“You said she’d fainted and was weakened! How’s she so fast!?”

“Fuck if I know! Just run, padre. We need to catch her.”