CHAPTER 103: NOT A SINGLE TRACE

"I’ve never seen him this way."

For the first time, I saw Raye with a morbid look on her face. She was always happy, bright, and cheerful.

But tonight, with Jeron lying unconscious in front of us with too many wounds on his body, the emptiness in her eyes made a cold pit open in my stomach.

I barely knew Jeron, but seeing him like that struck me hard. Maybe it was also because I’d seen the brutal deaths of my loved ones right in front of me. Raye knew Jeron far longer, and I knew they’d been real friends to each other, so this must be even more shocking for her.

I didn’t know how to comfort her at all.

Jeron lay on a low bed draped with clean linen. Clean, but it was already blooming with russet stains where the wounds seeped through, spreading in irregular shapes like some cruel artist’s brushstrokes.

The sharp, metallic tang of blood clung to the air, heavy enough that I could taste it at the back of my throat. His chest rose and fell in shallow, uneven breaths, every inhale a rasp as if it cost him more strength than he had left.

Sweat plastered strands of pale hair against his temple, his usually beautiful face pale, slack, and disturbingly fragile.

The sight was far from pleasant.

"I have stopped the bleeding in the major wounds, but my healing power can only do so much," said Keigan, frowning, dismayed by his own limitations.

One of his eyes was entirely white, while the other a pale blue. Their mismatched gaze made him look like he straddled two worlds, one that could see the threads of life, and one that could see death before it arrived.

He was the most trusted healer working for Rion. Hearing him say that made me feel more uneasy.

"Stitching him up and some medicine will help, but... I won’t promise you anything. I’d be honest, his chances are not that good," Keigan went on.

That made my heart ache.

Keigan reached for a curved needle, the metal glinting under the lantern light, and dipped it into a small bowl where the sharp scent of alcohol stung my nose. His long fingers, calloused from years of tending to wounds that magic alone could not mend, threaded the needle with practiced ease.

In the room, Ares stood behind Raye, his broad hand anchoring her shoulder. He was usually playful, and irritated whenever Jeron’s name was mentioned as if they were rivals even when they weren’t, but his playful demeanor was gone.

Raye sniffed once, hard, and tipped her face up so the tears wouldn’t fall.

"Just please... do your best, Keigan," she pleaded. The rims of her eyes were red. "He hates needles, but he’ll forgive you for using ten of them if he wakes up and can complain."

"He’ll need more than ten," Keigan murmured. "But I’ll take the complaints."

A breeze, thin and cool, slid across the back of my neck. Not a breeze—shadows.

They coiled near the ceiling like smoke that refused to rise. I felt the press of a familiar mind, a voice that wasn’t a voice, smooth as a palm over silk.

"Go to the meeting room," Rion said in my head.

The words touched and vanished, but my skin prickled anyway. Ares and Raye both jerked, as if they heard the same command.

Raye cast one last glance at Jeron. She leaned down and brushed her fingers over his hair, careful not to touch the bandage on his temple.

"I’ll be back," she whispered to him.

Keigan didn’t look up. "I’ll call for you if anything changes."

We filed out quietly. The corridor outside the castle’s infirmary was narrow, the stone damp. I tucked a strand of my long ebony hair behind my ear and tried not to shiver.

We turned left down another arched corridor.

When we pushed open the heavy doors, Diaval was already inside, sprawled in a chair with a dagger in his hand, rolling it over his fingers in a way that made it flash.

Rion stood at the head of the long table where his chair was supposed to be. He didn’t sit.

He didn’t look morbid. He looked annoyed. A line cut between his dark brows. The silver of his short hair caught the light like a blade. Shadows pooled at his boots and climbed up his calves like patient vines, and I could feel them hum against my skin.

We took our seats without speaking. Raye sat beside me; Ares sat on her other side. Diaval’s dagger clicked as he set it down against wood.

"There’s something I can’t figure out and it’s annoying," Rion said once all of us were seated. His voice wasn’t loud, but it filled the room anyway. "Diaval and I searched the whole Central district with some of our warriors discreetly and we didn’t find any trace of another person who might have done it."

He looked at each of us. He went on, "I don’t think this is a simple matter between Jeron and another person. There was no scent of anyone other than Jeron’s in the building where we found him. My shadows would have found the faintest trace of a living thing who attacked him, but they didn’t, which is... odd."

"And murder is a rare occurrence in the Undercity," Ares said without his usual humor, "especially in the Central district where the Alpha lives."

He turned to Raye. "How is he?"

Raye’s hands were clenched on the table. She shook her head. "Not looking good."

Ares’s voice was low. "He took too many wounds. Even with the best medicine we have, recovery won’t be easy."

He looked to me briefly, as if reminding me he’d seen worse and still didn’t like it. It didn’t make me feel better.

Rion tapped a finger on the map inlaid in the wood—a map of the Undercity, the tunnels and wards etched in lines and small symbols that made my head ache if I looked too long. His finger was steady even when everything else felt like it was tilting.

"The book of the seven keys," I blurted. "Where is it?"