Page 27 of Beast and Remedy
“Are you alright?” I ask when I feel her clammy skin, hot to the touch.
She blinks warily. “I’m a little dizzy.”
“Jean, have the staff prepare a room and have healers at the ready for treatment,” Papa says and turns to the woman. “Annie, you have endured a tragedy, one that is unfathomable, and I am deeply sorry. I promise the crown will take care of you and investigate this.”
Annie drops her head, and my chest cracks when she shudders, falling apart. “Th-Th-Thank you, my king.” She hyperventilates. “Th-Th-Thank you.”
My father pats her back. “You can rest now, sweet Annie. You are safe.”
She wipes her cheeks, sniffling as Jean braces her against him to help her walk.
“You said you were attacked by one of the wolves?” I rush out, unable to stop the question from falling from my lips.
Her steps halt and she glances back, her face full of grief and fragility. “Y-Yes, Your Highness.”
Papa touches my side, but I shake it off, extending my hand to her. “May I take a quick look at your injury?”
Jean and Annie twist to me, and she tentatively offers me her bandaged forearm. I step forward and remove the wrapping, careful to mask my grimace at her inflamed wound oozing puss from the claw marks etched into her flesh.
“I’m glad you arrived when you did, or you would have soon fallen ill from not treating this properly. I’d like to check on your progress with our healers. They can make a salve I createdto ease the inflammation, help this scab, and reduce chances of scarring,” I say as I meet her gaze.
Her lip quivers, and she blinks away her tears as I rewrap the bandage.
“Was there anything about the wolves you saw to be unusual?” I ask.
Her brows knit, hesitating. “They were thrashing and snarling amongst themselves as much as amongst my village.”
“Was there anything else? Anything at all you noticed?”
I shouldn’t push her, but I need something.Anythingthat could confirm or relieve my suspicion.
Annie rubs her arm in uncertainty. Her trauma is fresh and must be painful to revisit. But she takes a long, shuddering breath.
“The one leading the pack had black-and-white fur, and its eyes were black, like the color was snuffed out. And its mouth was foaming.”
More than a fortnight has passed since the devastation at C’eaux.
The healers and I looked over Annie, puzzled by her symptoms. Her injury healed with minimal scarring, but she is still ill, worsening by the day. We are at a loss over how to help her.
And today, I left the healers to administer a different treatment for her fever before joining my family in my father’s study.
Small windows surrounded by gray stone pair with metal embellishments and frame oak bookcases housing ledgers, sacred texts, and accounts. Tall chairs surround the table witha map of Draymenk stretched to each corner, marking old and new territories, trade routes, and villages. Placeholders rest in certain areas to indicate the flow and running of our armed forces, bannermen, and more.
“How is Annie doing?” Papa asks before I’ve settled in my seat.
“She isn’t improving, but the healers and I are trying another avenue,” I sigh, vexed no one else has checked on her.
Jean and Pierre told us to let the healers watch over her for our own health, and while Papa and Marian agreed, I ignored them, wanting to oversee her treatments.
“Now, do we have any—”
The door bursts open, startling us as one of Pierre’s closest emissaries stumbles through, covered in blood.
I clutch my chest at the gravity of the man’s injuries.
“Pierre,” he croaks, trembling with something in his hand. “Wolf.Attack.”
We all shoot up from our chairs to rush to help. But he collapses.
