Page 116 of The Forgotten Queen
Then she saw him.
His kind smile.
His thin nose.
His high cheekbones.
His brown eyes and hair that were a shade lighter than hers.
It was her father.
Her head spun as the memory swirled out of her mind.
Then blackness.
The opening had closed.
Sydria pressed against her forehead, putting pressure where the headache was.
“We’ll take the king down to the medic hall and run some tests,” Doctor Moore said.
Sydria tried to focus on what was happening in front of her. She’d have to think about the memory another time.
Dannyn sat back, and Queen Malory let go of McKane’s hand so the nurse medics could take his body away.
“I’ll let you know as soon as I know something,” Doctor Moore said, following his nurses.
Dannyn scrambled to her feet, hugging her mother tightly. She sobbed in her mother’s arms as Queen Malory stroked her hair. The queen mother was a rock, more composed than Sydria had ever before seen her. She’d been there before with Palmer, lost someone she’d loved deeply.
Sydria glanced at Marx where he stood at the window. She didn’t care about last night or her embarrassment anymore. She walked to him, turning his body to hers. She wrapped her arms around him, pulling him into a hug. His arms unfolded and worked their way out, hugging her back.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
Marx buried his head into the side of her neck. His breaths were heavy, and his body trembled. His tears wetted her neck and hair, and his body shook. She held him tight, wishing she could take away the pain.
Marx
“I’ve never seen anything like this before,”Doctor Moore said that night in the medic hall of Cristole Castle. “That’s why I called you here.”
Marx looked down at his father’s body, stretched out on the table in front of him. His clothes had been removed, and a light cloth covered him from the waist down. Since his mother had discovered his father’s dead body that morning, everything seemed blurry. It was like he was reliving the moments after Palmer’s death, except this time, Marx was in charge.
“Have you finished the autopsy?” Marx asked.
“Not yet, but I don’t think I need to.” Doctor Moore pointed to a small dot on the side of his father’s arm. “This is peculiar to me.”
Marx leaned down, squinting his eyes. “I don’t really see anything.”
“From the outside, you wouldn’t, but if you look at our body scans, you can see what I’m talking about.” Doctor Moore opened the folder in his hand and held up a scanned image of his father’s body. “The muscles around that spot have decayed away as if acid was dropped on them.”
Marx looked at the picture, comparing the indentation in his father’s muscle to where the dot was on his arm.”
“And,” Doctor Moore held up another scan, “if you look at the images of your father’s brain, you’ll see the same kind of decay.”
Marx studied the scan, not really sure what he saw. He looked up at the doctor. “So what are you saying?”
“I’ll know more once I open your father up, but I can say for sure right now that your father didn’t die of a heart attack. His bloodstream was poisoned. I’ve never seen a drug this sophisticated before. It attacks the body, specifically the brain, in a matter of seconds.”
Marx scratched his head, trying to work this information in with everything else. How would someone poison his father without anyone in the castle knowing?
