So far, not a single person over twelve has gotten the disease, despite the children living in larger households. Noam had said as much, that it only affects the young. Cruel, cruel, cruel, I think. But at least it means the children’s families can be here. The room next to this one has been prepared for the parents, so they are never more than a few steps away. The healers, too, sleep in shifts nearby. I feel the heaviness in their hearts whenever they speak to me, and sometimes from a look alone. They’ve trained for years to help others, but in this moment, there is nothing to do but keep the disease at bay.

It isn’t healing. It is stalling.

But duty is duty, and being the King’s Voice meant my presence here brought some reassurance with it. With an exhale, I walk over to a young mother holding her son’s hand. I crouch down next to her, and for a moment, she’s startled—then she’s right back to tired.

“Is there anything I can get for you?” I ask her gently.

“No, my lady. Thank you,” she replies. She pulls at the sleeves of her shirt. Fresh tears slide down her face as she blinks rapidly. “He’s my only son. It took us so long to have a baby, almost as long as we waited for an heir.”

I get her meaning. With the magic of the Heliana sustained by the royal line, kings and queens usually waste no time expanding their families. For King Kharo and Queen Laianna, it took nearly eight years. The bells that sounded Tabrol’s birth seemed to push the very Heliana higher into the sky.

The young mother before me suddenly puts her face to my shoulder, a guttural sound escaping her throat. “I don’t know what to do. I feel so helpless.”

I bring a hand to the back of the woman’s shoulders, curling her in a moment’s safety like my mother used to do for Rowan and me. “Being here is all you have to focus on,” I reply. “Each time he wakes, he’ll want to see his mother’s face.”

She sits back up, wiping her face. “Do you have children, Lady Shirene?”

“No,” I answer honestly, missing Seth so badly it is as if he’s been gone for years. “But I want them.”

“I thought raising a child was the hardest thing one could do in their lifetime,” she says quietly. “But this is. This is the hardest thing.”

“Hold fast to hope,” I say, though my words feel hollow as a burned-out tree. “The warriors have been sent. They know their mission well. They will return in a few days’ time, I swear it.”