The king kneels before his wife, speaking in soft tones, but I don’t make out what he says. Both of the royals snap to attention as we bow our heads in respect. The healer gazes around the room in awe. While the opulence of the palace has become normal to me, I forget how it feels to witness it for the first time. I reach my hand and touch her free arm to give her some assurance.

“Thank you for coming,” the king says. The queen shifts, facing us, but she does not blot her eyes when fresh tears come.

“Your Graces, what’s happened?” Hammond asks.

“The worst thing that could happen,” replies the queen, her voice tight with bitterness. “My child is sick. He has it.”

My heart seizes. Beside me, the healer gasps.

“Let Prena see him,” Renna says quickly, indicating to the healer. “She tended to warriors yesterday, and has not be exposed to any of the sick children.”

The king moves toward a door on the far side of the room, leading to the nursery, but the queen cuts him off. “I will get him.”

We wait in a desperate silence until she reappears with Tabrol’s small frame situated over her shoulder. Prena steps forward gingerly to examine the boy’s flushed face, but I’m overcome.

I’ve never seen Tabrol so closely before. Just three years old, his curly, gold-blond hair is lighter than that of either of his parents, but his hazel-and-gold eyes are unmistakably his father’s. The small prince shifts away from Prena, putting his face determinedly against his mother’s neck. The queen closes her eyes, gripping him tighter and bouncing him on her hip.

“Well?” she says, so quietly that if the room weren’t shocked in stillness, I’d have missed it.

Prena straightens up, a braver Leonodai than I am being in this moment. “I’m so sorry, Your Grace. But I believe he has the disease. I’m so sorry.”

“The fever only began this morning,” the king says. “There is more than enough time.”

Slowly, gently, I reach for Tabrol. Something in my heart says I have to know for myself.

“May I?” I ask the queen. She nods.

I reach out two fingers and put the back of them to the prince’s forehead. The sensation is so sudden that I have to keep myself from flinching. The boy’s forehead is far too hot, as if he’s been playing for hours in a midsummer sun. If only a cool drink or swim in one of the Heliana’s four rivers would cool him off.