When he got closer, I noticed his shirtsleeve was torn from shoulder to wrist. Blood dripped from a wound beneath, pooling on the ground. This wasn’t Kull. This was the king of the Wults. King Kull of the Skullsplitters.
King Skullsplitter.
The three Wults stood and then bowed with fisted hands to their chests as he approached.
Seriously? They’re bowing? Am I supposed to bow?
It didn’t matter, because he immediately turned away from us to enter the room with the black vines, leaving a trail of blood behind him.
I wasn’t even sure the man had recognized me.
“He is unwell,” Heidel said. “Brodnik, where was he?”
“Scouting the forest. Do you think he was attacked?”
“I cannot say for sure. Rolf,” she said, “go and check on him.”
“Me?”
“Yes, he likes you better than us.”
“No, he doesn’t. He treats me just as poorly as he treats the rest of you. I refuse.”
I scratched my head, wondering at the strange change in the Wults’ attitudes toward their beloved leader. When I’d been with him last, Rolf had treated Kull like a god. He would have jumped at any opportunity to help him—especially if his idol had been injured.
I scanned the blood drying on the floor. It was bright red, indicating a possible arterial wound, and the drops were the size of half-dollars, which meant he was losing a lot of blood at a fast rate.
“He hates me,” Rolf said. “Why don’t you go? You’re his sister.”
“Ha!” Heidel crossed her arms. “And end up in the dungeons again? I think not. Brodnik, it’s your turn.”
“Mine?” Brodnik said. “I’ll shave my beard and dress in women’s clothing before I’ll be the king’s nursemaid.”
“Fine,” Heidel said. “Then none of us will go. Perhaps he doesn’t need us anyway.”
“Agreed,” Brodnik answered.
Rolf nodded, and we went back to our meal.
I tried to ignore the sight of the blood on the floor but found I couldn’t stop looking at it. Assuming he’d been injured in the woods and had been bleeding out from the edge of the forest to the tent—approximately thirty yards—and he was losing about ten ounces per minute…
I shook my head. Stop thinking that way. It wouldn’t do any good to let my anxiety run wild.
“Terminus,” Heidel said, “is the bloodthorn capable of changing its shape?”
“Yes, but it is limited as to what it can emulate. Because it is a creature of complete darkness, it can only transform into other dark creatures.”
“So, it couldn’t be a human?”
“No.”
Princess Esmelda eyed her brother. “But you do not know for sure. You’ve never actually seen one of these beasts, have you?”
“My knowledge comes from the ancient scrolls, written by traveling fairies who have seen them.”
“No,” she said, “I, too, have read the scrolls, and not one fairy admits to seeing it with their own eyes. Their knowledge comes from others who claimed to have seen it.”
“What else do these scrolls say?” I asked. “Do they describe how the creature survives? Or how it kills? Or even if it kills?”
“It is not as detailed as we would like,” Terminus answered. “Why do you ask?”
“Because I suspect that it—or something like it—killed a man who was left in my booth last night.”
“In your booth?” the prince asked.
“Yes. I found a man’s body in my booth this morning. His corpse was wrapped in thorns, and he had purple flowers in his eye sockets. And… his eyes had been gouged out.”
“Removed completely?” Heidel asked.
I nodded.
“This sounds like the work of a phøca—a Celtic black horse—a presence that once haunted my people. It’s a shape changer that takes the form of a black horse wearing chains. It takes the eyes because it believes they are portals, and it would use them to return to its realm.”
“Strange,” I said. “Whatever this creature is—be it fairy or mortal—it’s certainly dangerous. Until we know more about it, I’m not sure how to confront it or how to take the stone from it. If it even has it to begin with. We need more information.”
I turned to Terminus. “Isn’t there anything more you can tell me? The purple flowers—could they have any significance?”
He pondered my question. “What did these flowers look like?” he asked.
“Purple, with one petal longer than the others that seemed to droop over the rest.”
He held out his hand. Magic ignited, and purple-and-silver sparkles spiraled over his palm until a flower formed. “Did it look like this?” he asked.
I studied the flower. “No. For one thing, it’s too small, and the petal on top was more pronounced.”
He knitted his brows in concentration as another flower formed, almost an exact match to the ones I’d seen in Mr. Duncan’s eyes.
“That’s it,” I said. “Do you know what it is?”
“Monkshood,” he said. “They are called this because of the petal on the top that folds down like a monk’s hood. They are extremely poisonous.”
He handed it to me.
“Do you know its meaning?” he asked.
I shook my head.
He glanced nervously at his sister.
“Are you certain you saw this flower?” Esmelda asked.
“Yes. It’s hard to mistake. It was this flower.”
“This does not bode well,” Esmelda said.
“Why?”
“Because,” Terminus said, “the meaning for monkshood is ‘beware, an evil presence is near’.”
The wind picked up outside. I stared at the flower sitting in the palm of my hand. It seemed so innocent, yet its meaning sent shivers down my spine. My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a muffled voice coming from Kull’s room.
“Did you hear that?” I asked. “Should someone check on His Highness?”
“Nay,” Brodnik answered. “He’s resting.”
“He’d be angry if we woke him,” Rolf added.
Heidel raised an eyebrow. “Yet he usually can’t keep quiet to save his life, especially when he’s been injured. Why has he not made a fuss yet?”
Were they really not going to check on him? After he’d bled out all over the floor? While he was most likely passed out from blood loss?
“Her Majesty would be upset if anything happened to him,” Rolf said.
Her Majesty? Who is Her Majesty?
