Aragorn

The rain smells like sulfur tonight. A beast warrior in iron mail stands by the doorway, resting his hand on a broadsword while I shove dried roots into a leather satchel. "Faster," he says. "The Prince does not wait." My hands burn from cold rot. I turn the page of Olmax’s inventory ledger, running a thumb over the parchment. Dried ginger. Yarrow. Three drams every moon cycle. The ink is faint, recorded in my master's cramped handwriting right next to the figures for my father's unpaid debt. Ginger does not heal a dragon queen. It masks the bitter taste of slow poison. "He thinks you saved her," the guard mutters, spitting on the stone. "Now she burns again." I do not answer. I slice open the spine of Olmax’s central volume with an ivory paring knife. A thin slip of vellum slides into my palm. The handwriting belongs to Queen Ravena, dark & precise. <The King must never suspect the cure is the weapon> The paper smells of lavender & iron. Olmax did not flee to the Magic Realm because he was afraid of Aragorn. He left because his work was finished & his pay was secured. Outside, heavy wings shatter the fog over Othren. Aragorn, Prince of Dragons, master of elements does not need a healer. He knows who mixed the tincture. He knows whose hands carried the glass alembics to Sereon. Ravena is dying on purpose, laying her final snare for her son & leaving my name written across the trap. By dragging me into it as the hand who mixed & administered the dosage, she created the perfect scapegoat making it look like either a botched assassination or a treasonous murder plot that implicates Aragorn as her murderer. "Are you packed?" the warrior demands, stepping closer. I fold the slip of vellum, hide it inside my tunic & buckle the leather bag shut. My knees ache from years of scrubbing these floors for a dead man's debt. I am going back to Sereon, not to cure a queen but to take the blame for her murder. "I am ready," I say.