I gagged.

  Just to check, I walked to the front of the bed. It was Plinius. His head and legs were intact, but the rest of him had been gutted like a fish, his organs spilling out of his body and onto the gardener’s bed. His intestines rolled out of his belly like a pile of eels.

  I ran out. I left everything wide open and just ran across the garden as fast as my feet could carry me.

  I headed for the castle as fast as I could, the crunching of the pebbles under my feet was as loud as screams. The cold night air stung in my lungs as I breathed frantically, but I wouldn't slow down for anything. My candle blew out from the speed. I fell down and scraped my palms. The thousand eyes of the stars stared mockingly down at me. I stood up again and left the candle smashed on the ground.

  Finally I reached the castle wall, and felt some safety in the fact that I couldn't be seen from the windows where I stood. I pressed myself against the wall to catch my breath.

  It was horrible, horrible, horrible! What had happened? Even in that moment I suspected what had happened, even if I wasn’t ready to face it quite yet.

  Terrified I walked slowly up to my room, feeling the way with my hands and my memory. With every bump and murmur in the castle I jumped and frantically looked around. Finally I saw the soft glow of the candle outside my room.

  I tried to regain my composure as I walked up to Sir Sigisbert.

  “Your Highness, are you alright?”

  He sounded genuinely worried.

  “Yes, thank you Sir Sigisbert. I just need to get to sleep.”

  Mercifully, he didn’t say anything else and let me pass by him into my room.

  At first I just sat on the bed and stared at my feet. Sir Sigisbert had maintained the fire in my room, so at least I was getting warmer. But I couldn’t really feel it. I was just numb.

  Two people knew that Prince Plinius would be in that shed that night, Alvar and Titius. One of them had a very good motive to kill him. With horror I remembered that night Alvar had sughtered those bandits. He would do anything to protect me, but the way Plinius had been ripped apart… I shuddered.

  Eventually I was able to take my dress off and put my sleeping gown on. I crawled in to bed and shut my eyes. I didn’t think I would be able to fall asleep, but sleep came almost immediately.

  ***

  Ring! Ring! Ring! Ring!

  The mourning bells! They found Plinius!

  I bolted up in my bed. The mourning bells only rang for a death in the royal family. Would they realize I was there? Would Sir Sigisbert snitch on me? What would they do to Alvar?

  I got dressed in a simple gown. I would pretend to know nothing until someone had absolute evidence on me. I walked out, and froze in my steps. It was Alvar, he was back in his guard position. I didn’t dare say anything to him, so I just nodded at him. His gaze was grave, unreadable.

  I decided to start walking towards Virtus’s room. That is what I would have done if I was innocent. On the way there I met Lady Agatha, who was coming to my room.

  “Oh, Princess, have you heard the news?”

  “No, only the mourning bells, who has died?”

  She gave me a strange look.

  “Well the king, of course.”

  “Of course…”

  She tilted her head.

  “Who else would it be?”

  “I must go see my husband.”

  I kept walking towards Virtus’s room, and hoped that she wouldn't think much of it. He wasn’t there, and his guard told me that he was sitting with his father’s body.

  I walked over to the king’s room and knocked on the door. The young Priestess of the Mother of Medicine answered. It felt like forever ago that I had met her, but really it was only the night before.

  “Your Majesty,” she said. “You shouldn’t be out with your sickness.”

  “I just want to see my husband,” I told her.

  “Talia, is that you?” I heard Virtus’s soft voice coming from inside the room.

  “It’s best that you don’t come close to her, Your Majesty,” the young girl said.

  “Why on earth not?” I asked.

  She gave me a quizzical look.

  “Do you not remember?”

  “No.”

  I was getting stressed. What did she know?

  “You’re sick, Your Majesty,” she told me. “Remember the way you keeled over st night, coughing blood.”

  “Ohhh.”

  “Your husband is king now, Your Majesty, we can’t let him become sick as well.”

  “Oh and that means that I’m…”

  “Yes, Your Majesty, you are our new queen.”

  “Talia, darling.”

  Virtus stood behind the young priestess. His beautiful brown eyes were wet, and I wanted to hug him.

  “You shouldn’t come closer, Your Majesty,” the young priestess said. “She is ill and we don’t know what she has.”

  “Well the king was ill, and everyone was allowed to come close to him,” I countered.

  “Yes, and that was careless. He may have made you ill,” the old tattooed priest said, coming up to the door as well.

  “Please, Your Majesty, let us take you to your room to rest,” the young one said.

  Actually, why not rest? After all I was unbearably tired.

  I let the young priestess lead me back to my room. On the way she noticed the scratches on my palms.

  “What happened, Your Majesty?”

  I was too tired to make up a convincing lie.

  “I don’t remember.”

  ***

  There was a knock on the door. Another priestess of the Mother of Medicine was sitting in my room with me now, and she opened the door.

  “Your Majesty, please, your wife is resting,” she said quietly, but I heard her.

  “Virtus!” I sprang up.

  “Please, let me see my wife,” his tone was commanding.

  “She is under quarantine for a week, until we know if she is really sick,” the priestess said. “Only medics are allowed to be in a room with her.”

  “Maybe we could speak through the door, if you just keep it open a crack?” I suggested.

  I didn’t want to look Virtus in the eye at that point anyway. I had not thought they looked much alike before, but looking at Virtus’s face now reminded me of Plinius’s dead body.

  The priestess nodded.

  “How do you feel?” was the first thing he asked.

  “I feel well, just… tired,” I told him. “I don’t think I’m sick, but seven days isn’t so long.”

  “I guess, I really wish you could be with me now, Talia. My father is dead and Plinius…”

  Oh no…

  “He’s nowhere to be found,” Virtus continued. “He’s probably out on some bender with his friends.”

  What did he mean, nowhere to be found?

  “Oh… I hope you find him soon,” my voice sounded weak.

  “My darling, you really don’t sound good,” he told me.

  “I’ll be fine,” I sighed. “Will you be?”

  “I guess I’ll have to. I’ll come talk to you again as soon as I can.”

  I y down on the bed, I would try to rest.

  ***

  I spent the day in my room, with no company but my guards and the priests and priestesses of the Mother of Medicine. My meals were brought in and out. I used my chamber pot in stead of going to the restroom. Only at the end of the day was I allowed to go use the bathtub, but then it was only with a priestess as company. They brought me my books, but I had trouble focusing on the text, and had to read the sentences again and again to comprehend them.

  Then when night came, I went to bed. I felt quite restless. I was always slow to fall asleep after an idle day. I y on my bed in the dark, staring at the ceiling. I asked the priestess to wait outside with Sir Thanmar, and they both dozed off.

  In the darkness the butchered image of Plinius danced before my eyes. What had happened to him? How could they hide his body when the scene had been this grim? I wanted to ask how the gardener was doing, but I couldn’t. It would give too much away. So I just y wondering.

  I was shocked to see the red glow of the sunrise through my window. I hadn’t slept a wink the entire night.

  During the next day I was so tired, and I was always sort of expecting that I to fall asleep. In stead, I just went through the day in a sort of haze. Virtus came to speak to me again through the door. He sounded more concerned than before, this time genuinely worried that I had caught what his father had. I wanted to scream at him that it was not possible. I asked him if they had found Plinius, and he replied that they hadn’t and were now searching ceaselessly.

  “I’m starting to worry that something bad happened to him.”

  A shiver ran down my spine as he said it.

  Then it was night again. I thought this time I would surely sleep. I had not slept the night before, and I had stayed awake all day. I y my head down on the pillow and tried to sleep.

  I was lying on the bed when something moved at the lower right corner. I moved my head to look at it, but I couldn't see anything. I tried to sit up, but I couldn't. I was stuck to my bed. Then I felt the thing again. It was slithering towards me under my covers. It touched against my thigh, it was wet, cold and sticky. I tried to scream, but I no sound came out. I wished I had let the priestess stay in the room with me rather than tell her to stay outside. The thing moved up, finally slithering up over my chest. It squelched as it climbed up my body and created a slimy residue. I tried to move my hand to grab it, but my hands felt as if nailed to the bed. Finally it poked through the cover close to my neck and in the dim starlight I could see it.

  It was intestines. Plinius’s intestines.

  I didn’t know how I knew they were his, but I knew. They slithered up my neck, and started wrapping around it. I screamed again, air flowed out of my mouth but no sound came with it. The intestines wrapped tighter and tighter around me, cold and sticky. My airway was getting blocked, I had let all the air out of my lungs and I couldn’t breathe in again. He was going to kill me from beyond the grave.

  “Your Highness, wake up please!”

  My eyes popped open. I was being shaken violently by old Sir Thanmar.

  “Please, Your Highness –”

  He stopped abruptly when he saw that I was awake.

  “Sir Thanmar,” I smiled faintly.

  The priestess stood behind him with a worried look on her face.

  “Your Highness, I mean Your Majesty,” he spluttered, as he gently let go of me “I am so sorry I did that. You were screaming and then you were choking. I know this is highly inappropriate I hope you will forgive me.”

  “Of course, I was having the most horrible nightmare. Thank you for waking me, Sir Thanmar.”

  The old knight nodded, relieved and satisfied. I asked the priestess to stay with me that night, but it was pointless anyway. I didn’t fall asleep again.

  ***

  Virtus was at my door again. Having slept less than an hour in the previous two nights combined I had a bit of trouble understanding him, but it was just nice to hear him speak.

  “You sound like you’re doing even worse my love, maybe you are sick,” he said hesitantly.

  His speech sounded fuzzy, as if I was under water, and he was speaking above it.

  “Maybe,” I mumbled.

  “A lot of the nobles of Medora have come to offer their condolences for my father’s death.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “Among them is Duchess Karina.”

  Those words cut straight into my ears.