The rain had not stopped for three days.
Each drop carried the scent of rot from the lower wards — as if the sky itself had begun to decay.
Ace Valemont stood by the window of his laboratory, fingers drumming against a glass vial filled with pale blue fluid. The candlelight refracted through it, casting ghostly veins of light across the walls. The faint pulse inside it fascinated him — something between alchemy and defiance of death. Behind him, Sylene Crowe entered without knocking. Her cloak was damp, her mask tucked beneath one arm.
"You've been summoned," she said simply.
Ace didn't turn. "By whom?"
"The Crown. The princess is dying.". He finally faced her, eyes cold and sharp. "Then they must have exhausted every priest in Varethia."
Sylene smirked. "And burned half the heretics trying to prove they weren't at fault. They say her blood is black as ink."
"Black?" He tilted his head slightly, intrigued. "That's not divine punishment. That's chemistry."
He placed the vial back in its rack and began removing his gloves. "Prepare the carriage. Bring the sealed case. And Sylene—"
"Yes?"
"Have the men burn everything in the lower vault. Notes, samples, all of it."
She raised an eyebrow. "Even Subject Forty-Seven?"
Ace gave a faint smile. "Especially Forty-Seven. The Crown doesn't need to know how I learned to cure death."
The royal palace loomed above the city like a marble tomb, its spires lost in the storm. The guards at the gate stiffened when they saw the Duke's crest on Ace's carriage. Few dared stop a Valemont, fewer still one called "Doctor."
Inside, the air was perfumed with incense — an attempt to mask the stench of sickness. Tapestries depicting saints of healing hung beside walls veined with mold.
Ace followed a trembling steward through halls lined with silent priests. Their eyes followed him, full of both reverence and disgust.
When he reached the royal chambers, the Queen herself awaited — tall, regal, her face pale from sleeplessness.
"You are Duke Valemont's son," she said. "The one they call the Plague Doctor."
Ace bowed with flawless etiquette. "Titles are the disease of nobility, Your Grace. I am simply a physician.".
The Queen's lips trembled. "Then perhaps you can save my daughter where the saints have failed."
She led him to the bedside. Princess Lyra lay motionless, her skin waxen, veins dark and branching like ink beneath parchment. A faint rattle escaped her lips with each breath.
Ace's eyes flicked over her body, not with pity — but with clinical fascination. He touched her wrist; her pulse stuttered weakly.
Then he noticed something odd — a faint chemical shimmer around the wound on her arm, hidden under silk bandages.
"Who treated her?" he asked quietly.
"The High Cardinal himself blessed the wound. He said it was a mark of sin, not illness."
"Did he?" Ace murmured, peeling back the cloth. The wound was black at the edges, the flesh necrotic, but beneath it he recognized a faint silver residue — the same compound he'd synthesized months ago.
His mind sharpened instantly.
Someone had used his formula — the Reagent of Dominion — on the royal family.
He replaced the bandage and looked up at the Queen. "I will need privacy," he said.
The Queen hesitated. "You mean to perform surgery?"
"I mean to observe, Your Grace. The truth of sickness hides from witnesses.".
Hours passed behind locked doors. The storm outside broke into lightning; inside, the only sounds were the scrape of metal and the slow drip of fluid into glass.
When the Queen returned at dawn, Ace was seated beside the princess, hands clean, the instruments washed.
Lyra's breathing had steadied. Her veins no longer bulged black but faintly blue.
"Is she… cured?" the Queen whispered.
Ace rose, adjusting his cuffs. "Stabilized. For now. But what afflicts her is not divine wrath. It's poison crafted by man."
The Queen's eyes widened. "Poison? Who would—"
He bowed slightly. "That, Your Grace, is a matter for politics. I only treat the body."
He moved toward the door, his gaze lingering for a moment on the princess. Even in sickness, there was something ethereal about her stillness — like a painting that refused to die.
As he left, he murmured softly,
"Every cure begins with a death. The question is whose."
Outside the chamber, Sylene awaited him in the shadowed corridor.
"Well?" she asked.
Ace handed her a small vial containing a single drop of blackened blood. "She'll live. But this—" he held the vial to the light, "—this shouldn't exist. Someone has replicated my work."
Sylene frowned. "Who could?"
He smiled thinly. "That, my dear, is what makes this kingdom interesting again."
Lightning flashed across the stained-glass windows, casting crimson light over his face — and for the briefest moment, he looked like the very sickness he sought to cure.