“What is a southern lady doing in my infirmary after dark?” Kaelan Volkov’s voice scraped through the cold air like iron dragged across slate. His gaze pinned her where she stood, hard and unyielding. Verena kept her breathing level, refusing to betray the jolt of alarm beneath her collarbone. She gripped the small Oltaran charm in her pocket, its warmth a faint comfort. “Observing, Duke,” Verena replied, her voice steady despite the tremor in her hands. She met his gaze without flinching. “Just as I observed the nightshade in my soup, and the Blight agent in your smoked meat, I now observe the work of your apothecaries.” She gestured with a subtle flick of her chin towards a cot in the corner, where a young guard lay writhing, his arm a mottled landscape of purple and black, flesh visibly rotting around an open wound. The stench of decay was heavy in the air. Kaelan’s gaze followed hers, then returned to her, an arrested stillness settling over his stare. “And what conclusions have your ‘observations’ yielded, Rostova?” His tone was laced with challenge. “That their practices are… crude,” Verena stated plainly, her modern sensibilities rebelling against the sight. “The poultices applied here smother the wound, trapping the putrefaction. The ‘soothing balm’ accelerates it.” She saw the faint tightening around Kaelan’s mouth. He knew. Or at least, he suspected. “Such accusations require proof,” Kaelan said, but his voice was devoid of its earlier aggression, now tinged with a brittle curiosity. He stepped closer, his imposing presence filling the small space. “Do you possess it?” “I possess an alternative,” Verena countered, her mind racing. This was it. Her chance to demonstrate, to prove her value beyond a shadow of a doubt. “A method to cleanse the affliction, not just mask it.” She glanced at the struggling guard. His feverish eyes were barely open, his breath ragged. He would not last the night if left to the current treatments. “Demonstrate,” Kaelan commanded, his voice sharp, decisive. “Here. Now.” Verena wasted no time. “I need a brazier of hot coals, a large pot, clean water, and the strongest distilled liquor you have. And clean rags, boiled in that water.” Kaelan barked an order to a guard at the door. Within minutes, the ward bustled with activity. A brazier was brought, glowing embers heating a large iron pot of water. Bottles of potent grain alcohol, used for sterilizing medical tools and numbing pain, were placed on a nearby table. Verena plunged a bundle of linen strips into the boiling water with tongs. The Kaskovian healers, who had been observing with open hostility, now watched with a mixture of disdain and reluctant intrigue. “The heat kills the unseen corruption,” Verena explained, mostly to Kaelan, as she poured a generous amount of the liquor into a clean bowl. “And the alcohol washes it away. The treatments here… they introduce more decay with unwashed hands and dirty cloths.” She pulled out the softened linen, letting it cool slightly. She approached the gasping guard. His arm was a horror, black veins spider-webbing from the central wound. The skin was peeling in places. “This will sting,” she warned him softly, though his eyes barely registered her presence. With Kaelan watching, a silent, unblinking sentinel, Verena began. She saturated one of the hot, wet cloths with the alcohol and carefully, meticulously, wiped around the wound, then directly into it. The guard screamed, a raw, guttural sound, and arched his back. The attending healers drew back, offended by her relentless precision. Kaelan, however, remained impassive, his gaze fixed on her hands. She repeated the process, rinsing the cloth in the boiled water, re-saturating it with the grain alcohol, cleaning deeper, removing the black sloughing tissue. The smell of alcohol mingled with the terrible odor of rot, momentarily overpowering it. She worked with the precision of a surgeon, her years of culinary knife work translating into delicate, confident movements. When she was finished, the wound was starkly clean, raw and angry, but free of the creeping blackness. “Now, fresh, boiled linen,” she instructed, applying a sterile dressing. “Change it every few hours, and clean the wound again with the alcohol. Keep him warm, and give him clean water to drink. The fever must break.” She straightened, facing Kaelan. His expression was still unreadable, but the glacial quality had softened, replaced by a deep, speculative intensity. “Your technique is… unorthodox,” he said, the words measured. “But effective. The blight has retreated from the edges of the wound.” He knelt beside the cot, his fingers, surprisingly gentle, touching the newly cleaned skin near the wound’s periphery. The dark discoloration had indeed receded, replaced by a healthier, albeit inflamed, red. “Unorthodox, perhaps, but based on a simple truth: the unseen can kill,” Verena said, a sharp spark of triumph settling behind her ribs. “Your leeches treat the symptoms. I treat the cause.” Kaelan rose, his gaze sweeping over the astonished faces of his own medical staff before settling on Verena. “I have a wing of the citadel, Rostova,” he said, his voice dropping, betraying a rare hint of strain. “Beyond the reach of the Grand Duchess’s prying eyes. My most trusted soldiers, men who have served my family for generations. They are succumbing. My most learned attendants, for all their tinctures and poultices, have failed them.” He paused, an edge of raw urgency surfacing in his gaze before vanishing behind stone discipline. “They waste away, their flesh rotting, their minds clouding with fever. If your ‘unseen corruption’ can be fought, then prove it. Prove it to me.” Meanwhile, in the mountain stronghold's silent archives, far from the sickroom, Illya moved with the practiced stealth of a shadow. His task was mundane on the surface: organizing scrolls of trade agreements for the Duke’s morning review. But his true purpose lay in the steady glow of candlelight, the brush of his fingertips against ancient vellum. He paused at a stack of manifests from the free city of Veridian Reach, a neutral port known for its exotic imports and shady dealings. He recognized the cipher, a tiny, almost imperceptible symbol etched into the wax seal of a particular crate. It was a marker of the Silent Order, a message meant only for those with eyes to see. Carefully, he broke the seal. Inside, amidst a ledger of spices and textiles, was a smaller, folded parchment. He unfolded it, his eyes scanning the elegant script. It detailed a shipment of ‘Oltaran saffron’—a coded term he knew. Beneath it, a single phrase was written in the familiar code of the Order: ‘Catalyst tied to Manifest X-77-V. Shipment from Veridian Reach. Initial samples routed to Volkov Citadel.’ Illya’s fingers tightened on the parchment. The Blight’s catalyst was not merely spreading randomly; it was being meticulously trafficked. And a crucial consignment had been delivered directly to the Duke’s domain. The conspiracy was reaching into the very heart of Kaskov. Back in the sickroom, steam still drifted off the iron pot. Kaelan’s words regarding his dying soldiers hung between them, an unyielding bargain. “I will give you what you need, Rostova,” Kaelan stated, his voice now devoid of its earlier interrogation, replaced by a chilling clarity. “Full access to supplies, a laboratory, staff – your choice. But understand this: if you fail to show results, if these methods prove to be merely southern trickery, then you will be handed to the Emperor. He already believes you the Oltaran saboteur, sowing discord with this plague. And I will not contradict him.”

The Price of Knowledge