"Or you could have flattened me before I even drew a blade," Hamon said conversationally.
Ven released him and helped him up.
"Oof. Thanks." Hamon shook off the soil that clung to his cloak. Reaching over, Ven plucked a leaf from his shoulder. He then returned to watching Naelin. She was creating a sculpture in the center of the garden, using earth spirits to push rocks up out of the ground. It was shaped loosely like the palace tree. "She's not worried about the kraken anymore?" Hamon asked.
"She's been training with Daleina," Ven said. "She's got this." She lacked the range to protect the entire country-only a queen had that kind of power-but she had the strength to defend the palace, maybe even the capital, if Daleina blacked out again.
Spreading her arms wide, Naelin stepped back, and water spirits burst through the center of her sculpture. Water cascaded down-she'd made a fountain. It was a very nice fountain.
"And the other champions don't object? It's favoritism."
"It's practical. They know their candidates are nowhere close to ready. Daleina's last blackout scared them." They'd held a meeting. Yelled a lot. Daleina had listened to it all and then nodded and said she'd heard their concerns and hoped they felt better for expressing them, though she could not feel better no matter how much discussion they had, because she was the one dying. That shut them up. He'd been proud.
"Speaking of frightening them . . . I have a favor to ask."
Ven looked at Hamon and noticed the circles under his eyes, the sunken hollowness of his cheeks, the way his hair was uncombed and his clothes wrinkled. Hamon usually took such care with his appearance, courtesy of his former teacher's training-appearance was important to a healer. It soothed the patients. Ven guessed the search for the cure wasn't going well. "Of course. No luck yet in finding the poisoner?"
Hamon shook his head. "This is a separate matter."
"There are no separate matters. This is the only thing that matters." He made a mental note to talk to Captain Alet about her progress. With Naelin proceeding this quickly, Daleina had to be thinking harder about abdicating. He wanted to delay that moment as long as possible.
"I need you to look at a dead body. Actually, several."
That wasn't a request he heard every day.
"Can you call a guard to watch Naelin?"
Pivoting, he called, "Bayn? Guard Naelin."
Uncurling his body, the wolf stretched and then ambled over to Naelin. He drank from the fountain and then lay down at Naelin's feet. She absently scratched Bayn behind the ears before continuing to direct the spirits. Ven thought about telling her to remember to rest, but decided she wouldn't appreciate his mothering. He followed Hamon out of the gardens.
Hamon led the way to the palace morgue. Created out of stone, the morgue was tucked behind the treasure pavilion. It had been shrouded in vines so it would blend in with the trees, but the walls themselves were the kind of rock found deep within the ground. Legend said that an ancient queen had summoned it from the bowels of the earth and it had risen, a hollow chamber with a funeral bier inside, after the death of her husband. She'd housed his body inside for forty-one days, until she could lay his killer beside him. Only then did she allow him to be buried. The chamber still stank of ancient death. Ven wasn't fond of it.
Two guards nodded to them as they passed, but Hamon didn't even seem to see them. His hands were shaking as he opened the door. "Brace yourself." He handed Ven a face mask of soft cotton and strapped one on his own face.
Inside, Ven's eyes immediately watered. The chamber reeked of incense and thick, heavy flowery smells that were trying-and failing-to cover the smell of decaying flesh and old, sour blood. This wasn't ancient death; this was new.
On the tables were bodies. All were uncovered. All were young women-girls, in truth-in varying states of decay. Ven carefully shoved all his emotions away and ignored the part of him that wanted to march out the door and seal it behind him. "You have been digging up corpses," he said evenly.
"It was my mother's idea." Hamon held up a hand to forestall any response. "I know I shouldn't listen to her ideas, but in this case . . . She thought there was a possibility that the poisoner experimented on other victims before attempting to kill the queen. Other victims whose deaths could easily be attributed to another cause. If the poisoner killed before, there might be a clue to his or her identity . . . or a clue to the poison itself."