Princess Rachel of Marisia had to hold her nose as she traversed the thin corridors between the beds. The smell of disease in the air was simply rancid, and it was all she could do to keep her composure. She had decided to visit some of the makeshift hospitals that had sprung up due to the sickness, and was wearing a cloth over her face to both avoid contamination and the worst of the smell. She was also wearing thick, woolen clothing for this same reason.

The hospital she was in now, which had been set up in the basement of a small temple to the mother goddess, was just one of many. The sickness had come out of nowhere a few weeks earlier, and had taken the city by storm. Until they knew what it was and how it was spreading, no amount of magic or science could stop it. After all, you couldn’t use magic to stop something if you didn’t know what to cast the magic at. That was Rachel’s overall goal right now: find out what caused it and stop it.

“Your Highness,” a woman said, tugging on Rachel’s sleeve. She looked around to see a woman in her early thirties looking up at her fearfully. “It’s my son,” she said sorrowfully, dragging Rachel over to a bed. Some guards attempted to help Rachel free herself from the woman, but the woman didn’t seem to be much of a threat, so Rachel waved them off.

On the bed was a young boy, no older than two, who was laying pitifully on the cot. “Please, you must do something!” the woman said quietly, her tear-stained face staring at Rachel. “He is too young to fight off the illness!”

Few who had caught the sickness had gotten over it, so Rachel didn’t have much hope for the poor boy. Despite this, she was determined to do something about it, no matter how little. She bent over the cot and waved her hand, which allowed the boy to breathe easier. It wasn’t a cure by any means; it was simply a respite from the pain of the sickness. In other words, she’d stopped the most horrifying symptoms from showing, but it hadn’t done a thing about the sickness itself, and the magic would wear off before long. It was simply temporary relief, what the Industrians would refer to as a painkiller. Taking the woman’s hands in her own gloved hands, she looked the woman in the eyes and said, “Believe me, I am doing everything in my power to help combat the sickness. The Council is looking into all options for treatment. You have my word that we will not let this rest. Do you understand?”

The woman nodded. “I know you’re trying, but…it just seems like you aren’t doing anything! It’s very frustrating, especially when your own child is days from death!”

Rachel suddenly took the woman in an embrace. “I promise you, I will do everything I can to solve this crisis,” she whispered. They stood there for about a minute, hugging each other tightly while the woman sobbed uncontrollably, before the woman let her go. Rachel bent down and took one of the boy’s hands, telling him, “You cannot hear due to the fever, but I will do everything to make sure you play with your friends again. I will not rest. You have my word.”

After Rachel finished her tour of the facility and helped a few more families, she went upstairs into the main temple, which was virtually empty. Away from the stench, she removed the mask and breathed a sigh of relief. She wasn’t actually relieved, though, not really. In fact, the sudden onset of the sickness, her inability to help, and the horrid sights she’d just seen had left her quite shaken.

Since this was a temple, a small statue of the Mother Goddess, Miriama, stood at the front of the room, her hands clasped together in a gesture of solidarity. Rachel, already in a bad mood, scoffed at the statue before heading for the door as she wondered just what they had done to incur the goddess’ wrath.

“My my,” a voice said from behind her, making her flinch in annoyance. “Perhaps I should inform the populace of what I’ve seen here.”

“What do you want, Donovan?” Rachel asked, turning around and facing the speaker. She’d recognize that voice anywhere. Indeed, it was Donovan Follis, a man Rachel particularly loathed. Donovan was in his early twenties, and due to the wealth of his family, felt himself entitled to anything he wanted, including Rachel. He also had delusions of grandeur. Not to mention he was incredibly pushy and annoying.

“I’m just here to pay my respects,” Donovan replied in an oily tone, which was his way of showing off. “These people are dying, so their families deserve to know that we rich people care about them." He grinned at this.

“As if you actually care about them,” Rachel said irritably. “You’re just worried about the lack of income you’ll get if too many people die.”

Donovan shrugged. “What can I say? I like my lifestyle. Since our interests are aligned, why don’t the Council and Father’s Bank pool their resources and find the cure? At the very least, we can sell some snake oil and pretend it’s a cure. People are already throwing their savings away on fake cures. It’ll be a good way to help pad your coffers and solve your ongoing financial issues.”

Rachel had to admit, the offer was pretty tempting, apart from the snake oil suggestion; they’d never do something so cruel. The bank would indeed lose money if too many people died, particularly wealthy people, so they had a vested interest in getting rid of it. “If you are serious about your offer, then have your father speak directly to the Council about it.”

“Believe me, I have already appealed to him,” said Donovan. “The problem is that Father doesn’t believe we should get involved. He thinks we should just take the money we have and try to conserve it as long as possible. He isn’t interested in updating for the future, only at preserving the failing present institution. I’ve appealed to him already with these exact same reasons, but all he said was that he was ‘taking care’ of the situation, which means doing nothing.”

“So that’s why you came to me,” Rachel sighed. Glaring at him, she said, “You really have a lot of nerve, don’t you?” She weighed the pros and cons of the alliance within her head before replying, “If you do something for me, then I’ll speak with Chairman Jameson about your proposal. He and the Council will have the final say, as I’m sure you know. Although as he and your father are close friends, I cannot guarantee anything.”

“Of course,” Donovan bowed. “What is it you need of me?”

“Two things,” said Rachel. “First, have you entered the Palace or left the city since the sickness started?”

Donovan suddenly glanced around shiftily. “Well, I might’ve tried to see you the other day, but you were out and I had to leave.”

Rachel remembered that. She’d gone out in secret to the poor areas of the city to see if there was any obvious magical source of the plague, but had come up empty-handed. She’d had to sneak out because she was normally never allowed out of the Palace, but her absence was discovered when Donovan had been caught snooping in places he wasn’t allowed. If Donovan had gotten both in and out of the Palace and made it through the checkpoints, that meant he wasn’t carrying the Emperor’s spirit. “Well, if I’m going to trust you, I need to check something,” Rachel replied sweetly, in a deliberate attempt to catch him off guard. It worked, because he got this stupid grin on his face. He nodded enthusiastically, so Rachel concentrated, raised a hand towards him, and said “Check for intruders.”

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It was a powerful magic spell, aimed to determine if the dominant spirit was the person’s own or not. With the Emperor’s urn having gone missing, she had become highly paranoid about everyone around her potentially being him instead of themselves, since he’d tried to seduce her before while disguised as her friend Paul. The check turned up nothing except Donovan’s normal, sleazy personality within his mind, which she didn’t know was a good or bad thing, because she couldn’t really decide if he or a depowered Emperor were worse.

“Okay, you’re clean,” Rachel sighed disappointedly. She would’ve loved an excuse to toss him in the dungeons. “The other thing I need is information. We both know you’re privy to information about the kingdom the Council is not. Don’t insult my intelligence by claiming otherwise. So here’s what I want to know: ask around and see what my mother, Queen Rebecca, was doing approximately 14-15 years ago, around six months after I was born. Anything unusual. That’s all I ask.”

Donovan looked surprised, but he accepted the request at once. He probably thought he was going to get some kind of reward for it, something one-of-a-kind he could boast to his friends about. As if that would ever happen. He turned to leave, but then he told her, “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but our people caught wind of the little Industrian trip you were planning for this morning. Father sent some men to stop them, since he doesn’t trust Industrians at all, but the men reported back saying that the party had disappeared before they’d gotten there. It looks like the work of the Elves.” Before Rachel could respond, Donovan crossed to the stairs and went down.

“Wait a moment!” Rachel exclaimed, but Donovan was already gone. She couldn’t follow him without putting all the protective clothing back on, and she wasn’t willing to do that, not for that jerk. Therefore, without wasting another second, Rachel crossed to the temple entrance and climbed onto her horse. After her entourage of guards had gotten into formation, she led the way back through the city to the Palace. They all had to stop at the gates and be inspected for signs of the Emperor’s presence, after which they continued inside.

The guards left Rachel once she went inside, and she walked quickly through the corridors, heading towards the Chairman’s private study. Luckily, her status as the Princess meant that most of the servants would move out of the way, which meant she wasn’t ever stuck behind people. That was an etiquette law her mother had put into place after getting tired of being stuck waiting for servants to clear the corridors so she could pass. If no one noticed her and didn’t move, she could simply clap five times in succession to get people to move. If anybody else did this without proper royal permission, they could face a hefty fine. She never clapped at anyone, though, as she considered it incredibly obnoxious and rude, and neither did Nadine or Paul, but literally every other person of importance loved doing it, sometimes just for fun.

When she reached the study, she barged in without knocking. Chairman Jameson was inside, sitting at his desk working on official kingdom matters. An advisor stood over him, prepared to offer assistance if necessary. “What can I do for you, Princess?” he asked, not even looking up from his work. He had this sort of ‘sixth sense’ where if you approached him from any direction, he knew exactly who it was, making him virtually impossible to sneak up on, not that that stopped Nadine from trying. Or maybe he figured it was her because anyone else would’ve knocked first.

“We’ve got bad news, Chairman,” she responded.

“Leave us,” the Chairman told the advisor, seeing from her face that the issue was serious. The advisor quickly made himself scarce.

After taking a deep breath, Rachel began to relay to him everything Donovan had said. As she talked, his face went pale. “The Elves intercepted our party?” he said once she was done. “And Edmund found out about it? I specifically didn’t tell him so he wouldn’t get involved.”

“Donovan certainly knew about it.”

He put his head in his hands. “How did they find out? How did the Elves find out? The Portal we chose for them to use was less than two hours’ ride from the city, so it was nowhere near their lands.”

“The House of Follis probably has spies in the Palace,” Rachel suggested. “We’ve suspected that for years, so that would explain how they knew. The Elves are another matter. We only formulated the plan two days ago, and that’s not enough time for the Elves to relay a message across the border, not by physical means.”

“So they used magic,” said the Chairman, looking back up at her. “An Elf spy is something we simply cannot tolerate. The spy is either within our ranks or Follis’s ranks. If it’s us, we must thoroughly vet everyone from now on. If it’s them, we can’t do anything but hope the spy slips up. At least if the spy is with them, they won’t live long enough to do any more damage if they get found out. I imagine the House of Follis is disappointed that someone beat them to the ambush and will be trying to figure out who the leak is as well.”

“Then I will begin work on tracking down any Palace spies,” Rachel said, determined.

“No,” the Chairman replied sharply. “You stay with the mages and focus on finding a cure for the sickness. You’ve discovered it’s magical in origin, so your abilities will be best suited for getting rid of that rather than doing any more unsanctioned reconnaissance missions in the city.” As Rachel opened her mouth to retort, he continued, “Your mother was very insistent about keeping you safe, Princess. You are the one person we can’t afford to lose.”

“She was?” Rachel asked in surprise, completely forgetting about her retort. She wasn’t surprised that her mother had cared about her – she’d always known that. No, she was surprised that the Chairman would bring it up in such a way, as if it was a special order or command.

“Yes, it was written in her will that in the event of her untimely demise, all available resources needed to be used to ensure you grow up strong, healthy, and authoritative so that you could be an effective ruler. Have I never told you this?”

He hadn’t told her that; no one had. She’d been too young and distressed when her mother had died to be involved with any of the paperwork, so she hadn’t been included in any of that, and the issue hadn’t ever come up once she was old enough to understand it. Therefore she’d never known about the will or that she’d been mentioned in it in such a way. “No, never,” she responded. “Is that why I have received so much training generally reserved only for men?”

“Yes,” he confirmed. “Your mother wanted you to grow up to be an effective and caring ruler, with the ability to choose your lifestyle as you saw fit. That necessitated teaching you many more skills than a young woman of your standing would normally receive. As a result, you can be a great leader like Rebecca, a great warrior like Madelaine, a scholar like me, or you can forge your own path.”

“I…I see,” said Rachel, mulling this over. She’d always believed her mother had wanted her to follow in her footsteps exactly, but this changed things. Before now, she had never considered being a different type of ruler. The fact that she could opened up a lot of opportunities for her to explore. “Thank you for telling me this,” she told the Chairman, regaining her composure.

“I admit I was hesitant to tell you at first,” said the Chairman. “I know how much you admire your mother. In this case, in order to follow her wishes, you will need to not act like her, and be proactive in a different way. Do you understand?”

“I...yes,” said Rachel, not really listening.

“Then I believe our meeting is adjourned. I will speak to Edmund Follis about what you’ve told me. Now, please go and continue your work.”