Alex POV
The ring is cool around my finger. Trellis has promised me that in years, I will forget that it is even there. But the weight of the silver band is a constant pressure. It is a reminder of my new role, the weight of my responsibility. How can I forget? How will I ever?
I take the cup Trellis hands to me. The ceramic is warm. I sniff the contents as he instructs. The scent is sharp, medicinal. "What is it?"
It is the mage standing beside him that answers. "An elixir, alpha. My team and I are finished with the forensic investigation. The elixir in question is a distillate and purified form of the weeping mandrake mixed with other magical additives."
I frown. "But what does it do?"
It is Trellis that answers. "It's a regrowth elixir, one of the more expensive ones. It can heal a variety of wounds once it is taken. Crucially, and important to our investigation, if it is taken, the person will experience enhanced healing for several hours after, making it nearly impossible for them to bleed out." He pauses for effect. "And it was found in your father's cup that night."
I lean back in the chair. It is more ornate than I would prefer, with a snarling wolf for its hand rests and a trident carved into the silverwood. My father's chair, built for a larger man. The wood groans under my shifting weight. I feel like a child wearing shoes too big for him. The high back towers over me, casting a shadow.
"But my father did bleed out," I say, meeting the eyes of both the mage and Trellis.
Trellis crosses his arms in front of his chest. The leather of his jerkin creaks. "That he did."
No one says anything after that. The silence hangs in the study, thick and heavy. The fire crackles in the hearth. The gears in my mind turn, but nothing comes to me. I cannot decide on any answers. I look at the cup in my hand, the dark liquid within. A regrowth elixir. In his cup. Yet he bled out on the floor.
Trellis nods to himself and dismisses the mage with a sharp gesture. The mage bows to me, then to him, and leaves, the door clicking shut behind him.
"These things do not add up, Trellis," I say, shaking my head. I set the cup down on the desk. "There are too many loose ends, too many missing pieces. Who was my father talking to? Who broke into my father's safe? What was stolen? Why did the elixir not heal my father's wounds? Why does…" My hand tightened on the wooden hand rests, my fingers digging into the carved wolf's snarl. "Why does Ivan not remember what happened that night?"
Trellis looks away when I mention Ivan. His gaze fixes on the tapestry across the room, one depicting a great hunt. I sigh, leaning back in the chair. The wood presses against my spine. "You still think I should not have released him."
His voice is bitter. "He is not to be trusted."
"I have known him as long as I have known you."
"He is an outsider."
"He is my bodyguard!" My voice rises, echoing slightly in the large room. "Since that day my father brought him home, a white-haired orphan with no past. You remember, do you not? You were there. I got to have a life, but he has lived the entirety of his for me. He would never hurt me."
"He may have killed your father."
"He loved my father." I shake my head, the motion tired. "I do not believe he did it, Trellis. Tell me you have something else. Help me. Please. Help me or leave me to myself."
Trellis frowns, the tendon in his jaw tightening, but he does not leave. He opens his mouth, tries to say something, but closes it again. He runs a hand through his short-cropped hair. I give him time. The fire pops.
Eventually: "There is … something. Something we discovered during your father's autopsy."
A cold lump settles in my throat. Sweat breaks all over my face, a clammy film. My palms feel damp against the wood. "What?" I ask, my voice small and quiet.
"I think you should see it for yourself." He turns and walks toward the door, expecting me to follow.
My father's body lies on two gurneys strapped together. His powerful build fills the room. My eyes trace the scars on his skin. They form pinkish white trenches, marring the great man I once knew. Even with the stitch work, his body is a devastated art work.
His eyes are closed so I let myself imagine that he is asleep. My hands are held behind my back because they're shaking so much.
The doctor eyes me like he would a wild beast. He's human. That much, I can smell on him. To him, I am a private contractor who has hired his services, but I can see the questions and fear in his eyes.
"Speak, man," Trellis snaps. The doctor snaps out of his trance, looks at Trellis, and rolls his eyes.
"What did you want to show me?" I ask the man, stepping closer to my father's body. I run a hand over his powerful chest, feeling the thick slab of muscle. They didn't protect him. Shouldn't they have? In my head, my insecurities whisper: What chance do I have where my father didn't?
The man begins to speak. His voice is the cool, confident tone of a professional. He describes the autopsy he carried out in cold, medical terms. To hear him say it, you would think that my father has become mere sinew and bone, a cadaver to be discussed in an anatomy textbook. Irrational anger burns in my chest, but I sit on it. I bend it to my will. Not yet. Not yet.
"Tell him what you found, Nikola," Trellis says, interrupting. "Tell him about the digits."
I frown. "What digits?"
"Here," the man says, grabbing a remote on one of the empty desks. He points it to the screen in the corner like a magic wand, and pushes down on a button. The screen flashes on.
"During the autopsy, I noticed an oddity. Your father didn't have any tattoos or any markings of any sort. Just these." He presses another button and a series of images appears on the screen.
My mouth goes dry. A tremor passes through my right hand.
"What am I looking at?" my voice peels out of my throat.
The doctor looks at me with sympathy, but he doesn't spare me the explanation. "What killed your father, the cleave to the neck, presented a cosmetic challenge for me. I had to reknit the skin, but before I did, I found these." He pauses. "On the inside."
The pictures are bloody. Which makes sense, because my father's skin hangs like a flap, and emblazoned on the inside is a string of digits — twelve, maybe fourteen — neat, deliberate, carved into the tissue itself.
At first, they look random. But then my brain begins to map them, lining up the numbers into pairs, then coordinates.
Longitude and latitude.
My throat goes dry.
The doctor doesn't have to say it, but he does anyway, his voice trembling for the first time. "They form a location. A place."
Trellis leans forward, eyes glinting. "Your father left you a map."