Chapter 11: The Price of a Guest

The elder's hand closed over the patient register, and he lifted it off the table before Noah could reach it.

He was old, and he had a gray seal ring on his thumb, and he held the book the way a man holds something he has already decided is his.

'You are a captive,' the elder said, 'dressed up as a guest. The prince's ward does not need you.'

Noah had heard the sentence before, in Valerius's mouth, in the hall, when the move order came down and Malchior carried it in.

This man had carried it too.

Noah caught Adrian's sleeve.

'Read the inspection order to him,' Noah said.

The elder's clerk pulled the order flat against his chest and did not offer it.

The ward went still.

Every attendant had stopped where they stood, and none of them looked at the elder.

They looked at the prince being refused.

Noah crossed the ward and took the order out of the clerk's hands.

The clerk's arms stayed where they were, holding nothing.

'You do not have the right,' the elder said.

'Then take it back,' Noah said.

The elder's hand shot out and closed on Noah's wrist.

He meant to turn the arm and look at the burn.

The gold came up through the skin.

It cracked along his forearm in thin veins of light, then up the side of his throat.

The heat in the ward jumped.

The elder's glove smoked at the fingertips, then split open across the palm.

Where the light touched bare skin, the flesh blistered and curled at the edges.

The elder let go and staggered back a step.

He caught the table with his good hand and stayed upright.

Someone in the far row of beds made a sound and did not finish it.

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