Chapter 2 - The Red Stain on the White Handkerchief
Six winters later, Ella returned to Valewick not out of nostalgia or a desire for vengeance, but because her son was dying.
Leo had mastered the art of concealing his agonizing illness before he had even learned to tie his own shoes. When the sharp, tearing pains seized his chest, he would press a small, trembling fist against his ribs and whisper that he had simply swallowed his morning porridge too fast. When unyielding fevers turned his knees to water, he would squat on the cobblestones and pretend he was intently examining a fascinating pebble. When dark, alarming drops of blood stained the floorboards after a night of violent coughing, he wiped them clean before his mother awoke.
He was five years and eleven months old, with thirty-two days standing between him and his sixth birthday. No country doctor, apothecary, or traveling herbalist across the northern provinces could explain why winter seemed to have taken root permanently inside his frail bones.
"Look, Mommy," Leo whispered. His blond head was nearly swallowed by an oversized, patched wool cap as he sat across from Ella inside the hired carriage rolling into Valewick’s central district. He pressed his small nose against the frosty glass. "Everyone is wearing masks."
Silvery filigree, stark white porcelain, and pale-blue silk masks bloomed across the bustling streets, turning the gloomy town into a theater of anonymous faces. Ella’s stomach dropped like a stone as her eyes caught a massive royal proclamation pasted to every gas lamp and stone pillar:
BY ORDER OF THE CROWN:
THE MOON BRIDE FESTIVAL COMMENCES AT SUNSET.
ALL UNMARRIED WOMEN OF ELIGIBLE AGE ARE COMMANDED TO ENTER THE PALACE GARDENS MASKED.
Right beneath it hung a second, starker notice bearing an official imperial wax seal. It was a charcoal portrait of a missing child. Blond hair. Light eyes. Five years of age.
REWARD FOR INFORMATION CONCERNING THE MISSING ROYAL HEIR.
Ella stared at the portrait, her breath catching in her throat. The resemblance was uncanny, almost terrifying.
Leo pressed his palm against the glass, looking at the poster outside, then catching his own reflection. "He looks like me."
"Lots of little boys share similar features, sweetheart," Ella said quickly, her heart hammering against her ribs.
"He has my exact ears."
"You have very ordinary ears, Leo."
The boy pondered this gravely for a moment. "I think they are exceptional ears."
Despite the suffocating terror gripping her chest, a soft laugh escaped Ella’s lips. But the warmth was instantly snuffed out as Leo turned away and coughed into a thick cloth. Ella saw the vivid, undeniable crimson staining the white fabric before he could tuck it away. She squeezed her eyes shut, fighting back the burning tears.
They had not come back because Ella missed the cobblestones of her youth. They were here because the royal physicians and university archives housed within Valewick's inner citadel possessed texts, elixirs, and medical knowledge unavailable anywhere else in the realm. If Vera saw her, let her stare. If Chloe mocked her, let her sneer. Pride was a luxury starving mothers could not afford.
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By noon, they had secured a cramped, damp room above a noisy laundry on Bellmaker Street. By one o’clock, Ella was scouring the apothecary quarters for a specialist.
By two o’clock, Leo had vanished.
