Starlight's Children Read online

  He shook his head. “I'm not here as Master of Investigations. As you can see, this is a lesson on autopsy and physiology for student physicians,” Brannon waved his hand toward the crowd. “This is simply the body that was assigned me. I have no intention of stepping on your toes here.”

  The magistrate huffed. “Then you will have no problem with my sitting in on the procedure and hearing your findings firsthand.”

  “None at all,” Brannon said. “But this is a teaching opportunity so I will ask you to step back so the students can see.”

  Whispers started up in the crowd again as the magistrate moved to the side of the room.

  Brannon leaned closer to Master Jordell. “You're up to something. What's going on with this case? Why did you want me on this?”

  Master Jordell shrugged but there was a crinkle in the corner of his eyes. “As you said, a teaching opportunity.”

  Brannon nodded in the direction of Magistrate Gawrick, “And it has nothing to do with this?”

  Jordell pursed his lips. “As the one performing the autopsy, that will be for you to decide, won't it?”

  Brannon gritted his teeth and took a deep breath before standing up straighter and raising his voice. “Very well. Sorry for the delay, everyone. Let's begin.”

  He peeled the sheet back. The man beneath it was aged in his mid-thirties and dressed in a simple shirt and trousers in light brown shades, with a woolen coat. The index finger on his right hand was missing—likely a sword injury from the war. To have survived years of battle only to die in the streets of his home city . . . It didn't seem fair.

  He closed his eyes for a moment. Life wasn't fair. War least of all.

  He raised his chin and faced the class. “The first thing to do is keep things as undisturbed as possible. Anything you find could be a clue to the cause of death so everything must be examined carefully.”

  A hand raised in the front row. “Is it true that, when they found Prince Keldan, you had the Magus Draeson encase the entire room in ice to preserve it?”

  Brannon pressed his lips together and gave a curt nod. “Yes. But you won't have a mage available to you. You'll need to find out who has disturbed the body and why. You'll need to check everything thoroughly and get any second opinions you need quickly.” He gestured to the back of the room. “In the murder of Prince Keldan, I had the help of Brother Taran with regard to drugs and poisons. He identified loredin.”

  The young priest looked embarrassed to be singled out and tucked a flask into the pocket of his cowled robes. His face flushed and he began muttering and gesturing to his lips.

  The students close enough to hear him leaned back, frowning.

  “Blood and Tears,” Brannon swore. He could imagine what Taran was saying. “You are not expected to lick the lips of a corpse,” he called out. “Although, yes, that is a good indicator for loredin. But you do need to pay attention and, if you suspect poison, get some samples of blood and tissue for testing and consult an expert such as Brother Taran.” He lowered his voice, adding under his breath, “He can do the licking.”

  The students settled back into their seats and Brannon turned back to the corpse.

  “If you get a chance to see the victim where they were found, then look at their positioning and surroundings for clues to what might have happened. Then look at the body itself. Then you want to check for injuries.” He ran his fingers over the scalp, checking for wounds to the head. There was nothing. “Blood, foam at the mouth, bruises—anything you see should be checked and documented.”

  He pulled back the dead man's coat and examined the shirt. Three shallow slashes marked one shoulder, barely enough to break the skin. A finger-length cut had been sliced in the fabric just below the ribcage. A small amount of blood crusted the shirt like a reddish brown frame around the wound. He lifted the shirt to look at the flesh beneath. It showed the same precise cut, but very little blood.

  “So here we have a stab wound, but at first glance it doesn't appear to be the cause of death.” He placed a finger into the cut, feeling for the angle the blade had taken. Upward, under the ribs and toward the heart. Wide enough to be a sword and deep enough that he didn't feel it stop.

  Brannon frowned. “Magistrate Gawrick, what did you say your witness saw?”

  The magistrate lifted his chin. “A mugging, Sir Brannon. The victim was stabbed with a sword when he resisted. Surely that much is evident and very obviously the cause of death.”

  “And his clothes haven't been changed or cleaned at all?” Brannon gestured to the cut shirt.

  “Of course not.”

  Brannon glanced at Master Jordell, his eyebrows raised.

  The old man shrugged, his face carefully neutral.

  “Then we may have a problem.” Brannon had seen many men killed with a sword blow like this one in the war. None of them had bled so little. “We need to measure the depth of the wound and open him up to see what damage was done and if there is internal bleeding.”

  Gawrick scowled. “Are you looking to challenge the findings of the magistrates on this?”

  Brannon took a slow breath. The collective gaze of the gathered students felt very heavy, weighting down every move. “I'm looking to find the truth, magistrate. As are you, I'm sure.” He gestured to the wound. “And the truth is, there should be more blood than this. We need to look further.”

  As the students crowded closer, Brannon inserted a measuring probe into the wound, following the track the blade had taken. It slipped in deep. Deep enough to have sliced into the heart or surrounding arteries, certainly deep enough to have caused massive blood loss and death. That didn't mean it had done so.

  He picked up the scalpel and sliced a Y-shaped incision into the man's torso, then peeled back the flesh. Several of the students made disgusted noises. Magistrate Gawrick paled.

  “Didn't see much action in the war, magistrate?” Brannon knew he was needling the man, but couldn't help himself. He'd seen far worse done to living men in the years of fighting against Nilar. He'd done far worse to living men on the battlefield and had nightmares about it still. Retraining as a physician in the years since the war ended had been an attempt to balance those scales. But even here, in a house of healing, there was no escape from blood.

  “I saw enough,” Gawrick said. The muscles in his jaw were tight. “We can't all be legends with thousands of kills to our names, Bloodhawk.”

  Brannon felt his face flush. He'd deserved that. “This next part is unpleasant,” he said, quietly. “We will need to break the ribs and spread them apart to see what damage has been done to the organs.”

  Cutting through bones wasn't easy. There was a reason soldiers liked to stab up from under the ribcage. The sword that appeared to have killed this man had a much easier path into his body than what Brannon now took. The bones cracked loudly beneath the rib shears as the room full of students watched in silence. Brannon lifted the chest plate away and examined the internal organs beneath.

  The wound track followed the expected path, piercing the diaphragm, slashing the left lung, and severing the aortic artery. Despite the damage, the chest cavity was remarkably clear. What little blood had pooled there was thick and congealed, like curdled cream.

  “Um . . . that's not normal, is it?”

  Brannon looked up to see Brother Taran's face staring into the chest cavity. “No,” he replied. “It's not. There should be a lot more blood from this wound and it shouldn't be this consistency.”

  Taran shook his head. “I didn't mean the blood. I meant that.” He reached in to wipe the congealed blood away and expose the surface of the dead man's heart.

  It was black and hard like glass.

  Brannon sighed. That was definitely not from a sword wound. “Call Magus Draeson and take whatever samples you need to check for poisons.”

  The magistrate stepped forward again. “The magus? What are you saying?”

  “I'm sorry, Gawrick. This is a case for my special investigations te
am, after all.”

  Chapter Two

  Brannon stared through prison bars at one of his oldest friends. Duke Roydan Sandilar's clothes were filthy and he was unwashed and unshaven, but he sat tall and straight, with every button in place. The room was a depressing gray, just a rough wooden bench and the wall of bars across the middle, separating Brannon from his condemned friend.

  “Come to say your goodbyes already?” Roydan asked. “We'll see each other in the arena soon.”

  Brannon gripped the bars, his knuckles white. “I want you to tell me. Why?”

  Roydan looked away. “You know why. I saw an opportunity and I took it.”

  “No, not that.” Roydan's treason had been hard to comprehend, but once he'd seen the truth, Brannon understood it. Ambition and shrewdness had always been a part of Roydan's make up. “I mean this. Today.”

  The duke gave a bitter laugh. “You mean why did I not simply accept my punishment like a good boy? Go quietly to the executioner or work as a slave in the mines I spent my life governing?”

  This time it was Brannon who looked away. There was no way the king would ever have allowed Roydan to work the gold mines in Sandilar. There was too great a chance that he still had loyal people there who could set him free. Treason was a crime for which freedom was never an option.

  “As a noble, I have the right to choose trial by combat against the King's Champion,” Roydan said. “The king could have executed me anyway and saved you the trouble, but we can't have that. Got to follow the law, right? I know how you insist on it. So, if I'm to die, then it will be at your hand, my friend.”

  “You want me to kill you? Is that it?” Brannon felt the weight in his chest somehow spread, crushing the feeling and leaving him numb. “You want me to be responsible for your death.”

  Roydan shrugged. “Why not? You've killed plenty of other people. Why not your best friend? But I don't think I'll die.”

  “Why's that?”

  “Because you don't have the stomach for it. You don't want to kill me. You let that boy live at the last trial by combat. You don't like killing anymore.”

  Brannon snorted. “So? There are a lot of things I don't like, Roydan. I still do my duty. You should have done yours.”

  “Perhaps. With hindsight, I'll admit I should have stayed with my business deals. I over-reached. But does that undo everything I've done? I've spent a lifetime serving Kalanon under Aldan. Does one moment of weakness remove all of that?”

  Brannon closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them again, Roydan's gaze met his. The gild of their friendship was gone. He saw the person underneath. “I wish it had been a moment of weakness, Roydan,” he said. “I really do. But you planned. You took deliberate action. You chose to make yourself an infection in the body of this country and that needs to be cut out. I can't save my friend. You destroyed him already.”

  He pushed away from the bars and turned to leave.

  “Brannon, wait!” He glanced back over his shoulder. Roydan's face was white. “We could make a deal. I can pay you.”

  “Really?” Brannon shook his head slowly. “Don't. Just . . . don't.” Was this what a lifetime of friendship had become? An offer of money for loyalty? “The deal you'll get from me is simple, Roydan. You're right. I won't kill you. But you will die today. I'm sorry.”

  He walked out of the room and closed the door behind him.

  Two men and a boy waited in the hallway. The boy was seven-year-old Tomidan Sandilar, the grandson of Roydan and one of the few surviving members of that line of the royal family. He fidgeted with the hem of his tunic and stared at the stone floor.

  The men were both young in appearance, early twenties at best. One of them, however, was very much older.

  “Draeson? What are you doing here?” Brannon had barely seen the mage since they'd unmasked Duke Roydan as a traitor.

  “Being an ass, as usual.” It was Darnec Raldene who answered. He wore the armor of the King's Guard, with a badge of honor on his chest to symbolize his particular position as Brannon's protégé. He glared at the mage.

  Draeson flicked a finger and Darnec stumbled back a few steps. “Show some respect, boy.”

  “Draeson.” Brannon's voice held a warning. His hand rested on the hilt of his sword. “Must you always mess with my apprentices?”

  The mage shrugged. “The king asked me to bring young Prince Tomidan to pay his respects to his grandfather before the trial by combat. Your lad was guarding the door. He has an attitude problem.”

  Brannon glanced at Darnec. The muscles in the young man's jaw tightened as he clenched his teeth. “I asked him to make sure I wasn't disturbed. He was just doing his job.” His brow furrowed and he gestured to Tommy. “You're not seriously going to make the boy watch this, are you?”

  Draeson shrugged. “He's seen worse.”

  “And he's been having nightmares about it ever since. Do we really want to add to that?” No child should have to watch a family member die, and the way Tommy's mother had died was worse than most: beheaded in front of her son by a possessed mass murderer—it held a special place among even Brannon's collection of remembered horrors.

  He felt a tug at his sleeve and looked down at Tomidan. “Is Brother Taran here?” The boy seemed to have bonded with the young priest more than anyone since his mother's death.

  “No, Tommy, he's not. Sorry. He's running some tests for me to help figure out how someone got hurt.” If they were lucky, there would be a chemical residue that explained the strange necrotic glass heart in the man he'd autopsied that morning. “When you've spoken to your grandfather, why don't you go and find Master Jordell in the medical area. I think he has his granddaughter with him. The two of you can keep each other company in one of the back rooms during the trial.”

  The boy's eyes were wide. “The king said I have to sit next to him and see what happens to traitors.”

  Brannon pressed his lips tight. His chest felt heavy. Aldan meant to scare the boy to ensure his loyalty when he was grown. He took a long, deep breath in and out through his nose before speaking. “Don't worry about that,” he said. “I'll talk to the king for you and tell him you already know. You do, don't you?”

  Tomidan nodded, wide eyes now glossy.

  Brannon patted him on the shoulder. “Go on then. Say your goodbyes to your grandfather and then go and play.” He waited until the door between them and Roydan's cell was closed before turning on the mage. “Since when have you held your tongue with the king? After four hundred years, you must know better than to traumatize a child.”

  Draeson's eyes narrowed. “After four hundred years, I know better than to pick battles with Kalan kings over the choices they make for their families. But it'll be entertaining to watch you do it.” He turned and strode toward the exit. “See you in the stands, Sir Brannon. Wouldn't want to miss the show.”

  “By the Wolf,” Darnec muttered. “He's the most Hooded ass I ever met. And that's saying something.”

  Brannon chuckled. “Always has been, I suspect. Believe it or not, I think he's gotten worse since he got his youth back.”

  Darnec's eyes widened. “So it's true? I'd heard he was an old man in the war.”

  “Ancient.” Brannon nodded. “He looked every one of his four hundred years and then some.”

  “Then . . . how?”

  “He's a mage. And a cagey one at that so I've no idea how he did it. But he's been making the most of it ever since.”

  Darnec stared after the mage, his brows furrowed.

  “What's going on between the two of you?” Brannon asked. “He hasn't been hitting on you, has he?”

  The younger man shook his head. “It's nothing important.”

  “Good. You need to be focused on the combat. Roydan is a good fighter. You'll have your hands full.”

  “Yes, sir.” Darnec stood up straighter. “Are you sure it's okay for me to be taking on this part of the King's Champion role so soon?”

  Brann
on looked away. “The king says so.”

  “But didn't you just say it was all right to question the king?”

  “It's okay for me to question the king,” he said, a wry smile on his face. “Or Magus Draeson. And even then we follow his orders. It's definitely not okay for you to do it.”

  Darnec nodded. “Of course, sir.”

  “Anyway, Roydan is right about one thing: I don't like killing anymore. This is as good a time to stop as any.”

  “I'll do what I can to make you proud, Sir Brannon.”

  For a moment, Brannon saw his younger self in the boy—eager, with something to prove. He'd seen that in his last apprentice too, and she'd turned out . . . poorly. “Just . . . stay alive,” he said. “Don't underestimate him. And watch his left flank. He forgets to cover when he's tired.”

  And with that he walked away, knowing he'd condemned his friend to death.

  Chapter Three

  Taran leaned over and studied the gravel path. The alley smelled of old urine, rotted scraps, and horse dung. Garbage was piled against the walls. In a more affluent part of the city, it would have been cleared and sanitized. Here, it merely collected, growing like moss over the brick. Foot traffic in the time since the killing had churned the stones, making the evidence difficult to see. Even taking that into account, there was less blood than there should have been. It speckled the gravel but there was no sign of pooling where the body had lain. “Hmmm. Are you sure this is where he was actually killed?”

  “Yes, yes, of course. We have a witness, remember?” Magistrate Gawrick hugged himself and glanced up the alleyway for what seemed like the hundredth time. “I do wish you'd waited for my guards to attend the scene with us.”