Ilyin lay on the bed, breathing shallowly. Her bleeding had stopped, but Aden’s nose still caught the scent of blood as he entered the room. He knew that scent well from countless battles, but it affected him this time like never before. His thoughts were a tangle of rage and worry, like a ball of string so knotted it could only be undone by cutting. He tried to pull his thoughts free, to order them again, but it was no use.

“Who dared harm the Mistress of Delrose in her own domain?” he asked, sweeping his cold gaze to the maids around him. He held his power in check, but they seemed frozen, nonetheless. The maids had believed the Duke of Winter to have softened since his trip to the warm region, but the Duke who subdued even the fiercest northern winds now stared at them with colder eyes than ever before.

“I am curious,” he continued, sneering, “as to how security was managed on the 7th floor.”

He went to Ilyin’s side. Her breathing was faint, but Aden caught no smell of death about her. He took her hand, felt the quick, weak pulse within.

“Herbs?” he asked.

“We’ve run out of the herbs we got from the warm region,” a maid responded. “It took too long to stop the first bleeding….”

Ilyin’s wound was covered in white sheet. Aden carefully laid it aside. He steeled himself at the sight of her wound, willing himself not to freeze the whole room.

A large scar of parallel ran across her stomach. Aden could tell it was made by no weapon. It was a claw mark.

The shallower cuts had closed into scars already, but one deeper wound remained, and from this she still bled. Ilyin wasn’t the Duke of Winter – even with the herbs, her healing could only be sped so much.

“When was the ambush?” he asked.

“At dawn, Majesty,” one of the maids said. Aden’s gaze snapped to her.

“And Etra?” he asked. As much as he cared about Delrose, Aden didn’t know most of the maids’ names, but he knew her. He’d known her since she was part of the knight order – no, even before that. Etra’s loyalty went back far indeed.

“She went to the warm region for more herbs,” the maid responded.

Going for more medicine, he thought. But at this rate …

He closed his eyes, shut out the thought. He couldn’t let himself think it would be too late.

“At dawn,” he repeated.

“Yes, Majesty,” the maid said. “Etra found her while ma’am was sleeping.”

Something was off with the maid’s report. Aden examined Ilyin’s wound again. It definitely didn’t come from a weapon. He thought it could be from a beast’s claws, but it didn’t seem large enough. It looked more like it was made by the fingernails of a strong man. He carefully put his own hand over the scars.

Yes, more like a human hand than any beast’s paw.

“The angle,” he muttered, “it doesn’t seem as though it happened when she was lying down.”

No doubt the objective was to kill. If someone had attacked Ilyin when she was lying asleep in her bed, they would likely have aimed for a more vital part. This was a rake across the stomach – and a shallow one at that, as though the attacker couldn’t quite make the mark.

But shallow as it was, the wound was big enough to subdue Ilyin. If the assailant left her unconscious but alive … that was stranger.

He chewed his lip thoughtfully.

“There was no sign of a struggle?” he asked.

“No, none at all, Majesty,” the maid answered.

That meant Ilyin had likely been asleep when attacked. But how could that be at this angle?

“The wound suggests she was standing,” he said.

“Her sheets were undisturbed. There was no sign of her getting out of bed,” the maid said, almost hesitant to dispute the Duke of Winter.

If the attack happened as the wound suggested, she would have to have fallen backwards on the bed, but she was found under the sheets – how?

“The knights searched for the attacker, but there’s been no trace of anyone outside so far,” the maid reported.

That they couldn’t even find who had done this … Aden sighed. Icy cold creeped into his head. Ilyin cared so much for these people, the loyal Delrose, but they couldn’t keep her safe. He gently took Ilyin’s pale hand.

“When did Etra go for the herbs?” he asked.

“It hasn’t been half a day, Majesty”

The maid reported they had used winter herbs in desperation, without side effects so far. Ves wasn’t sure what complications there might be from that, but she had to make the choice to try and save Ilyin’s life.

“Half a day…” he breathed.

Too late.