Stolen by the Rebel King
Chapter 376: Worsening Health

Chapter 376: Worsening Health

Daphne was oblivious to the secret conversations between Nereus and Nathaniel; her focus was now mostly on ensuring Zephyr’s recovery.

It took a week of meetings and outings to ensure that the people from Wethstadt had enough to eat and to reassure them that nothing like this would ever happen again. The crown opened its coffers to help with the rebuilding, and slowly but steadily, Wethstadt began to regain its lively character as the townspeople returned to their daily lives.

However, there was one particular individual who hadn’t recovered. Daphne frowned as she placed yet another cold wet towel on Zephyr’s forehead. Zephyr groaned in relief, but his eyes didn’t open at all.

There were wet towels placed all around him, and healers went around replacing them the moment they heated up. Blanche even offered to use her powers to provide an endless supply of freezing cold water to cool him down, an offer Daphne thought was unnecessary in the beginning, but soon found herself agreeing to it.

To say Daphne was worried would be a vast understatement. Sirona had diagnosed him with a cold and claimed that he would recover in a week or two, but that was not the case.

He showed some improvement in the first few days, whining and complaining about his body’s various aches and how his wings were balding. He even asked if Daphne would still love him if he became as bald as a plucked chicken.

Daphne merely laughed and cooed over him, making sure he got enough to eat and rest. Nereus dropped by for a visit and said that if Zephyr could whine so much, he must be on the road to recovery.

Then, as if to taunt Nereus’s words, Zephyr’s condition deteriorated rapidly. The few feathers lost that Sirona thought were due to his molting season turned out to be the tip of the iceberg. Zephyr was losing feathers by the handful, the same way trees shed their leaves in the autumn. Sirona collected them by the bagful and said it was to see if she could find a reason for the illness.

To make matters worse, Zephyr’s fever refused to break. He spent days in a feverish haze, unable to keep down any food for more than a few hours.

Daphne was so close to losing her mind.

"Was Silas’s bite poisonous? Oh god, what if it had something that was poisonous to griffins? Sirona, do you and Nathaniel still have no idea what could have caused it?"

Daphne nearly tugged her hair out at the thought as she paced around the infirmary, casting worried glances at Zephyr’s sleeping figure.

"We only know it’s another form of vigorous infection," Sirona said, her face pinched with unease. She didn’t like this mystery either. "We couldn’t tell anything after testing the feathers. There was nothing in the feathers that signified illness. Normally, feathers that have fallen would lose their color, smell foul, or simply misshapen. But Zephyr’s were fine."

"So he’s just balding, feverish, and unable to keep down food for no reason?"

"We’ll continue to find a cure," Sirona said. Prince Nathaniel had all but commandeered every relevant book in the library for this purpose.

Sirona saw the frantic look in Daphne’s eyes and tried to calm her down.

"If we managed to find a way to undo Jean Nott’s poisonous concoction, I see no reason we’d fail at treating Zephyr. In the meantime, we need you to help him to keep his strength up. Coax him to eat and drink, no matter how little. If we do not get nutrients into him, he will weaken so much that a cure may not even make a difference."

Daphne’s face paled and she nodded grimly, deciding to stalk to the kitchens to get her cooks to come up with something nutritious, yet palatable enough that Zephyr wouldn’t throw it up again.

Yet, it wasn’t working. Nothing was working. Zephyr kept some food down, but his condition did not improve.

Nathaniel and Sirona had pored over obscure medical texts, but there wasn’t much information about the care of griffins. There was more information about how to slay them.

Daphne could only laugh at the incredulity. Even under the section about killing them, there had been no mention of illnesses. After all, not many people were blessed to observe griffins or even raise them.

She wanted nothing more than to wake Silas’s sleeping head to demand for more information, but she knew deep down, that was a dead end. Silas knew nothing about his new abilities, only that he wanted none of them. Now, he was kept alive, yet asleep, by small amounts of Leonora’s blood.

And visiting Alistair’s head would be insanity.

***

"Maybe he should turn back into his griffin form and die already," Atticus grumbled to Sirona and Jonah privately in his office. "He’s wasting so much resources and taking up so much of Daphne’s time. At least as a griffin, he’ll take up less room in a coffin."

"Don’t let Daphne hear you say that," Jonah said warningly. "She’ll definitely divorce you."

"More importantly, we should be more careful," Sirona said quietly. Both men stared at her curiously, and she gestured to them to lean closer. "A week ago, Nereus was getting suspicious about his missing eye. He asked me why it was removed, and whether or not there could have been another solution to saving him."

Atticus and Jonah froze in surprise.

"What did you tell him?" Atticus asked.

"I’ve managed to allay his suspicions for now by claiming it was a life-threatening infection, but it’s best if we keep a low profile for the time being," Sirona warned. "So don’t go around saying things that can be misconstructed by your lovely wife!"

"Fine," Atticus grumbled, "Now, what about the feathers?"

"We tested the whole lot of them, but they don’t contain any trace of magical potential. Frankly, you could have plucked feathers off an owl or a chicken, and they would be just as useful. Atticus, it’s a dead end."

"Fuck," Atticus cursed. "Guess we don’t have a choice; the backup plan it is. How do you hope to keep that bird alive?"

Sirona’s eyes flashed with determination. "By turning him back into a bird to begin with."