“I agree. What can we do about it?”
Sybil came to stand in front of the throne. “It is essential that we uncover the truth of the aftermath of the fire. If Her Highness is alive, it is your right to know, as both our queen and the child’s only relative. Otherwise, how else can you possibly seek to protect her from further harm?” Sybil’s gray eyes glinted when she said protect, and Levana suspected that her head thaumaturge might know exactly why Levana was so set on finding out whether or not Selene was alive, but she also didn’t think Sybil was too bothered by the truth. After all, Levana was the one who had raised her to her current position, bypassing several candidates with more experience. Some days she wondered if Sybil was the only person in her entourage who was truly loyal to her.
“Dr. Eliot seems to be under the impression that my interest in Selene’s welfare is not born out of loving concern. How can I know that she is telling us everything when she seems set on keeping something hidden?”
Sybil smiled. “We thaumaturges are trained with certain methods of extracting information, even from those unwilling to give it. Perhaps Dr. Eliot and I should have a more private conversation.”
Levana stared at her, wondering if she wanted to know what these extraction techniques might consist of, but almost as quickly recognizing that she would go to any lengths to find out the truth of her niece and what had happened in the nursery that day.
Besides, Sybil herself didn’t seem opposed.
“Yes,” she said, sitting taller. “I think that is a necessary course of action, Sybil. Though I fear other people on staff won’t be as understanding.”
“We will make them understand. After all, it is rather peculiar that Dr. Eliot was the first trained doctor to reach the child, and yet she wasn’t able to rescue the girl, even after finding a heartbeat? The grounds for suspicion are obvious. It only makes sense that we would further investigate this matter.”
Feeling her anxiety start to ease, Levana nodded. “You are entirely correct.” She dug her fingernail into the carved ornamentation of the throne. “And once we have learned all we can from Dr. Eliot, I think it will benefit us to talk to this Logan Tanner as well. I want to know everything about the results of that fire.”
Sybil bowed. “I will see that it is done, My Queen.”
Dr. Eliot was taken into custody the next day for further questioning. Levana waited for Sybil’s reports, having no interest in the details, but day after day passed in which the doctor told them nothing of value.
Then, two weeks later, before Levana could find a way to question the second doctor, this Logan Tanner, without raising further suspicion … he disappeared.
*
Levana refused to be haunted by the ghosts of dead children and sisters, princesses and queens. In the year following Selene’s death, she leaped into her role as the new, true queen of Luna.
She continued to strengthen the army, allocating as many resources as she could to allow the scientists to perfect the bioengineering processes. The first group of soldiers began their training, and they were even more miraculous than Levana had imagined. Half man, half beast, all brutality and viciousness. Levana made it her duty to become well acquainted with the surgeries and training of the soldiers. It was a beautiful sight, when the first boys emerged from their suspended-animation tanks, still dazed and awkward with their new instincts and mutated bodies.
And hungry. They awoke so very, very hungry.
She came to know the research team well, headed by the infamous Sage Darnel, though Levana was not as impressed with the old man as she’d expected to be after hearing of his genius for so many years. When she met him for the first time, she could think only of how this man had fathered a shell, and it took all her willpower to listen to his unenthusiastic explanations of the surgical procedures without making snide comments on his worthless offspring.
Meanwhile, the first carriers of the disease were sent to Earth. Levana had heard, years before during her parents’ reign, that some of the citizens from the outer sectors would find ways to steal away in diplomatic or reconnaissance vessels heading to Earth, or pay what they could afford to persuade a supply pilot to whisk them away, leaving their life of labor behind. It was a selfishness that Levana couldn’t fathom—to think that any of her people would consider only themselves and abandon the country that needed them.
Her parents had always turned a blind eye to these fugitives, perhaps not understanding that their society would crumble fast if they could not hold on to their limited labor supply.