“It started because of the mild winter,” Ryne explained as he relaxed in his chair and enjoyed a rich cup of tea.
They had moved to one of the king’s private rooms. He was surrounded by said king and all of his high-ranking officials, yet he didn’t show the slightest sign of fear as he casually continued at his own pace.
When news had arrived that a man calling himself Misha’s uncle had appeared in the castle, Ryan had been in the middle of yet another emergency meeting concerning the plague. The news had come as a shock, but the moment Ryan heard that this purported uncle of hers had the same blond hair and green eyes as the People of the Forest, he’d broken into a sprint.
When he’d arrived at Misha’s room to see this stranger glaring down at a crying Misha, Ryan had instinctively thrown himself between them. He’d been able to clearly see the red mark on Misha’s cheek. Ryan had scowled at him but had been met with an amused smile in return.
“Misha, is this really your uncle?”
Misha hurriedly nodded, taken aback by the unfamiliar chill in Ryan’s tone. She then realized he couldn’t see her with his back turned, so she quickly spoke up. “Yes, he is. I can vouch for him. Don’t worry, he’s not just some intruder.” She could see Tris and Geord standing at the door, their expressions intense.
“‘Just some intruder’? That’s not a nice way of putting it,” Ryne said, clearly enjoying the situation.
“However, the fact that you are in the heart of the castle without permission does make you an intruder.” Ryan was still scowling.
“I just pretended I was an apothecary who’d been summoned to the capital, and they let me in without another word,” Ryne said, merciless despite his smile. “I know things are pretty rough right now, but still, your security could use some work.”
“Uncle Ryne!” Misha cut him off. “I’m terribly sorry. Please forgive his rudeness. He has information on the Red Eye plague.”
Misha’s words hit the room like a bombshell. There was nothing the people in that room wanted more than what Misha claimed Ryne had to offer.
“This room is a bit small. Let’s talk somewhere else,” Ryan instructed, likely thinking of the many officials who’d followed him to Misha’s room but couldn’t fit inside.
“Yeah, it’ll save me the headache if I only have to explain it once. But actually, I haven’t eaten anything since last night. Mind giving me something to snack on too?” Ryne didn’t have a hint of shame, prompting Misha to start silently shoving him out of the room. Now that he had reverted to the carefree uncle in her memories—no sign of the coldness he had shown on his arrival—she could allow herself a moment of relief.
They needed a table if Ryne was to eat something, so the castle staff swiftly prepared a room that could house the large number of officials that wanted to be present. Something of a bizarre tea party then began to unfold.
“You have those large white birds that fly through from the north at the start of winter, right?”
“You mean the arkles? What about them?” Ryan asked.
Every year in late autumn or early winter, there would be a week when the birds could be seen flying south to flee the coming cold. Redford was roughly the halfway point of their journey, and from there, the birds continued their flight across the sea to another continent. Come spring, they would return north to avoid the harsh summers in the south. They were mostly white, with bright red feathers adorning their heads. Their beautiful appearance drew no small number of people to come observe them at the lake during their short visits.
“Yeah, I bet they were at the lake all winter. I imagine some of them felt that Redford was warm enough, so they didn’t want to bother heading any farther south,” Ryne said.
“True, we did receive reports that arkles were seen at the lake throughout the winter,” Tris murmured. “It was certainly a rare occurrence, but does it have anything to do with the plague?” Despite the calmness in his voice, there was doubt in his gaze that he couldn’t quite hide. They were supposed to be talking about the Red Eye plague, not talking about birds over tea.
Grinning at Tris’s inability—or more likely, unwillingness—to hide his irritation, Ryne continued. “Those birds carry the Red Eye plague in their stomachs.” A murmur went through the gathered crowd. “So they’re called arkles here? In the north, they’re known as akults. The indigenous people who live up there occasionally come across a rare disease that matches the symptoms of your Red Eye plague. The cause is a parasite that lives in the stomachs of the arkles.” Ryne bit into an egg sandwich while those gathered shared bewildered expressions.
Conan finally broke the silence. “So, you’re positing that the parasite has somehow moved from the birds to people? But the arkles are here every year. Why is it so different this time?”
Ryne swallowed, returning Conan’s gaze. “That’s where the warm winter comes in. The arkles aren’t the only ones who were thrown off by it. The karas harvest went really well this year, didn’t it? And I bet they were bigger than average too?”
Ryan shot a glance to a man sitting in the corner of the room.
“Indeed,” the minister reported. “We have many reports of prices for karas dropping due to oversupply.”
Misha recalled the squirming, lizard-like creatures she had seen in that bucket. Even Yuu and Teto had been bragging about catching so many this year. It certainly seemed like the harvest was going well.
“What does the karas harvest have to do with this?” Misha asked.
Ryne nodded as he picked up a sweet yet savory meat sandwich. “When the water cools to a certain point, the karas burrow into the mud and hibernate—kind of like frogs or snakes. Once the water warms up, they wake up and start feeding and reproducing. But this year, the water never got cold enough to send them into hibernation. For the same reason, there was plenty of food for them still around. As a result, the karas continued reproducing through the winter, so they grew up bigger and faster than usual.”
“That explains why the karas harvest was so good, but...” Misha left the question in the air as Ryne took a big bite out of his sandwich.
Ryne frowned at her. “You’ve really lost your touch, haven’t you? You don’t get it yet?”
Misha wilted slightly at her uncle’s obvious disappointment.
“We have some birds, which were only supposed to be here for a few days, and the karas, who were supposed to be in hibernation. Thanks to the warm weather, these two species that should never interact spent all winter together.”
“So...the karas were infected by the parasite?” Tris interjected for the downcast Misha.
Nodding as he took a gulp of tea, Ryne turned to Tris. “Until now, it was a rare disease that only occurred in a secluded group of indigenous people in the north, so we hadn’t been able to study it very well. It took a while even for us to figure out what was going on. Just recently, we discovered that the parasite doesn’t seem to survive in fish. When we considered the problems that plague victims have with their lungs, and that fish breathe entirely differently, we concluded that was an important detail. Karas, though, are able to survive both underwater and on land. This all proved a fertile breeding ground for the parasite. Droppings from the birds held eggs of the parasite, which the karas ate, or the fish they fed on did. Either way, the parasite then thrives inside the karas. And once those karas are eaten by humans, the parasite continues to grow.”
The room was silent. None of them could come to grips with the revelation laid out before them. That was understandable—it was hard to grasp learning a food that they commonly ate was actually deadly poisonous.
Misha was the first to recover from the shock. “Then why am I okay? I haven’t eaten a lot of karas, but I have had some.”
“Indeed. Karas is a common food here in the capital. It would be quite difficult to find someone in the city who hasn’t eaten any. I’ve eaten plenty myself,” Conan added, getting nods from many around the room.
Having polished off the food in front of him, Ryne picked up his freshly refilled tea with a deep breath. “The person who was researching this did it out of curiosity after hearing about the plague that hit Redford last time, which means none of us ever saw any actual victims of the plague for ourselves. So, this is entirely speculation...but it probably depends on how the karas is prepared.”
“How so?”
“Parasites in general are very weak to heat. Any reasonable amount of cooking will kill them. But you eat karas raw, don’t you?”