Her face scrunched up as she began to cry, wailing at the top of her lungs like an infant. As she fell into Ryne’s lap, he gently stroked her hair. And he didn’t stop until the last of the tears was done.
“Okay, I think that’s enough self-reflection for now. Maybe I should go check on my other results,” Ryne said as he got to his feet and handed Misha a cup of tea to mitigate the hiccups her crying had brought on.
She took a long drink of the now cold beverage before giving Ryne a quizzical expression. “What other results?” After all that crying, her brain wasn’t quite keeping up, so she was having difficulty thinking about the words Ryne was saying. As a result, her thoughts slipped right out of her mouth.
Ryne turned a wicked grin on his niece. “The results of giving the king that medicine, of course.”
“Huh?” His words seemed to bounce right off her, leaving her still just as much in the dark.
“Come on. Such a small amount of medicine in such a critical situation is going to cause a huge conflict, don’t you think? That princess isn’t the only important person who’s gotten sick, right?”
“You mean...” As Misha considered his words, her expression grew gradually darker.
As the man with the most authority in the kingdom, Ryan likely didn’t have to worry about being attacked for the medicine. But with so many people that had so much to lose, it wouldn’t be surprising if someone tried something stupid.
“Why did you give it to him, then?!” Misha shouted, jumping angrily from her seat.
“Come on, let’s go see! I wonder where he is now...” Ryne casually walked out of the room, that wicked grin back on his face.
Misha ran to follow him. “He’s probably meeting with Tris or with Doctor Conan. Why are you walking so slowly?! We should be hurrying!”
“Come on, I don’t remember raising a girl rude enough to run in the halls.” As much as Misha tried to push him from behind, Ryne’s leisurely pace didn’t increase one bit. “We don’t have to rush. I’ve got someone watching everything. Besides, this was part of the deal to get the recipe for the medicine in the first place.” He clapped the alarmed Misha on the shoulder, urging her to calm down.
“The recipe? What are you talking about? Are you hiding something?”
“I wouldn’t call it hiding. My specialty is surgery, remember? Infectious diseases are out of my realm of expertise. So I had a friend I met on the way here tell me about the Red Eye plague.”
Ryne continued making his way through the palace, taking each turn like he knew the place as well as the back of his hand. Misha looked up at him questioningly as she kept pace alongside him.
“Haven’t you heard that the People of the Forest are really particular about the people they deal with? This Ryan guy’s behavior right now is probably going to determine whether Redford falls for real this time.”
Misha frowned at how flippantly her uncle spoke about the fate of the kingdom. “I don’t understand what you mean. Why would Ryan’s actions lead to Redford being destroyed?”
“Because if my friend doesn’t like what they see, they’re going to turn tail and run. We’re pretty selfish people when it comes down to it. If we like someone, we help them. If not, we don’t. That’s pretty straightforward, don’t you think?”
“That’s terrible!” Misha shouted back. There was no way she could accept that the whims of one person would decide life or death for so many others. If that was how things worked, how did Ryne have any basis for criticizing her earlier?
“Okay, calm down. The difference here is whether the medicine is going to come in by national or private channels. It’s not that big a deal. The only thing really at risk is trust in the royal family.”
Misha froze in place, mouth working but no words making their way out. The fact that her uncle sounded like this was all in good fun for him was just too much for her. Ryne made no move to wait for her as he continued through the halls at his usual pace.
“But come on, this is the king who’s taken such good care of you, right? You should trust him.”
“Of course I trust him! He’s definitely going to do the right thing!” she declared, glaring at her uncle from behind him. Then she broke into a run to catch up to him.