A HENRY STORY 2: Trials Of The Fallen Prince

IX. Doubts

After an hour and numerous epiphanies, Henry finally watched Luxa, Temp, and Gregor climb onto Nike's back. His head was spinning so violently that he could barely maintain his balance.

The cure was not the starshade, he repeated to himself over and over. Not the starshade. The mirror. Hamnet and Thanatos had . . . what had he meant? Thought Henry. What had they all meant? The plague . . .

Henry winced as he inadvertently bit his lip too hard. The jumble of thoughts in his mind was almost too much to handle, but as he observed Nike circling above them, with the children safely perched on her back, a strange sense of clarity washed over him.

A plague for a weapon, he thought. And he thought he also knew who had concocted it. There was but one person he thought to be capable of a feat like this . . . The person Hamnet had compared him to.

For a moment, Henry wondered if this changed anything. If he still wouldn't mind being compared to her now. Henry couldn't tell. All he knew was that Solovet had to be desperate if she took such measures . . . and that everything would depend on Luxa's ability to convince the council to provide the entire Underland with the cure. If they did not provide the cure as they had the sickness, especially to the gnawers . . . Henry gritted his teeth. The sheer magnitude of casualties would extinguish any remaining hope for peace in the foreseeable future.

At least Luxa had assured him that their agreement stood—if they had the antidote in Regalia, they would send it to the Death Rider for his services at the Vineyard. He pictured her dire face as she had stared up at him and proclaimed that he had done them a great service and that his deed would not be forgotten.

"Fly you high!"

Henry jumped when Ripred shouted after Nike and quickly added his own "Fly you high!"

"Run like the river, Ripred! Fly you high, Death Rider!" Gregor replied. Luxa was still as stone . . . Not that Henry could blame her. If his people had developed and unleashed such a weapon behind his back, he'd be seething with wrath.

Henry and Ripred stood side by side as they watched them disappear out of sight, back into the Vineyard. They would be fine, Henry told himself. They knew what to expect now, and they knew to cover their faces and hold their breaths. They—

"So, Lapblood and I better get back now and spread the word," said Ripred. "What about you?"

Henry slowly turned to him and drew a blank. The vaccine . . . Thanatos and his . . . No. Henry shook his head and jumped when the flier appeared beside him. "I . . ." He stared at Ripred, and suddenly something surfaced from the depths of his mind, something that made his objective crystal clear: "Kismet."

"So," snarled Ripred. "You will actually try your luck with her?"

"What are you talking about?" asked Thanatos next to him.

"He did not tell you?" asked Ripred.

"When would I have?" Henry crossed his arms. "After we finished speaking, the cutters attacked almost immediately."

"Right, right." Ripred sighed theatrically.

"Move your hide!" called Lapblood, who waited a few paces behind him. "We should go before any more unforeseen incidents."

"Oh, there won't be any incidents anymore," replied Ripred. "The supposed cure is gone. There is nothing to come for anymore. Perhaps you want to rest for an hour or so before we leave."

Lapblood grumbled but finally understood that Ripred was right. So she settled in the middle of the barren plain, and Ripred turned his eyes back on Henry and Thanatos. "Let me give you the short version," he said to the flier, and in brief words, he explained what he had proposed to Henry. "And so, I told him to travel to the Firelands and seek out a hermit gnawer named Kismet. If anyone can ever help him, it is her," he concluded his tale.