The first messenger arrived missing half his face.
He collapsed on the marble floors just past the western gate, blood mixing with soot, his lungs rattling like cracked glass. The guards barely managed to catch him before he crumpled completely. His tongue was swollen, lips blackened, and yet he still tried to speak.
"Smoke," he rasped. "It came from the mountains. We thought—" He coughed, spraying blood. "—thought it was fog."
By the time the physician arrived, he was already dead.
The second messenger made it farther, all the way to the receiving hall, but his skin was blistered down to the bone, and the stink of him lingered like something rotten had crawled beneath the silk carpets. He didn't scream. He just sat there, twitching, as his muscles slowly gave up.
By the third one, the Crown Prince had stopped asking for names.
