Page 30 of Give the Dark My Love

The woman seemed better off—at first.

“It’s here,” she said, pulling her shirt down. Darkness bled over her heart. I kept my face schooled, but I was close enough to thewoman that I was certain she saw her own doom written in my eyes. There was nothing I could do to help her; she would either live or not, and only one in a hundred survived the Wasting Death when it infected the heart. Her fate fell to the gods and whether or not her body was strong enough to push the infected blood to a disposable limb.

I forced a cheerful smile on my face. “At least you don’t have any film over your eyes,” I said, lifting her eyelids to check. “If you did, that would mean the disease was in your brain. No cure then.”

The man sagged with relief. “See, you’ll be fine!” he told his wife, running to her side and clutching her hand.

Her eyes didn’t leave mine. I saw the question there, unasked as her husband knelt, his head over their clasped fingers, muttering a quick prayer. She wanted—needed—honesty. She would hold on if there was hope. But I didn’t know what to tell her.

The boy in the other bed moaned, and his mother flicked her fingers toward him. “Take care of my son,” she said.

I nodded, swallowing down the lump in my throat. The older boy, the patient’s brother, moved closer. “Are you going to do the magic?” he asked.

I smiled at him, and somehow I was able to pretend like this was a normal smile, a normal conversation. “It’s not magic,” I said. “It’s science. But itdoesfeel like magic.” In the hospital, I carried my crucible on a leather strap, looped to hold the golden vase. I also had a shoulder bag made of cloth-covered metal with a latched wooden door on the front. I set the bag down, opening the door and withdrawing a rat. The brother leaned over, fascinated, as I dropped the creature into my golden crucible.

“What’s your name?” I asked my patient.

“Jax.” His voice was barely audible. “Are you going to cut my legs off?”

There was no point in lying. The flesh had long since withered and died, the skin black and crackling, dark blood oozing in spots.

“Not me personally,” I said. “But amputation is likely.”

The boy breathed as if this news was a relief. His brother looked more upset by the possibility of it than him. Behind us, I heard their father start to cry.

“And who are you?” I asked his brother as I adjusted the crucible on a nearby table.

“Ronan,” the boy said in a small voice.

“Mrs. Rodham told me that you were all from a village to the north. I am, too. Which one are you from?”

“The daffodil gate.”

Mentally, I said a quick prayer of thanks. The villages behind the daffodil gate were on the other side of Hart, in the cliffs, about as far away from my village as it was possible to be.

“Jax,” I said, turning to my patient, “this isn’t going to hurt a bit. In fact, it’s going to make everything better.”

I chanted the runes quickly, watching them light up, shining through the golden crucible. The rat sitting in the base of the vessel clawed more frantically along the edges.

“What happens to the rat inside?” Ronan asked, peering into the crucible.

I thought about lying to the child to make the truth easier, but there was no point in that. Someone like Ronan was too surrounded by death to feel the balm of a lie. “The pain has to go somewhere. The rat will take it for your brother.”

“That’s mean,” Jax said, but his voice was already less tightly wound as I connected with his body, forming the bridge between him and the rat.

“I know,” I said.

“I don’t care,” Ronan said, his voice more forceful than before.

I concentrated on the task at hand. Alchemist Frue would likely pull this boy into surgery before the end of the day, but before that, at least, I could help ease the pain. I closed my eyes, focusing on the buzzing sensation of his life force. I tugged the pain from the boy’s body, and it passed through me, like a river rushing through reeds, and then I pushed the pain down, down, into the rat. The rodent screamed, but I blocked the noise out.

When I released my grip on both Jax and the crucible, the rat was alive, but barely. The creature’s tongue hung out, and it panted against the metal base of the vessel, its ragged breath casting little clouds against the gold. I tipped the crucible over, putting the rat back into the shoulder bag that served as its cage.

“Thank you,” Ronan said. Jax had slipped into a blissful, pain-free sleep, his body exhausted.

“And my wife?” the older man said, drawing my attention back to him. “Can you use the magic on her?”

I swallowed. Alchemy wouldn’t help her. Taking her pain away might take away her life, stilling her heart so much it quit pumping blood. It would be risky.

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