Page 108 of Poisoned Kingdom
My jaw tightened. I wasn’t Tova’s friend, but for the pain his imprisonment had caused Roksana, I would ensure Mlot paid for this. My thoughts of revenge stopped abruptly when theheavy door was thrown open and Sana walked in, freezing in the doorway.
I moved to intercept her, but as if my movement spurred her to action, Roksana sucked in a lungful of air and rushed towards the still figure on the table.
‘Tova! I’m here. I found you, tinkerer. Please . . . please open your eyes. Please, talk to me . . . Tova!’ Tears streamed down her face as she wrapped her arms around the dwarf, cuddling him as if she hadn’t noticed his dirty clothes and the layer of filth that covered his body.
‘Please step away, my lady,’ the healer said, gently pulling her away from the table. ‘We need to prepare him. His hand needs to be removed if he is to live.’
‘What?! Removed?’ Sana stared at the healer in horror. ‘But his work . . . He needs both hands. You can’t just chop one off.’
‘If I don’t, he will die.’
The man was blunter than I’d like, but Sana didn’t struggle when he pulled her away, thrusting her in my direction. I instinctively wrapped my arms around her. She was shaking, but as I tried to take her to a different room, she looked at me in such a way that I instantly knew not even a dragon could force her to leave.
We watched as they stripped him of his dirty clothes, leaving only a modesty wrap around his hips. Hot tears fell on my hands as Sana silently cried, her gaze sliding over his swollen flesh covered with colourful bruises. Tova had been beaten, starved, and gods knew what else, and the more injuries that appeared as they removed the filth from his skin, the more Sana stiffened in my embrace.
When he was prepared, and the healer had placed his instruments on the table, drawing sigils to aid in the procedure, the shimmer of aether caught my attention. My skin prickled in a wave of goosebumps, but it hadn’t come from the healer. Smalljolts of energy sparked where I touched Roksana’s bare skin. It felt like the air before a storm, heavy with tension, and my heart sped up with the prickle of fear.
‘Sana?’ I whispered, tightening my grip.
She raised her head, looking at me with eyes that had lost all humanity. I’d seen that look once before—the day she’d struck me with the hairpin. I wasn’t even certain if she could see me as green fire danced in the depths of her eyes. Her breath came in laboured pants while something moved around us, an invisible tide shifting, pushing me away when she took a step forward.
The healer frowned, looking around in confusion before shaking his head and leaning down to make the first cut, hissing when a red welt appeared on his hand as if a whip had struck it. My ears popped, briefly muffling all sound, but it did nothing to ease the pressure of her magic filling the room.
‘No!’ Her voice echoed around us, hollow and emotionless, freezing us in place.
The sound of steel hitting the stone reverberated in total silence when the healer dropped the knife. He retreated in haste, eyes wide and filled with terror as she approached the examination table. Sana took the mangled remnant of the dwarf’s hand in hers, and the scent of lilac and honey overpowered the stench of decay.
The pressure dropped, letting us move. I stepped towards Roksana when the clattering of falling instruments snapped my attention to the old man. The healer pressed his hands to his chest, looking at Roksana as if she were a monster come to devour us, his pale lips whispering a single word.
‘Vivamancer.’
Chapter 38
Roksana
The healer’s clinic should have smelled different. With all the ingredients on the shelves, a polished wooden table for patients, and meticulously scrubbed floors, it should have been a place of peace and healing, but right now, it was anything but. With so many people crammed inside, it was pure chaos.
Tova’s hand hung limply from mine, the slimy flesh peeling under my touch. I didn’t know what to do, but I couldn’t let him lose it.
He’s resilient, and the healer said it’ll save his life.
The voice in my head sounded reasonable, but I was past reason. Tova would eventually adapt and overcome thedisability, but I couldn’t stand another man losing a part of themselves because they’d helped me.
‘Not fucking happening,’ I whispered through my tears.
The power that had awakened inside me once again silenced the voices in the room, allowing me to focus on my injured friend. I may not have known what to do, but the aether surrounding me felt almost sentient as it seethed.
I recognised the emerald inferno that had stopped the healer. It was the pressure I’d felt all my life—the desire, the need to touch the power, to feel it coursing through me . . . and now, for the first time, it had answered my call.
Tova’s hand twitched in my grasp before his fingers hung limply again. I looked down, battling the stench of gangrene threatening to overpower my senses.
If I can purge the pus seeping from his wounds, it would stop poisoning the rest of his body. Poisoning . . . If I treat this like it’s poison . . .
An idea emerged, and I didn’t question the inspiration. Anything was better than sitting here uselessly watching him die. I inhaled, shaking with an emotion I couldn’t identify, and focused on Tova's life energy. It felt wrong—corrupted by the sickness that consumed his flesh. I called to it, following my instincts, accepting the poison as my own, welcoming it, but the putrid liquid resisted.
‘Fuck. No, not like that . . . I need to merge with it first,’ I muttered, preparing myself. I wove my aether into the tainted strands in his body, just like I had for Jagon’s apprentice.
Agony burned through my chest, my free hand squeezing into a fist so tight that my nails drew blood, and I stifled a moan.I can control this.I’m no longer a clueless, uneducated apprentice. Pain will not defeat me,I told myself over and over again until my despair gave way to sharp focus.
