Page 201 of Alchemised
She was overwhelmingly thirsty.
Kaine was studying her calf where the spike ran through it.
“How do I heal this?”
She blinked sluggishly, the ceiling swirling overhead.
Think, Helena, you’ve taught healing before. “Numbing the area is the first step, but I don’t have enough blood to …”
Her words slurred away. Explaining the lack of saline and plasma expanders was too many words to string together. Did he even know how to numb? With the new healers, she’d use her resonance at the same time and guide them, so that they’d know what to look for.
She was so thirsty.
She shook her head. “I don’t think … It’s … tricky for beginners … nerves.”
Annoyance flashed across his face. “I did paralyse you once. I’m familiar with nerves.” His bare hand pressed just below her knee. “Here?”
She nodded and barely felt his resonance before her leg went numb. She drew several deep breaths, feeling less shaky now that she wasn’t distracted by pain.
“Um,” she said, swallowing, “you need to identify what’s damaged before you pull the spike out. Nerves, veins—I don’t think it went through the artery, but you should check. Might’ve fractured the bone. Blood flow’s easy to sense. Close the veins and arteries temporarily—not too long.”
Kaine was silent, his bare fingers pressed against her calf, and his eyes went out of focus. She couldn’t feel what he was doing, which would normally bother her, but right now she was not lucid enough to care properly.
He placed his hand on the spike. Despite being numb, she tensed, bracing herself for the grind of metal against tissue.
Rather than pull it out, he transmuted it. The metal rippled in his hand, shrinking out of the wound so that it didn’t drag or tear. Only a little blood spattered on the floor. He dropped the bar, studying the puncture with a critical eye.
“I don’t feel any trace metals left. Do I clean it?”
She nodded, starting to tremble even though the spike was out and the pain was gone. “There’s leftover carbolic dilution in my satchel.”
He rummaged through it and found the vial.
“Lucky I healed you,” she said as he wordlessly unscrewed it and poured the contents over the wound. It looked like water trickling through and joining the puddle of blood on the floor.
Then he began closing the puncture. She warned him to only perform the most basic regeneration, because she didn’t have the physical resources for more.
Gradually the hole in her leg was gone, replaced with delicate, extremely inflamed new tissue, and he partially removed the block on her nerves. Pain rolled through her like a wave. She’d need more healing, but this was enough to get her back.
She tried to rotate her foot, but the muscles weren’t intact enough. She could limp, though.
“Thank you.”
He didn’t acknowledge her, wiping his hands off on a handkerchief and pulling his gloves back on. He radiated impatience as she got up, favouring her left leg. There was a new sort of hardness about him.
Her head was light, but she felt less wobbly.
She touched the door, but her resonance was still just a gap, like a lost tooth. Her fingers skittered across the surface. Before she could say anything, she heard the mechanisms inside move, and the door clicked open.
She looked back, expecting to find Ferron behind her, but he was still across the room.
CHAPTER 40
Septembris 1786
DESPITE THE OUTPOST BEING RETAKEN, HELENA RETURNED the following week. Even with necrothralls patrolling, there was no better place to meet. Anywhere else in the city would have checkpoints maintained with living guards with long-term memories who’d inspect her papers every time she passed through. Helena was too memorably foreign looking to safely move in and out of enemy territory.
The Outpost, although Undying territory, was only being minimally patrolled by the necrothralls, something Helena would have known if she hadn’t been half asleep during the meeting.
