Page 167 of The Eye of the Fifth
It wasn’t fine. She didn’t want to leave this room, didn’t want to socialise with anyone else but him. The sexhadleft her yearning formore, and whether Kawai knew it was a method of avoidance of everything else, he never said.
Aside from fighting with Mankar, it was the only time her mind was not running rampant, clouded instead by pleasure.
But then it was over. And those intrusive thoughts came blazing back as though they’d never left.
???
Gedeon.
If there were a tipping scale to measure pain, Gedeon was sure he was firmly on the heavier side.
‘Goddess, you look like death,’ was Maida’s greeting as he stepped into the healer’s chambers the next afternoon. ‘You ought to see some sunlight.’
To even walk without wincing was a struggle, but he managed it, holding back his sigh of relief as he settled on the healer’s table. ‘Naal doesn’t want me outside. She doesn’t want the people of Phaenon to see me.’
Whether Maida agreed with thepramah’sprecautions or not, Gedeon couldn’t tell. ‘You’re running a fever,’ she murmured, the backs of her fingers cool against his forehead. ‘Did you sleep at all last night?’
‘I tried.’
‘Did the tonic help?’
‘Somewhat.’ He refrained from telling her that the itching had disturbed him as perpetually as the pain, keeping him awake deep into the early hours of the morning.
‘Lie on your front,’ Maida instructed. He did so, trying not to grimace with the movement. He was unsure if he was successful or not, but the healer’s static silence said enough. She then handed him something she hadn’t before: a leather bit.
Gedeon placed it between his teeth without a word.
His heart was racing before her hands were even in place, but then white light surged through his tightly shut eyelids as her magic attacked the parasite in his spine.
The vertebrae splintered.
Eyes streaming, voice growling, Gedeon lost himself in the agony.
Surely he would never walk again after this.
Wood crushed beneath his fingers as a scream rose in his throat-
‘Breathe, Gedeon!’came Maida’s cry. ‘Breathe, boy! I can feel it, I think I can almost… oh!’
Fire erupted at Gedeon’s hands.
Maida’s magic withdrew instantly, the flames guttering with it.
The pain remained. ‘My back…’ Gedeon gasped, vision blurring. ‘My back.’
‘Drink,’ Maida said before forcing a cold liquid down his throat. He almost gagged at the foul, familiar taste, but then he was swallowing something else that masked it, a strong woody liquor that burned as it went down.
He lay there for a few moments, his breath flowing heavily as the tonic took hold, phasing the pain into that itch. When the agony had significantly subsided, he gently pushed himself to sit on the edge of the bench, grateful, at least, that his spine was still intact. Maida’s firm, guiding hand stayed on his shoulder.
‘Your table,’ he said hoarsely, staring at the scorched, splintered wood. ‘I’m sorry.’
She waved him off. ‘I can get a new one. How do you feel?’
‘Like my magic is not mine,’ Gedeon muttered. ‘It feels foreign. Like it needs to get out.’
Maida’s expression was disturbed. ‘I thought I almost had it. It didn’t fight me this time, but rather indulged in my presence. As though it might use my own magic as a conduit for release.’
Gedeon resisted the urge to swallow. ‘Do you have something to nullify it? I cannot let that happen again. I might have hurt you.’
