Page 59 of The Curse of Golden Blood
"Close isn't good enough."
He paused, lips pressed together. Then he slipped the manuscript back into the drawer and brushed his hands on his trousers.
"We're doing our best," he said softly.
My hands curled into fists. My fingernails cut crescents into my palms. "Maybe I should find another healer, then. One who will actually—"
His eyes narrowed, and something dark rose in them. "I've been curing your people for the last two hundred years, warlord. I think I know a cure when I see one. Which may very well not exist. Maybe if I had more time to study the rot, it could be—"
"There is no time, Varlath," I barked. "And at this rate, everyone will be dead and rotting before we make any progress."
He sighed, shaking hishead. "There is... one way."
"One way?" I felt hope for the first time in decades. "What is it?"
He cleared his throat and walked past me to the shelves, where he straightened a jar and refused to meet my gaze. "The source of her immunity lies in the blood,” he said at last. “But blood alone would not free it. What shields her from the rot is anchored in the heart, carried in every beat.”
The words struck like a hammer blow.
“To take it,” he went on, quieter now, “the heart must be lifted from her chest while it still lives.”
He was looking at me. Waiting. I swallowed. Swallowed again.
"Can it be done without killing her?"
Varlath was quiet for a long, long moment.
"Not likely."
"Is there no other way?"
"None."
I turned away and ran a hand through my hair, pacing the length of the room. I should have expected this. There was always a cost. Always.
I tugged at my cuffs, smoothing the fabric over and over. After two hundred years, I shouldn't have been able to feel. To grieve. To hurt. So why couldn't I stop my heart from ripping in two?
fifteen
A Face the Years Forgot
Miralyte
Theworldwasstillhalf-asleep when I woke, the sky outside my window painted in the faded blues and grays that belonged to the hour before dawn. Somewhere below, the distant chime of glass wind-bells sang in the currents above the clouds.
I dressed quietly, each layer of fabric a small shield against the chill that had settled into my bones these past weeks. Riden would be waiting for me in the healing dome. The boy’s smile—thin, but stubborn—had become my compass in this place. And for his sake, as well as my own, I wouldn't be late.
The hallway beyond my door smelled faintly of storm-oil and parchment. As I passed the open archway of the adjacent study, I slowed. The candlelight inside flickered over broadshoulders bent above a desk littered with scrolls. Zydar, awake as always before the court stirred. His head lifted when my shadow crossed the threshold.
I lingered at the doorway, knuckles brushing the frame in the faintest knock. "You promised the treatments would continue today," I said. My voice was quiet but edged.
"They will not."
I stepped inside, the floor cold beneath my bare feet. "You promised."
He didn’t look at me. "I decide when they’re safe, and they’re not. Not today, and probably not tomorrow either."
I should have stayed calm. Let him think his orders had registered. Let him think himself in control. But my heart stammered, and my breathing grew shallow and unsteady. Riden could die if I took a single day off, and I had promised I would help him. That, and Pelbie would be in trouble too.
