“My… friend. He’s in the Twilight Forest. He’s wounded… I think he has broken bones that have become infected.”
“Its difficult to diagnose someone from afar… can you bring him here?”
“I don’t think I can move him. Can you come to him?”
“I’m afraid I can’t—I’m needed at the castle.”
Mother above, she would pick the cleric that had some tie to the royal family. Vi briefly debated heading to the other cleric the men mentioned, but she didn’t want to waste time. “Please, I… I think he may die.”
Sarphos’s expression deepened into a frown. He lifted the counter where it was hinged on one side, and slipped through. There was barely enough room for them to stand side by side in the narrow shop.
“Tell me exactly what’s wrong, what symptoms he’s exhibiting, as much detail as you think would be necessary and then some.” Even as he spoke, his eyes were scanning the shelves, hands reaching for jars.
“He had something heavy fall on his chest,” Vi answered somewhat vaguely. She didn’t think going into the fact that they had been battling with a morphi—even a morphi the kingdom had exiled—would help her cause. “There’s a lot of bruising. I think at least one rib is broken. From there… lethargy, fever.”
“Infection, likely.” Sarphos grabbed three leaves from one jar, filled a small bottle with an inky substance from another, then two dried roots from a third. “Take these to him. He eats the leaves first, and then drinks the potion—butslowly. It’ll likely make him sick if he goes too quickly. But he does need to get it all down. And then have him chew on the roots for the pain as needed until I can get to him. Come back to me tonight and I’ll go out with you.”
Vi accepted Sarphos’s supplies, realizing two things at the exact same time. The first was that she had no way to pay for this. An Imperial “I owe you” was likely not going to cut it here. The second was that she had no idea how to get back to Taavin.
Sarphos was sidestepping away, already halfway the door.
“I don’t know how.” Vi hated how weak she sounded, and felt. She hated being forced to rely on the goodness in this stranger’s heart because she had no other option. “I don’t know how to get back to him.”
“You lost a dying man in the woods?” he asked incredulously.
“No, I don’t know how to get back to the woods.”
“What?”
“I’m not supposed to be here.” Vi pulled the cloth from her forehead.
Sarphos took a step back, and for a brief moment she was afraid he’d bolt for the door. He looked at her like she had begun speaking in tongues—like she was going to attack him at any moment.
“How are you here?” he whispered. “Only morphi are allowed in the Twilight Kingdom.” Well, that confirmed one of her suspicions.
“Were it not an emergency, I wouldn’t have trespassed on your lands,” she assured him, trying to emphasize she meant no harm. If he raised an alarm, Vi doubted she could escape in time. “I just want to get medicine, that’s all.”
“No.” He shook his head, still not taking his eyes off her. Like she was some kind of apparition. “Howare you here?”
“There was a tear in the… shift, I believe. I fell through.” That was technically correct. Still, Vi gripped her watch on instinct, remembering the full details of the ordeal.
“A tear in the shift? The shift doesn’t tear.”
“It can, and it is,” Vi insisted solemnly. “I doubt you’ll believe me if I tried to explain why, but—”
“What would a human know of the shift?”
“Frustratingly little.” The statement was somewhat snappish. But Vi would practically kill for a decent explanation of the morphi’s magic. “But I do know there are nefarious forces at play, and the world is rotting from the inside out.”
“I can’t say I believe you… But the fact that you’re here at all is proof enough something is amiss.” Sarphos looked her up and down. “Will you show me this tear you speak of?”
“Only if you help my friend. Come and heal him, and I’ll show it to you.”
Sarphos chuckled, and a small smile crossed his lips. In a world full of liars and backstabbers, the seemingly genuine kindness caught Vi off-guard.Don’t trust it,a voice in her mind cautioned. Everyone was out to get something. Everyone had a goal. And she had no idea what this man’s were or what he’d do to get them.
“I was going to help you anyway.” Sarphos pulled a bag from a cubby near the floor by the door. He took the items from her, and Vi begrudgingly released them. It felt like she was letting go of Taavin’s lifeline by relinquishing them back to him. “That’s what a healer does, you know… heal people. It’s my oath.”
“I’ll still show you the tear.” Vi much preferred a clear this-for-that agreement. The idea of giving someone good faith grated against her new base instincts, re-aligned by Jayme’s betrayal.
