Only when she was sure none of her thoughts showed on her face, did Eva send Chirron a worried look. "Will Ghost be alright?"
He was so still, lying under a light blanket. Sweat beaded on his forehead.
This—Eva didn't have words for it. Only that it made her feel awful—and angry. Useless because she hadn't stopped it.
"Wipe that look off your face," Ghost said, not opening his eyes.
"Ghost." Eva threw the covers back, swinging her legs toward the ground.
Chirron pointed at her, a warning on his face. Guiltily, Eva put her legs back on the bed and pulled the cover over them again.
Ghost snickered, the sound tired but holding some of his normal slyness. "I see the dictator has gotten to you."
Chirron slanted a look at the man. "I take it I'm the dictator in this scenario."
Ghost blew a raspberry. "Don't tell me you're unaware of what your patients call you, healer."
"Bold to insult the man responsible for keeping you alive."
Ghost opened his eyes to give Chirron a tired smile. "I'm not going to die from a bug bite. Don't you worry."
Bug bite, Eva's ass. Right now, Ghost looked like he was on death's door with the faintest of touches capable of sending him into the abyss.
Chirron raised his gaze to the tent's ceiling. "I don't know why I ever chose this path. Spare me a warrior's bravado. They're always more likely to be the source of their own destruction than anything they find out there."
"If that's what you think, you've been hanging out with the wrong warriors. I'm going to live forever. Everyone knows it." Ghost exhausted the last of his energy, his eyes slipping closed.
Eva leaned forward, worried he'd fallen unconscious again. "Is there nothing you can do for him?"
"I've already done quite a lot," Chirron said. "You should have seen him before I treated him. He had one foot in death's domain."
Eva wasn't entirely convinced he didn't still have that foot on death's side of the divide.
"All this from a cicada bite?" Eva asked, giving the board a disturbed look.
"We're in the Highlands. The unexpected is the norm," Chirron explained. "The venom from the bite isn't our biggest problem. Rather, it's the thousands of eggs the cicada injected into his blood stream."
At Eva's startled glance, Chirron allowed himself a bitter smile.
"I've given him something that should wash out the majority of the eggs. It should neutralize any problems, but it'll leave him weak in the meantime."
Eva nodded slowly, knowing that as simple as the treatment sounded it was anything but. She doubted anyone but Chirron would have been able to come up with it this quickly. More likely, they would have lost several before stumbling onto a method to deal with the eggs.
"It's lucky we got to him in time. From my research and looking at the two red backs, I suspect that if allowed to hatch the offspring will devour their host from the inside."
If right, it would mean the red backs weren't eaten after death but rather while they were still alive. No wonder she'd sensed madness in the mate. What a horrifying fate.
Chirron studied Ghost with a dispassionate expression. "I suspect it's an extremely awful way to go."
Eva's face was pensive as her gaze settled on Ghost. She didn't think she was up to losing another friend so soon after the last.
"Don't worry," Chirron assured her. "He will be fine."
Eva chose to believe him.
"Why didn't the pathfinder recognize them?" Eva asked, her mind teasing at an answer she couldn't quite grasp.
He really should have. This was the Highlands. His own back yard. Moreover, Reece struck her as being nearly as well informed as Shea. If these cicadas were native to this place, he should have known about them. By rumor if nothing else.
