“Yes.” He held her gaze. “There’s a chance.”
She crossed to him, her bare feet silent on the stone floor. Her hand covered his where it gripped the bottle, her fingers cold and trembling.
“Do it.”
“Jessa—”
“Whatever you need, whatever it takes.” Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. “I trust you.”
Three words. Three simple words that shouldn’t have felt like a knife between his ribs. She trusted him. This woman who barely knew him, who had every reason to be suspicious of his kind, who had fled her own people to take shelter with a Vultor exile—she trusted him.
He didn’t deserve it, but he would earn it.
“Keep her warm,” he said roughly. “Continue the breathing exercises and the herbal steam. Cool cloths on her forehead when the fever spikes, warm broth when she’s conscious enough to swallow. Don’t let her give up.”
“I won’t.”
“I mean it.” He caught her chin, tilting her face up to his. “She’s a fighter, your sister. But she’s tired. She’s been tired for along time. You need to remind her that there’s something worth fighting for.”
“How?”
“Tell her stories. Sing to her. Talk about the future—plans and dreams and all the things she’ll do when she’s well again.” His thumb brushed her cheek. “Make her believe it. Even if you don’t believe it yourself.”
Her breath hitched. “And what about you?”
“I’ll be in the workshop.” He released her and stepped back, already feeling the distance like a physical ache. “Don’t disturb me unless it’s urgent. I’ll need to concentrate.”
“For how long?”
He looked at the tiny bottle in his hand. At the impossible task before him.
“As long as it takes.”
The workshop had originally been a storage alcove—a natural indent in the cliff face that he’d expanded and enclosed during his first year on the mountain. He’d told himself it was just for keeping supplies dry. For storing herbs and roots and the occasional project.
He’d lied to himself even then.
The workbench ran along the back wall, cluttered with equipment he’d built from scraps and salvage over five years of self-imposed exile. A primitive distillation setup cobbled together from copper tubing and glass vessels. A heating element powered by carefully channeled geothermal energy.Stone mortars of varying sizes, their surfaces worn smooth from years of grinding ingredients he’d sworn he would never use.
Everything he needed to be what he’d promised himself he would never be again.
He closed the door behind him and got to work.
The first step was analysis—he needed to know what he was working with. Human medicine was different from Vultor remedies, but their species had similar enough physiologies that treatments could frequently cross over.
The pale blue liquid was viscous, with a faintly bitter smell that reminded him of tree bark and metal. He transferred a single drop to a shallow dish and held it over the heat source, watching as the liquid slowly evaporated and left behind a residue of crystalline compounds.
Interesting.
The next few hours disappeared into a blur of tests and observations. He separated the components through careful distillation, isolated the active compounds, and analyzed their structure through a series of reactions that he’d thought he’d forgotten. His hands moved with a surety that surprised him, muscle memory taking over where conscious knowledge failed.
Some things, it seemed, couldn’t be unlearned no matter how hard you tried.
By the end of the first day, he had a working theory. The medicine was a combination of several ingredients—a respiratory relaxant, an anti-inflammatory, and something else. Something he couldn’t quite identify but that seemed to be the key to its effectiveness.
He worked through the night, barely aware of Jessa’s quiet visits. She brought food that he forgot to eat, water that he drank without tasting. She stood in the doorway sometimes, watching him work with an expression he couldn’t read.
He didn’t have time to read it. Every moment he spent doing anything other than working was a moment Dani didn’t have.
