“Please help him,” I whisper.
“Hush, child,” she tells me without looking at me. “I will be done here soon. Have Lenana ready to deal with the wounded in the meantime.”
They leave in a hurry.
The older female sets the bowl aside and rises. She’s slow but steady on her feet. She moves to Sebastian, dropping to her knees beside him with a grunt.
I kneel on his other side.
Her hands move to Sebastian’s chest, pressing flat against his tunic. She holds them there for a few breaths, her eyes half-closing.
Then she opens his tunic wider, exposing the eclipse marking. It should be vivid; instead, it’s faint. As if the life has been sucked out of that, too.
I make a strangled sound.
She clicks her tongue, much like the dragons did earlier. It doesn’t sound good. The tone is despondent.
“Help me undress him,” she says. “Everything must come off.”
Between us, we strip Sebastian down. His coloring is pale with hints of gray. His lips are still blueish-tinged. Even the warmth has left him.
I hold back a sob. I need to be strong.
The healer runs her hands along his arms, his torso, pressing here and there. She lifts his eyelids and looks inside. She presses her ear to his chest for a long while and then sits back on her heels.
She looks at me for the first time. Her amber eyes are steady.
“He is a long way from living and not far at all from dying,” she says plainly. “Whatever that queen did to him was terrible indeed. His body is here, but there isn’t much else. He’scold because his flesh is shutting itself down. If we don’t do something to bring him back, all will be lost.”
My stomach drops.
“Can you help him?”
“I can try.” She pushes to her feet and moves to her shelves, pulling down jars and bundles. “We shifterfae don’t hold magic the way the other fae do. We carry our power in our blood and bone, in the shift itself. I can’t heal with a spell or a ward. What I have are remedies. Plants, roots, tinctures. Poisons that become cures if taken in the right measure. They’ve kept my people alive for many star-cycles, but I won’t lie to you.” She turns to face me, a clay jar in each hand. “I’ve never treated a shadowfae before. I don’t know what his body needs, and I don’t know if what I give him will do anything at all. I don’t want to give you false hope. It wouldn’t be fair.”
“Give him what you can,” I tell her. “Please help him.” I sound desperate because I am.
She nods once.
“Thank you.” My voice hitches, and a tear falls. I wipe it away.
What follows is methodical and slow. The healer works in silence for the most part, mixing pastes from ground herbs, adding liquids from sealed clay bottles. She smears a thick green paste across Sebastian’s chest, covering the faded eclipse. She works it into his skin with firm, circular motions. The paste smells sharp, almost burning.
Then she tips his head back and opens his mouth, pouring a dark liquid between his lips. She holds his jaw shut and strokes his throat until he swallows. Some of it runs down his chin. She wipes it away and does it again.
And again.
She wraps his feet in soaked cloth, binding them tight.
She places warmed stones from the edge of the fire pit against his sides, tucking them into the furs.
“He needs to be warmed. You should try to go skin-to-skin with him. Lie close.”
“I’ll do anything,” I whisper.
She gets another pot and starts sprinkling a dust over him that makes me sneeze. I watch it all, feeling useless.
Then she packs everything away.
