Lyra slowly pulled away, turning toward the wounded.
“I gave them the last of the ambervast an hour ago.”
She drew in a shaky breath.
“They’ll wake when it wears off.”
Viktor’s gaze swept over each broken body, jaw set as if to shoulder their pain himself. His answer came firm, assuring.
“Then I’ll have to work quickly.”
She nodded, trembling. “Tell us what you need.”
Before he could even ask, The Midnight’s presence surrounded.
“Sea glass,”he said.“I sense some three doors down.”
Viktor handed the boys a couple of coins.
“Bring me sea glass from the village market.”
“Yes, sir,” they said eagerly.
Sunlight broke into the tent as they hurried through the door.
Then darkness again.
Lyra’s voice cracked with something like laughter through a mess of tears.
“Tavian is sixteen and a godsend. Theo is fifteen and… he’s an extra pair of hands.”
A faint, gruff laugh escaped Viktor.He was once that younger brother—happy to let Adamar play the eldest.
The boys returned a moment later. Theo carried the sea glass with cautious hands.
“Careful,” Tavian warned.
He laid it in Viktor’s open palm.
The smooth, greenish shards were veined with pale white, gleaming faintly even in the dim tent. Born when lightning struck sand and fused it to stone.
Viktor leaned down to the woman burning with fever.
“An infection brews in her blood,” The Midnight explained.“Leave it. Draw out only the heat from her skin.”
Viktor closed his eyes.
He saw as The Midnight sees: heat rising from the woman’s skin, pouring into the stone like mist.
Rising.
Falling.
Rising.
Falling.
Fire rippling through his skin.
