“Please.”
He stood, holding out an arm. She took it, and they walked back to the hut, Thia running a thumb lightly over the shard of glass at her neck. When Dess said goodnight, she stretched out in the same bed, noting its fresh linens, and examined the straw ceiling.
Find the Mage King.
He stole my memories.
She rolled over, knowing if she gave it too much thought she’d crumble. Instead, she shut her eyes, willing herself to wake in her own bed, her grammy’s voice summoning her for a morning latte.
Instead, she was awakened by a scream.
It was pitch-dark in the hut, but voices rang out in the room across from hers.
“Put her here—”
“What happened?”
“Stabbed—”
“Hold her down—”
A voice Thia recognized. “Oh, Ren, my foolish child.” Sorscha.
A gruffer voice. “If only Bana wasn’t dead.”
“The girl,” Sorscha said abruptly. “The girl is a healer.”
Thia kicked off the blanket and crossed the hut in two bounds, pushing through the door that led to the second room.
The screams belonged to a young woman with short black hair and the same bronze-brown skin as Sorscha. A large scar bisected the left half of her face from forehead to cheek, and Thia was amazed that whatever had given it to her hadn’t taken the eye as well. That was apparently where her good luck ended, because the woman was stretched out across a bed, stomach bleeding profusely from a wound just below her ribs. Clearly out of her mind, her eyes rolled back in her head, and spittle frothed on her lips. Four men stood around her, one on each limb, holding her to the bed.
“Thia,” Sorscha said, relief in the sag of her shoulders. “Can you help?”
She had no idea, but at the very least she could try. She strode forward, hands falling to the woman’s wound. She gingerly peeled back the loose white fabric of her shirt and inspected the damage. It was about an inch deep, maybe less, and had missed her vital organs. Stabbed, someone had said. But Thia’s main concern wasn’t blood loss; it was the strange discoloration surrounding the opening, spreading across her intact skin like a blue bruise.
And the froth on her lips.
And the fact that she had stopped twitching and was now convulsing.
Okay, so there were more concerns than one.
“Turn her on her side.Now,” Thia barked, when no one moved. They did, just in time for the young woman to vomit. The mess spilled onto the bed instead of down her throat, and Thia gave herself one short, metaphorical pat on the back before she tore a shirt off the stack atop the dresser to her left and pressed it against the wound. “Sorscha,” she said firmly, “just like my hands. Wine and thread.” Sorscha nodded and left quickly.
Thia turned to the men. “She’s been poisoned. I think the blade was coated.”
The man to her left grimaced. “Aye. She was fighting the king’s men. They do that sometimes.”
“I can’t help her if I don’t know what kind of poison.”
The man ran a hand over his beard. “No one knows, lass. They brew it in the bowels of the Lightning Tower.”
Thia swore. A second time, too, when she realized that the injured woman had stopped vomiting and was no longer breathing.
She felt her pulse.Shit shit shit.“Stand back. You,” she pointed to the man who had spoken, “hold this here.” He took over the wound compress, and she went to the young woman’s head, rolling her flat and tipping her chin. Then she pinched her nose and pressed their mouths together, forcing breath in. And another. She pushed down on the woman’s chest counting to thirty, wincing as the pressure tugged her wounded palms.
She ignored the pain. Another press.
Repeat.
