Have you ever felt as though your life was fruitless, Petitor Sarai?Dalvia’s question returned to her.That nothing you do has meaning and even screaming that you’re in pain will only earn you ridicule?
Resolving to find her afterward, Sarai trekked to the Favran Tower Gate. The city spread out below them, hundreds of hearths and braziers twinkling in the gloaming. The center of a veritable snake pit of a country that she still cared for. She wouldn’t see it ruined.
“This should be far enough.” One foot propped on a rock overlooking a broad swathe of Edessa, Méherre closed her eyes and concentrated.
A portal carved through the air. Beyond it, the Am Semni Institute’s gray walls perched by a cliff’s edge midway through Komis’s Drust Mountains. Centuries old, there was a grimly resolute air to the building as though it had weathered a thousand wars and would continue to do so. The few northern vigiles stalking the gargantuan walls around the perimeterhad the same mien. They warily scuttled away upon a pointed glance from Noceo.
A surprisingly ill-kept dirt road led to the main gates. Anek wisely spent the walk staring at Méherre. The Bridger seemed more interested in her feet.
Past the wooden double doors though, the Institute took on a haughty opulence. Less a place for the ill and more a showpiece of Clan Am Semni’s power. Heraldry featuring a desert horse hung from the walls, a testament to their equestrian roots, staircases wound through three floors by Sarai’s estimation, and the white tile—a daring choice for a hospital—was unstained, albeit dusty.
Anek whistled. “You weren’t joking about it being opulent here.”
But for all its beauty, the hospital was devoid of healers. No one greeted them from the healers’ offices. A few servants puttered about, cleaning the banisters and scrubbing the floors, but the place was almost deathly silent.Odd.
“Up here.” Paler than ever, Noceo led them up a staircase and down a hallway, knocking on a door at the end. He twisted the handle down when no one answered. “I thought she’d be here. Elsar only know why she vanishes these days.”
Likely because she has more of a conscience than you do.What he’d done to her had been horrific.
Dalvia’s office was surprisingly messy, vials, glass and metal implements heaped together in piles across several surfaces. What looked like a dried and dissected boil beetle had been pinned to one of the tables, yellow venom sacs empty. Anek hovered over it with trepidation.
“Here it is.” Noceo retrieved a vial of yellowish liquid and a bewilderingly thin, hollow needle next to it. “Cauterize the tip for me?” He held it out to Kadra who raised a finger. A spark singed the needle.
Sarai’s heart squeezed at the guarded but familiar way they interacted.What a mess.
“You insert it like this.” Noceo struck one end of the needle through the vial’s wax seal, then rolled up his sleeves.
Wrath and Ruin. Anek’s swift intake of breath mirrored hers at the mottled holes in Noceo’s arms. They looked as though someone had snuffed out several blazeleaf rolls down his arms and then dug their fingers into the boils.
Noceo flipped the vial upside-down and plunged the other end of the needle into a vein. The yellowish fluid within drained into his body. A faint flush of color returned to his cheeks.
“Power comes easy after that,” he said dully.
And this is the cost. She looked away. Withbeshaz, she could tear tendons and capillaries, but this drug would have her killing with a touch. She’d be as powerful as Kadra. Her fingers clutched her elbows, suddenly unwilling to inject the liquid into herself.I’d never want to stop.
She peered down the hallway as Noceo bundled more vials and needles into a satchel. Dalvia was more skilled than she had ever expected, to have concocted something of this magnitude. At least Komis’s patients were in good hands—she paused in sudden confusion.
“Where are all the plague infectees?” She stuck her head back into the room.
Noceo’s brow wrinkled. “I told you. I had no part in that.”
“But Dalvia’s been treating the victims.” Sarai strode down the hallway, opening the rest of the doors on either side. They parted easily, revealing empty pallets, smothered in a heavy layer of dust. “Praetor Ythras said so. Many were carted here after that godsdamned lightning strike of yours too. Isawthem leave.” She reached the end of the hallway, an insidious fear clawing at her gut. “Where are they?”
“I don’t know.” Noceo looked hounded when everyone’s eyes flew to him. “I never took an interest in what she did.”
What if…She caught Kadra’s cavernous eyes, gooseflesh pebbling her skin. His gaze altered and grew sharp.We never considered her as a possibility.
His jaw tautened. “Spread out and search the hospital for them.” He pinned Noceo with a knife-sharp stare. “Come with me.”
Méherre hastily took the cellars, while Sarai and Anek prowled the upper floors.
“It’s been over a month.” They raked a sweaty, reddish curl behind their ears as they ran, slamming doors without a care. “What if she healed them all and sent them home?”
“These beds haven’t been used for months.” Sarai grimly ran two fingers through the dust atop a mattress. “There isn’t so much as a bloodstain on the tiles either.”
Anek exhaled through their teeth. “We could be jumping to conclusions too quickly. She’s a weak sort. All those gods I mentioned, Dorcone, Hwiliath, and Faragathe, are powerful anddangerous. As difficult to Summon as the Elsar and twice as cruel because they have no obligation to listen to mortals. You were mad with grief, but it’s impossible for a lower-Tier magus to pull that off in cold blood.”
Sarai’s gut clenched, fear raking it with vicious swipes. “I don’t think it was coldblooded.Gods!I was so focused on Noceo! I didn’t think—” She stiffened at a scream from below.
