“You’re impossible,” he told her, but he scooped her into his arms—she couldn’t tell if his arrow wound hurt him or not—and carried her, blanket and all, down the hall. He nudged open a door and carried her inside.
It had been a laundry room, but the washing bucket was shoved to the side, the drying racks were empty, and a cot had been set up along one wall. Wrapped in blankets, Zera lay, breathing shallowly. Her face looked unlike itself, sunken and pale, without the bright spark of a sudden smile or eye roll.
She needs to wake,Kreya thought.
Gently, Jentt lowered Kreya onto the cot at Zera’s feet. Kreya tucked her own blanket around Zera, and Zera gave a sigh that was more of a moan, as if she were caught inside a bad dream.
“This is your commander,” Kreya said, “and I’m ordering you to get better. Do you hear me, Zera? You have no choice. You’re going to wake up.”
She heard a shuffling from the doorway and glanced over to see that Stran and Marso had joined them. They crowded into the tiny room.
“Zera, we’re here,” Kreya said, softer. “Your friends are here with you, and we need you to wake up. Can you hear me, Zera? We need you.” Leaning over, she took her friend’s hand. Jentt sat on the side of the cot and took her other hand. Stran put a hand on her shoulder, and Marso touched her forehead. “Can you feel us, Zera? This time, none of us left you. We’re here, and we won’t ever leave you again. Come back to us. Please!”
She didn’t open her eyes.
But Kreya didn’t stop pleading with her. Amurra brought broth. The others drifted in and out, but Kreya and Jentt stayed. They took turns talking to Zera, encouraging her to wake. At last, they both fell silent, with Kreya lying beside her on the cot and Jentt on the floor.
When she woke, Jentt was still asleep.
And Zera had worsened.
Kreya listened to Zera breathe in gasps that stuttered, stopped, and then, eventually, painfully resumed. Each breath sounded shallow, and each time Zera’s breath hitched, Kreya instinctively held her own breath, as if that would force her friend to keep living.
Gray predawn light filtered through the high window, and Kreya studied Zera’s face. Her cheeks were sunken and gray, and her lips were tinged with blue.
She’s not going to wake,Kreya thought.
Soon, her breath would stutter, and she wouldn’t be able to draw another one.
Reaching out, Kreya touched Zera’s cheek. Her skin felt clammy and much too hot. A fever was raging inside of her, and it wasn’t getting better. “Please,” Kreya whispered. She didn’t know who she was begging anymore.
Whatever was inside Kreya that had enabled her to survive the stone fish venom, Zera, like ninety percent of people, didn’t have that ability. She was going to die, and Kreya couldn’t bring her back. With Eklor and his army on the plains, she didn’t have access to enough human bones, even if she’d had the future years to spare.I’d give it to you,Kreya thought.All I have left.
If only Zera had been the one with immunity, instead ofKreya . . . Zera didn’t deserve this. She’d been loyal and strong and brave beyond anything she’d ever had to be. She had built herself her own life, all on her own, while Kreya had locked herself away, and then Zera had chosen to leave that life and all its comforts and successes for the sake of her friends.
“I’m sorry,” Kreya whispered.
This shouldn’t have been happening. It wasn’t fair.
“It should have been me,” she whispered. “I’d trade places with you in a heartbeat, if I could.” Lightly, she touched Zera’s forehead, cheek, and lips with her fingertips.
How could she ever say goodbye?
“Itshouldbe me.” And then a thought—an impossible thought—blossomed inside her. “Itcouldbe me.”
The spell to resurrect Jentt... There were variants. She’d read about Eklor’s speculations in his journals, and she’d spent time speculating on her own. Years, in fact, of trying to understand the forbidden magic that would bring Jentt back to her. The theory of the magic behind the spell had two interpretations: In one, when she’d worked the magic on Jentt, she’d given a part of her life to him. But in another, she’d taken a part of his death into herself.
Huh.
If she adapted the spell just right... she could take Zera’s illness into herself.
Kreya had already fought the poison once. She could do it again. Maybe. Her body still felt weak, and a second exposure could be fatal. But “could be” for her was much better than “would be” for Zera.I might die, but Zera certainly will if I do nothing.
“I’ll take that risk,” she whispered.
There was, however, one problem.
Well, there were many problems, but only one that mattered: to work any forbidden magic like this, it required human bone. She wouldn’t need as much of it as she had for Jentt, since Zera still lived, for now. Just a shard of bone, a couple inches.
