Page 26

It wasn’t the first time a patient had rejected me, but things had been getting better lately. His words didn’t sting. His opinion didn’t matter. Only helping him mattered.

“We have to get you inside, out of this wind,” Thalia said, her voice firm as she took his other side. “You can’t walk by yourself, and the icy stone will only make the cramps worse.”

He tried to twist away, but another violent cramp doubled him over. I supported his weight while she got her shoulder beneath his other arm. Whatever terror he harbored of my nature would have to wait until he was lying flat in the healing room.

We carried him down the hall and into the treatment room. He clutched at Thalia’s sleeve the moment I eased his back onto the cot. She gently worked his fingers loose, leaving her warm hand resting over his trembling knuckles.

“My name is Thalia. I am a shrine maiden. We’ll help you, but first, you must talk to us. When did the pain start? Did it hit you all at once?”

“It started in the road,” he gasped, his teeth chattering as a shudder wracked his body. “I thought it was just the cold. I thought it would pass, but it feels like hot iron in my gut. Then my legs simply gave out beneath me.”

“What have you eaten today?” I asked, watching the involuntary spasms in his legs. “Have you scavenged any herbs from the woods? Did you pick something from the path?”

He didn’t answer me. Instead, he scrambled backward until his shoulders hit the wall, his eyes darting toward my blindfold. The sheets tangled around his legs. I stopped moving before he hurt himself trying to escape my shadow.

Thalia sat on the edge of the cot, placing herself between us so he would stop thrashing. “Stay calm. Lie still for me. You’re safe now.”

“Please,” he begged again. “Only you. Do not let him near me.”

“I’m staying right here,” she assured him. “Nobody is going to hurt you. I promise.”

I trusted her to read his symptoms. She had already done more to calm his panic than I could. Every time I stepped within an arm’s length, his heart raced and he struggled against the cot. I was useless to him.

“I’ll be next door,” I told her, retreating toward the threshold. “Call my name if the fever spikes or if you need me.”

“I will. Let me just get him settled.”

I left the connecting door partly open and sat at the table beyond it. A serpent stretched along my collarbone, its smooth head turned toward the gap in the door.

“Straighten your legs for me,” Thalia said. “Slowly. Don’t force the muscle if it seizes.”

Her magic reached him, radiating familiar warmth. His pulse steadied beneath her touch.

He groaned, then murmured an apology for his weakness.

“You don’t need to be sorry,” Thalia assured him. “Just tell me if the pressure makes the pain worse.”

I rested my forearms on the table. She gave him time to answer. She sat with him in his suffering without filling the silence or making him feel like a burden. I’d heard that exact patience in her voice when she coaxed frightened, wounded animals out of the courtyard ruins. Now she used it to anchor a man who had fought us all the way to the cot, meeting his terror with a quiet gentleness that left me speechless.

His retching echoed through the door. I stood, but she was already turning him, her voice perfectly steady as she instructed him to breathe through the nausea. I remained by the chair until he found his breath again.

The next cramp passed more quickly, and he no longer forced each word between clenched teeth. At last, he asked for water.

“Drink only a little,” she cautioned. “Let me hold the cup for you so you don’t choke.”

I heard him swallow, cough, then drink again. Thalia set the cup on the stone. I listened to the low, exhausted hum of her magic, wishing only that the ordeal was over so I could take her away from the stench of illness and hold her hand again.

“Can you help me sit up?” he asked, his voice rasping.

“Let me get my arm behind your shoulders first.”

Beyond the doorway, my serpents tasted the sudden shift in the air.

The rhythm of the man’s blood changed entirely. The chaotic stutter of his weakened heart vanished. It was steady. It was controlled.

He was holding his breath. And I knew.

I was moving before Thalia cried out. “Er—”