Chapter 51
JINGYI
In the morning, Tedric brought her a tome bound in blackened leather, smelling faintly of ash and iron.
“Knowledge should not be hidden away,” he said, looking more than a little proud. “Not when it offers liberation.”
Inside, the pages told a different story.
It wasn’t liberation. It was blood. Bone.
Organs. The systematic unmaking of Omegas in the name of freedom.
Research neatly printed in Isseric, diagrams inked with clinical detachment—cuttings of the quick, bleedings of the humours, the sundering of sinew and glands.
Purple limyerite was at the heart of it all.
Pulverized into powder. Diluted in spirits.
Injected. Implanted. Burned into soft tissue.
Test subjects, mostly lowborn Omegas, didn’t survive the early trials. Organs failed. Instincts collapsed into madness. One subject clawed her own chest open before succumbing. Another set herself ablaze, incoherent with pain.
But one endured.
Referred to only as the ‘fifty-third vessel,’ she’d been a highborn Omega, noted to be the daughter of a major House, though her identity was kept secret.
She survived the purging and showed no response even when confined with multiple Alphas in the throes of Rut.
No scenting, no slick, no desire to submit.
The Alphas, despite being confined with the Omega, also showed no signs of reaction. No restless energy.
JingYi read the next line three times, heart thudding against her ribs:
‘Noble Omegas may contain a more concentrated strain of the Omega traits, making them both more stable for testing and more likely to endure the early stages of transformation.’
Endure, but not survive.
Because days later, the ‘fifty-third vessel’ died.
Long before the final trial, her organs had begun to shut down from long-term limyerite poisoning, referred to as ‘limyerite rot.’ The researcher admitted, without shame, that while they could destroy the Omega traits, they had no idea how to repair the body that remained.
She heard Tedric’s voice again, soft with conviction: ‘Think what this could mean. No more Heat. No more dependence for Alphas. Freedom.’
JingYi closed the tome, pushed it aside, and felt sickened to her core.
Was freedom bought in flesh a truly free, or simply slaughter dressed as progress?
If everything recorded in the book was true, they could break the nature of an Omega.
But they couldn’t heal what followed.
And that, supposedly, was her task now.
She relied on the roots of her training.
Not just instinct, but doctrine—what the royal physicians of X?en-Sarai had drilled into her from when she was old enough to crush lotus seeds with mortar and pestle.
She crafted a cleansing decoction tailored to force out the limyerite now blooming inside their organs: scorched bitter orange peel to move stagnant energy, white mulberry bark and licorice root to draw the heat downward, poria to drain dampness, all steeped in bone marrow broth until it darkened to the colour of old blood.
Goldenroot went in last. Too much would cause vomiting.
Too little, and the rot would cling to the marrow.
The root was unusual enough that, if requested at the market, it might draw questions.
Perhaps even aid. But when the guard returned with the parcel of ingredients she requested, there was no sign the bait had been noticed.
Needle therapy came next, fighting limyerite with limyerite.
The irony nearly choked her.
She sterilized each tip in candlelight and cool rice wine, then drove them into key points—Yin Spring, Great Abyss, Returning Current.
Anywhere she could force the heat to move downward and away from vital organs, urge the blood to flow, the body to rise and remember how to heal itself.
She watched skin flush red around each point.
Saw their pupils constrict. Felt their pulses flicker.
No recovery was instant. As confident as she was in her healing skills, she was dealing with an uncharted territory. It would take time, but she had reasons to hope.
One girl retched black phlegm for a day and a night, but then she breathed easier and slept without fits for the first time. Another clenched her fists so hard her palms bled, but when JingYi checked her tongue, it had cleared—no longer purpled and swollen.
The oldest among them, a woman with silver threads in her dark hair who hadn’t spoken a word since JingYi arrived, suddenly grasped her wrist during a pulse check.
“The ringing,” the woman confided, her voice cracked from disuse. “The ringing in my ears . . . it’s stopped. I can hear my thoughts again.”
It was a small thing, but in the deep, dank misery of their captivity, it felt like a miracle. Small victories, one step at a time.
She noted every change in a small notebook she kept inside her medicine chest, tracing the patterns of decline or recovery. Her sleeves stayed damp with sweat and draughts. She had no more salves to soften her own cracked fingers, no time to rest. She kept moving.
Adelise did her best beside her. The work was clearly foreign to the Tremorian princess, but every time she fumbled, she righted herself, jaw set. Sometimes they tried to laugh, to insert joy in this grey stone world, but mostly they knew: this was what healing looked like. Blood and bile.
And still, beneath the herb-scented steam, the metallic tang of limyerite lingered. She could smell it on her skin. Feel it in the air. No matter how clean the needle, the poison sang. She’d never hated anything more, but she couldn’t show it. Even now, there were eyes on her, always watching.
At least one guard was stationed inside the room during treatments.
She could never tell if it was the same person, for they had the same height and build, clad in identical dark uniforms and a full mask concealing even the curve of a jaw.
They were all Betas, that much she knew.
None spoke, not even to Tedric, their presence as constant and impersonal as shadows.
One day, closer to dusk, Tedric summoned her to the same chamber where they suppered. But tonight, he had no plates nor dinner, only a glass vial between his fingers. The liquid inside shimmered a garish purple.
“You’ve done well,” he said. The warmth in his voice did nothing but chill her. “The Omegas are stabilizing. I knew you were the right choice.”
JingYi’s gaze stayed fixed on the vial as it rolled between his fingers.
“The final entries in the tome are clear,” he said. “With the right patient and the right care, there’s a path forward. Liberation, even. You’ve already succeeded where others failed. All that remains is to see it through.”
His gaze met hers. “Administer this to Princess Adelise. Now.”
Her stomach dropped. “You want me to administer purple limyerite to Princess Adelise?” she parroted. “Haven’t you learned anything? Even your most successful vessel died.”
He smiled. “She didn’t have you.”
JingYi backed away. “I’m a healer, not a butcher.”
“And I respect that,” he said, almost kindly. “If you won’t do it, I’ll ask someone else. Perhaps one of the guards.” His eyes flicked toward the door. “They’re not trained, of course, but how difficult can it be?”
Her insides balked at the thought.
Tedric’s tone remained even. “Or I could do it myself. You’ve seen how I am with the blade, how accurate I can puncture someone’s jugular or chest cavity. Assuming you’d prefer that?”
She swallowed, the back of her neck hot with rising panic.
“She may live,” he said softly. “Or she may not. But in your hands, at least, she has a chance.”
He placed the vial on the table between them. “You choose.”
He left.
Her first instinct was revulsion, then anger. And beneath that—worse than both—a surge of helpless understanding. Tedric was right about one thing: in her hands, at least, Adelise might live.
She hated the logic of it. Hated the truth in it.
Hated that he’d placed the burden squarely in her lap and walked away, confident her conscience would sort out the matter for him.
It was a healer’s curse—she couldn’t bear the idea of someone else doing it blindly.
Without preparations, Adelise would succumb to the same ailments as the others.
Two guards entered without knocking. One gestured.
JingYi picked up the vial and placed it on a tray of tools, its weight far heavier than it should’ve been.
They walked her down the narrow hall to the cell she’d shared with Adelise, her limping gait forcing them into a sluggish procession, but she didn’t care a whit.
The key turned in the lock with an echoing click, the door swinging inward on protesting hinges.
Adelise bolted upright the moment they entered. Her gaze dropped briefly to the tray in JingYi’s hands—the purple shimmer of limyerite, the gleam of the infuser needle, its slender body carved from polished glass and capped in brass. When her eyes lifted again, there was no question in them.
“If it’s for their sake,” she said, rising slowly, “then do it. I would rather it be me.”
JingYi’s throat tightened. “You’ll get sick.”
Those grey eyes narrowed, almost in defiance.
“The winter I turned eight, there was a terrible snowstorm. All the palace children took to bed with fever and runny noses—except me. For days after, I was the only child running around, making angels in the snow.” A faint curve tugged at her mouth. “It was the best winter of my life.”
JingYi couldn’t help but smile in return.
“My mother said it was because I was so sturdy,” Adelise said, stepping closer. “Either way, I do not fear a little sickness.”
A little sickness. But JingYi knew: It wouldn’t be just a fever or a sore throat. The purple limyerite had effects so insidious for such a pretty gem. She didn’t want to say it aloud, but if Tedric’s true aim was to destabilize Issoirea’s caste system . . .
. . . infertility in Omegas would be a desirable effect.
What, then, for Adelise?
What would the X?en court do with an infertile empress?