49. Alar
ALAR
“No healer has ever mended another soul. At best, he illuminates the road by which it mends itself.”
—Vedona Academy, Healer Corps
The third measure of the greycap sat on the table between us in its twist of waxed paper, and as my brother looked at it, there was a sparkle in his eyes. He wanted this, and I was afraid we had crossed the line from therapy into addiction.
Three days ago I'd brought a parcel from the docks that contained my last hope, and as I found Arlen sitting in the dark with the curtains drawn, surfacing only in fragments and telling me to give it up and let the twins or Avren have the crown and stop wasting myself on him, that hope had shrunk to almost nothing.
I'd told him what I'd gotten, and he'd seemed intrigued, some of the fog leaving his eyes, and my hope flared anew.
Still, in my most optimistic dreams, I couldn't have imagined how quickly and effectively the medicine worked, and no, I wasn't misclassifying the greycap because for Arlen, it was medicine.
He was sitting in his chair with the window open, the breeze from the ocean carrying the faint salty smell and the light streaming in. Arlen was shaved, dressed, and his eyes were clear and fixed on me.
I had sent Balert away an hour ago because what happened in this room was for the two of us and no one else. As far as everyone was concerned, it was my methodical dedication that had pulled off a miracle.
It had started to work right from the first dose, and sitting beside Arlen and holding his hand through it would be an experience I would never forget.
I had been his rope through all the long hours of it, the way Sivon told me to be, and I'd watched him walk back into the worst event of his life and come out the far side of it shaken, but also lighter than I'd seen him since before the grenade.
When it was over, he'd slept like a child, and when he'd woken the next morning, he'd been more himself than he'd been since my return and eager for the next dose.
"When the door is cracked open," he'd said, "I'm not going to stand in the doorway and wait for days to walk through it. We don't have time for that."
I'd told him what the dealer had told me, that it should be spaced wide, that the mending happened in the days between, not in the visions, but he'd refused to listen.
When I'd repeated my arguments, he'd looked at me with the full authority of the heir to the crown of Catonia, and I had been so overwhelmed by the transformation that I'd no longer wanted to push against it.
My brother was back, and I wanted him to stay. I was afraid that if I fought him on that, I might lose this new version of him that could fight back.
So, he'd taken the second dose the next day. And here we were on the third.
"I don't like this," I said. "I'll say it plainly, since you'll only mock me if I try to circle it. You don't need a third dose. You are doing well, and the stuff is addictive. Sivon told me to get rid of it as soon as you are back to yourself."
"Sivon is a back-alley peddler, Alar, not a physician, and I'm a super responder.
This thing has lifted me from the abyss and brought me back to life.
I can't afford to slide back, and I need this last dose to ensure that the effect doesn't dissipate.
" He lifted a finger. "The first was to open the door.
" He lifted another. "The second was to walk through it.
" He lifted one more. "And the third one is to nail it open so it can never close again. "
I wasn't sure what it meant to leave that door open, and the eagerness in his eyes worried me. Was it my brother in there, calling the shots the way he was born to? Or was it the greycap, wanting what the greycap wanted, dressed up in my brother's voice?
I couldn't tell, and that troubled me. I was terrified of Sivon's warning becoming true, that the price of cure would be the eventual total destruction of Arlen's mind.
"You are scaring me," I admitted. "The greycap is not to be trifled with. It's dangerous, and it is really easy to get addicted to."
"There's no time to play it safe," Arlen said, sounding reasonable and hard.
"The ball is in seven days, and our father needs to see definite proof that I'm back.
I already have the odds stacked against me because of this.
" He motioned to his legs. "I need to compensate with absolute control, nothing less will do, and I have to be convincing.
Two doses got me out of the pit. The third is what will make me a future king again in his eyes.
" He leaned forward in the chair and smiled.
"And when that happens, you might get your wish and return to Elucia and everything you've left behind there. "
There it was, laid on the table beside the waxed paper.
"Don't," I said.
"Don't what?"
"Don't frame it as something you're doing for me."
"I'm not doing it just for you. I'm doing it for myself, for Catonia, for the Federation, and for you.
You've a dragon and a girl and a whole life waiting for you in Elucia, and the only thing standing between you and it is me.
" His expression softened. "I am not going to be the weight that drowns you.
If Father had chosen Avren, I might have been less motivated, but since Father has chosen you and you don't want it, I have to step up and do what's right for both of us.
So, stop fighting me, and let me do this properly. "
I had no answer to that because he was right, and I shouldn't let fear of something that was probably only a remote possibility risk everything Arlen had achieved so far.
"Fine," I said. "But I want a vow from you first, and I want it the old way, hand to hand, so you can't wriggle out of it later by claiming you were being loose with your words."
"Name it."
"There's enough left in the jar for a fourth dose. You know that." I held his gaze. "Swear to me that you will never ask for it. Three and done. The fourth doesn't exist."
"The fourth doesn't exist," he repeated.
"Easily sworn. I don't want a fourth. I need the third to cement my recovery, and after that the work is mine to keep, with no more help from the greycap.
You have my word." He put out his hand. "On our mother's name, since you're being theatrical about it.
Three, and then I walk it into the sea myself if you like. "
I took his hand. His grip was strong, stronger than it had been in weeks, and I held it while searching his face one more time.
Addicts were known to make promises they never intended to keep just to get their next fix, but Arlen looked sincere, and I knew him well enough to recognize the truth on his face.
The problem was that he might mean it now but change his mind later, and now that he knew where to get the greycap, he didn't need me to get it for him.