Chapter Thirty-Three
“I told him!” a strident voice woke me. “Ah, there you are, you fool!”
Frowning, I stared up at Zensar. The cold on my back told me I was lying on his metal table again. I looked down to see my arms bare, both of them submerged in metal basins full of cold liquid. “Sorry.”
“You will not chastise him. He saved the city. And me.” The King had a hand on my chest, and I wrapped my tail around it. The bandage at the tip was clean.
Zensar grimaced. “If that infection had spread through his blood, he could have died. Luckily, I caught it in time.” He lifted my right arm out of the liquid and dried it off. Glaring at me, he chastised me despite the King's order. “You were supposed to rest. I told you several times.”
“I had to check on something first.” I shrugged. “Turned out to be important.”
Zensar tsked as he inspected my wound and then spread salve over it. “You've set back your recovery. If you had listened to me, you would have been healed by now. Now it will take another day.” He bandaged my arm and moved around the table, shooing the King to the side, and saw to my left arm.
“Another day and the city might have fallen.” I frowned as what he said registered. “How long have I been unconscious?”
“A few hours.” Falken swept my hair back from my face. “You've awoken just in time for dinner.”
“Thank you for staying with me.”
“Oh, yes, thank him, when I did most of the work.” Zensar tied off my bandage and dropped my arm on my chest. Then he took the basin to the sink.
“Thank you, Zensar. I'm sorry I was so much trouble.”
Grimacing again, Zensar turned to face me. “Fine. But this time, change your bandages every hour!”
“I will see to it myself.” The King lifted me from the table.
“I think I can walk.” I lay my head on his shoulder.
Falken snorted. “Thank you, Lord Zensar.”
“You need more supplies. Who knows where Master Sevarin put the last I gave him?” He heaped bandages and salve on my belly. “And gently wash the wounds before applying the salve.”
“I will.” The King carried me out of the room and down the corridor. “You are not allowed to injure yourself further, Master Alchemist.”
I made an annoyed sound. “As if I burned myself on purpose.”
The King entered the central room on the palace's ground floor where the main stairs were. As we passed the stairs, a voice stopped us.
“Sevarin!”
I lifted my head to see Arril running up to us. Groaning, I laid my head back down.
“Sevarin, are you all right?” Arril's hands fluttered as if he wanted to touch me.
“I'm fine,” I muttered into the King's chest. “He's being overly protective.”
“I heard you were injured, but what happened?”
“Someone sabotaged my lab and tried to kill me.”
“What?!”
“The Master Alchemist is recovering from saving the city. He needs his rest.” The King turned and strode away.
I chuckled. “Is he still watching us?”
Falken glanced back. “Yes. With his mouth hanging open.”
I laughed harder.
“I can't wait until the lifters work again.” The King passed the lifter door, still cordoned off, and climbed the stairs that led to the fourth and fifth floors.
“It's your fault for living on the top floor.” I hid my smile against his chest.
“That's where the royal apartments are. I didn't put them there.”
Despite his complaint, Falken made it to his apartments in less than five minutes.
And he wasn't even out of breath. He went past the knights guarding the fifth-floor entrance, and one of them hurried ahead of us to open the door to the King's apartments.
Nodding at the knight, Falken went in, and the knight closed the door behind us.
“Who was that?” I asked.
“Who was who?”
I rolled my eyes. “The knight who opened the door for us.”
“Why do you want to know his name?”
“Oh, for fuck's sake. I've been here for over a week, and I still don't know any of their names. It's rather rude of me.”
“Oh.” He went up to his bed, and lay me down upon it. “His name is Thaven.”
I immediately sat up.
“Do not move from that bed.” He pointed at me.
“I'm not an invalid. I just have some burns.” I shifted to sit on the edge of the bed.
Falken sighed and grimaced as he stood over me. “What are we going to do now?”
“Now that I know the source of the Silver Rot, I believe I can inject a purging reagent into the origin point, and it will spread through the rot. The purging reagent won’t reach items moved from their original infection points, but once we round up those items, I can apply the reagent to them too.
Then it's only a matter of cleaning up and rebuilding.”
Falken pinched the bridge of his nose briefly. “Yes, that sounds good, but I was asking about our relationship.”
I looked away. “I don't know.”
“Will you stay after you administer the purging reagent?”
I considered it, delving deep into places I don't normally look. Those places were full of feeling for the Dragon King.
“Sevarin?”
I lifted my head. “If I stay, what will I be?”
Falken frowned. “To me or the city?”
“Both.”
“With me, you will be whoever you want to be. To the city, you'll be the Master Alchemist who cured the Silver Rot. Nothing will change unless you want it to.”
I nodded. “All right. I'll stay for a while.”
Falken let out a breath. “Good. I'm glad.”