Chapter 37 #2
I rushed to Jack’s side. Bjarnalf moved to brace his legs, massive paws planted at his ankles. My hands trembled as I gripped his wrists. “Jack. I’m here. I’ve got you. Stay with me, please…”
Helka hovered over his chest, chanting softly as she circled her fingers around the arrow shaft. When she touched it, the glyphs on the arrowhead pulsed beneath his skin. She wiggled the shaft, easing it loose as she guided in a slender surgical tool.
Jack screamed as she dug the instrument deeper, his body convulsing, back arching. The sound shattered something inside me. I held tighter, tears spilling as I tried to keep him from toppling off the table.
Helka drew a slow breath, whispering more incantations, faster as she twisted the shaft free. The arrowhead resisted, but with a sickening pop, it slid from his chest in a gush of black-red blood.
Jack fell unconscious again.
The wound kept weeping, a bubbling hiss rising from the rune-etched table as the thick, dark blood pooled. “Blessed Skadi,” I breathed. “What’s wrong with his blood?”
“It’s the Umbrawort. It’s been poisoning his blood. Now that the arrow’s out, I can begin the purge.”
She poured the mixture from the iron pot into a carved bowl, its contents glowing pale blue. “This tonic will draw the last of the poison from his system, but it must be administered carefully. His magic will rush back into his veins with violence.”
I hovered beside her, heart pounding. “What can I do?”
She looked at me with those moonstone eyes, eyes that seemed to see through flesh and marrow. “Your souls are threaded together, even if the bond is not yet complete. Your touch may steady his magic; help guide it back to him with ease. It should diminish his pain some.”
My throat thickened. I had no idea what she meant about our bond not being complete, but there was no time to question it.
Right now, we just needed to get his magic flowing through him again.
I sat beside him, brushing blood-matted hair from his brow.
He looked hollow—skin waxy, lips pale. But when I laid my hand over his heart, just beneath the wound, a flicker of warmth pulsed beneath my palm.
He was still there. Still fighting.
“I’ve got you,” I whispered. “I’m not leaving you.”
Behind me, Helka moved like a blizzard, mixing salves, chanting under her breath.
The bear stood at my side, silent and solemn.
Helka returned to the table, dipped her fingers into the glowing tonic, and smeared it gently over the wound. The three of us just stared at Jack’s chest, waiting for something to happen. “Is it working?” I asked, my grip on Jack’s hand tightening
The witch didn’t flinch, her face a canvass of complete control. “Give it a moment.”
My veins throbbed. Patience was not my virtue. “What’s wrong? What are we waiting for?”
Just as the words left my lips, a writhing black mass slithered out of the wound like an oily worm, pulsing and wriggling as it hit the floor. I recoiled, choking back a scream.
Helka slammed a glass container over it, trapping it. “Vile thing,” she muttered. “Bjarnalf, please dispose of the creature out back. Yarmol is hungry.”
If whatever was out back ate things like the one trapped under that glass dome, I did not wish to know who or what Yarmol was.
The bear moved quickly, corking the jar and carrying the thrashing mass away. The creature smashed itself against the glass, desperate to escape.
“How does root powder turn into that?” I asked Helka.
She applied a thick salve over Jack’s wound. “It was spelled to feed off the magic buried deep in his veins—his unseelie magic.”
“Are you saying…Jack created that?”
“Not consciously. But unseelie magic is the dark counterpart to seelie. It corrupts. Rots. It was meant to turn his own body against him.”
“Who would do such a thing? Why?”
Before she could respond, frostfire erupted in Jack’s veins, glowing beneath his skin in a web of pale blue light. The entire room brightened as the magic surged back into him.
His hand jerked beneath mine, then squeezed.
“Jack?”
His eyes fluttered open, dazed and glassy. “Syl…?”
I wiped sweat off his brow, my fingers lingering over his skin longer than they needed to. Leaning in close, I offered him a gentle smile. “I’m here, you big oaf. You godsdamned almost died on me.”
His lips twitched. “The wisp didn’t lead us to our deaths, then?”
I raised my gaze to Helka’s. I wanted to believe we were safe, that the hardest part of this night was over, but the shadows in her eyes sent chills down my back.
Something in my blood warned me we weren’t out of the dark just yet, but I didn’t have the heart to offer him that truth.
I looked back down at his half-hooded eyes; his consciousness still trapped in some fog.
“We’re safe. Just rest, Jack. You need to heal. ”
His eyes slid closed again, and he didn’t even bother asking where we were or who the person hovering over him was. Helka used a dropper to pour an amber liquid on his tongue. “This will help him sleep through the night. His magic must be left to mend what it can.”
The air began to shimmer, the walls warping, groaning softly as if the cabin was breathing. With a creak like bending boughs, a narrow doorway appeared where there had been only wood and stone.
What in the Northern Kingdoms…
The bear stepped back inside through a backdoor, the jar that had been containing the unseelie-made creature gone. “Bring the prince to the bedroom, Bjarnalf. He needs to rest.”
Bjarnalf gathered Jack in his arms again and passed through the conjured doorway. Beyond, golden firelight warmed a space that hadn’t existed moments before.
“How’s any of this possible?” I asked, watching as Bjarnalf laid Jack on a bed, covering him with a thick fur blanket.
The witch brushed her fingers through my platinum strands, drawing my attention to her. “Perhaps it’s time you learned the truth, child.”