Chapter 5 #2
Proper preparation. Not the endless delays and complications Ari always cited, but actual, concrete steps towards something different. The idea sparked in her chest like a flame catching kindling.
Pushing down her excitement, she leaned forward to examine the wound more closely. This time she saw the small spike, still embedded deep in the tissue. One of the thorns from the climbing vines must have broken off inside the wound.
“There’s still something in there. I think that’s why it’s still bleeding,” she said, reaching for the thin-tipped forceps in the medical kit. “Hold still—I need to extract it.”
“What kind of something?”
“A thorn, I think.” She positioned the forceps carefully, trying to get a grip on the embedded spike. “They’re barbed, which is probably why it didn’t come out with the initial cleaning. I’ll need to—”
The thorn shifted, and her forceps slipped.
Pain lanced through her finger.
“Ow!” She jerked her hand back instinctively as a bright bead of blood welled from the small cut on her fingertip. “Damn, that’s sharp.”
“Let me see.”
“It’s nothing—just a scratch.” She held up her hand, examining the tiny wound with professional interest. “The barbs are angled backward, designed to catch on flesh and tear when pulled. It’s a clever evolutionary adaptation for a carnivorous plant.”
“Liora.”
Something in his voice made her look up. He was staring at his arm with an expression she couldn’t read. She followed his gaze and felt her own breath catch.
The wound was closing.
Not slowly, the way wounds healed over days and weeks according to her medical texts. But rapidly, visibly, the torn edges of skin knitting together like the seams of a garment being pulled shut.
“What—” She leaned closer, her scientific instincts overriding her surprise. “That’s not possible. The healing cascade should take hours to initiate, and days to complete. Tissue regeneration requires—”
“Vultor heal quickly.” His voice was tight. “But not this quickly. Not in seconds.”
“Then what caused—”
She stopped.
Her blood.
The drop that had fallen from her cut finger, mixing with the open wound before either of them could react. Such a small amount—barely a smear against his silver bronze skin. But something about it had triggered this impossible acceleration.
“Interesting,” she murmured, already cataloging observations.
The rate of closure, the lack of scarring, the way the new skin appeared slightly smoother than the surrounding tissue.
“Ari, are you recording this? The healing response is completely anomalous. We should cross-reference with known regenerative compounds and—”
“Liora.” He caught her wrist, his grip firm but not painful. “Stop.”
She blinked at him, confused by the urgency in his voice. “Stop what?”
“Stop analyzing. Stop cataloging. Just—” He released her wrist and ran a hand through his dark hair, a gesture that seemed more frustrated than calculated. “Do you understand what just happened?”
“Your wound healed rapidly after exposure to my blood. It’s unusual, certainly, but—”
“It’s not just unusual.” He fixed her with those intense eyes. “It shouldn’t be possible. Not for any species I know of. Vultor regeneration is fast, but it still follows biological limits. What you just did—whatever compound is in your blood—it bypassed those limits entirely.”
She looked down at her cut finger. The small wound had already closed, leaving no trace behind.
“I don’t feel any different,” she said. “I’ve never noticed anything unusual about my blood. Ari runs regular health scans, and—”
She stopped as some half-forgotten memories surfaced. Ari asking her about any small cuts or scrapes. Ari carefully ensuring that any injury she sustained was treated and bandaged immediately. Ari never letting her see her own blood for more than a few seconds.
Why?
“Ari,” she said slowly. “What just happened?”
The AI’s response came after a pause that felt slightly too long.
“The accelerated healing appears to be a result of biochemical interaction between your blood and Vultor tissue. It is... not entirely unexpected.”
“Not entirely unexpected?” His voice held an edge. “You knew about this?”
“I was aware of certain anomalies in Liora’s genetic profile. The specific manifestation you observed has not previously been documented, but it aligns with projected possibilities.”
“What anomalies?”
Another pause. She felt the familiar walls of the tower press in around her—not physically, but in some deeper way. The same walls that had kept her safe. The same walls that had kept her trapped.
“That information is classified.”
“Classified from who?” She heard her voice rise and didn’t try to control it.
“From me? It’s my blood, Ari. My body. You’ve been monitoring every aspect of my health since I was a child, and you never thought to mention that I might have—what?
Healing abilities? Some kind of regenerative compound in my bloodstream? ”
“The information was withheld for your protection. Premature knowledge of certain genetic traits could have influenced your psychological development in negative ways.”
“What kind of negative ways?”
“Feelings of isolation. Alienation from normal human experience. Potential exploitation if the information reached outside parties.”
“Normal human experience? When the hell have I ever had a normal human experience?” She stood abruptly, her hands trembling.
“You kept me isolated in this tower for twenty-one years, telling me the outside was too dangerous, and you never once mentioned that there might be something in me that people would find valuable?”
“I mentioned it earlier this evening.”
“You mentioned ‘genetic anomalies.’ You didn’t tell me I could heal people with my blood.”
The silence that followed was deafening. She stood in the middle of the room, breathing hard, feeling the foundations of her understanding crumble beneath her feet.
“Liora,” Baylin said gently. “Sit down. Breathe.”
“I don’t want to sit down. I want answers.”
“And you’ll get them. But not if you hyperventilate first.”
She turned to look at him, this stranger who had appeared out of nowhere and turned her world upside down in a matter of hours. He was watching her with an expression that held something she didn’t quite recognize—something warm and steady and entirely unfamiliar.
Concern, she realized. He’s concerned about me.
The realization startled her. Ari expressed concern constantly about her sleep patterns, her nutritional intake, and her psychological state.
But it was algorithmic concern, programmed responses triggered by deviation from optimal parameters.
This was different. This was a person, looking at her and seeing her distress and caring about it.
“I’m fine,” she said, but her voice came out shaky. “I just... I need to understand. If my blood can do this—if there’s something in me that accelerates healing—then why wouldn’t Ari tell me? Why keep it secret?”
“Because knowledge is power,” he said quietly. “And power can be dangerous.”
“Dangerous to whom?”
He didn’t answer, but the look in his eyes said enough.
She sank back into her chair, feeling suddenly exhausted.
The events of the day pressed down on her like a physical weight—the first visitor in her life, the revelations about her captivity, and now this.
Her blood could heal. Her blood was valuable.
Her blood was the reason someone had built a tower in the middle of nowhere and locked her inside it.
“I spent twenty-one years thinking I was ordinary,” she said softly. “Thinking the only unusual thing about me was my isolation. And all along...”
“You’re not ordinary.” His voice was matter-of-fact. “I don’t think you ever were.”
She looked at him—at the wound that was now nothing more than a faint pink line on his skin. Evidence of the impossible. Evidence of what she was.
“What does this mean?” she asked. “For me? For... everything?”
“I don’t know.” He met her gaze steadily. “But I think it means your life is about to change.”
Pip chittered from his perch, breaking the heavy silence.
The small creature glided down from the shelf where he’d been watching and landed on Baylin’s shoulder with a proprietary air.
He reached up slowly, carefully, and Pip allowed him to stroke the soft fur behind his ears.
The creature’s luminous eyes half-closed in pleasure.
“I think he likes me,” Baylin said.
“Maybe.” She watched the interaction with a feeling she couldn’t quite name. “Or maybe he knows something I don’t.”
Pip opened his eyes and fixed her with a look that seemed almost smug.
“Would you—” She hesitated, suddenly shy. “Would you like to see the rest of the tower? I could show you the greenhouse and the library and my workshop. It’s not much, compared to the settlements you’ve seen, but...”
“I’d like that.”
The simple acceptance warmed something in her chest. She stood, brushing off her clothes, and gestured towards the spiral staircase that led to the upper floors.
“This way.”
She paused at the foot of the stairs, looking back at him—this strange, impossible male who had climbed her tower and healed beneath her hands and made her question everything she thought she knew.
“Thank you,” she said. “For being here. For asking the questions I should have been asking all along.”
“You’re welcome.” A faint smile curved his lips. “Though I suspect you would have figured it out eventually. You’re too smart not to.”
“Maybe.” She started up the stairs. “Or maybe I needed someone from the outside to show me what I was missing.”