Chapter 21
The small bottle sat on the rough-hewn table, catching the firelight.
Tarek stared at it like it was a serpent coiled to strike. Such a small thing. A few drops of pale blue liquid pooled at the bottom—the residue Jessa had managed to coax from the supposedly empty container. Barely enough to coat a spoon.
And yet it might be everything.
His hands shook as he reached for it. Not from fear. From something far worse.
You swore, the voice in his head reminded him. You swore you would never—
The sound of Dani’s labored breathing drifted from the bedroom. Each rasp and wheeze carved another piece from his resolve.
Vows mean nothing if the ones you love die because of them.
Love. When had that happened? When had a frail human child wormed her way so thoroughly into his heart that her pain had become his own? When had her sister’s tears started to feel like acid on his skin?
He picked up the bottle.
Jessa appeared in the corridor leading to Dani’s room. She looked terrible—dark circles under her eyes, hair escaping its braid in wild tangles, her face pale and drawn. She’d barely slept in the two days since returning from the village.
Neither had he.
“Any change?” he asked, though he already knew the answer. He could hear it in Dani’s breathing and smell it in the fever-sweat that clung to the air.
“The same.” Her voice was hoarse. “Maybe a little worse. I can’t tell anymore.”
He turned the bottle in his hands.
“I need this.”
“The medicine?” Her brow furrowed. “Tarek, there’s barely anything left. If we’re going to use it—”
“Not to give her. To study.” He forced himself to meet her eyes. “I need to analyze it. Break it down into its component parts so I can understand what it does and know how to reproduce it.”
Understanding dawned slowly on her face, followed by a faint desperate hope
“You can do that?”
I used to.
“I think so.” The words scraped like broken glass in his throat. “I won’t lie to you. It’s been years since I’ve done anything like this. The equipment I have is primitive at best. There’s no guarantee—”
“But there’s a chance.”
“Yes.” He held her gaze. “There’s a chance.”
She crossed to him, her bare feet silent on the stone floor. Her hand covered his where it gripped the bottle, her fingers cold and trembling.
“Do it.”
“Jessa—”
“Whatever you need, whatever it takes.” Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. “I trust you.”
Three words. Three simple words that shouldn’t have felt like a knife between his ribs. She trusted him. This woman who barely knew him, who had every reason to be suspicious of his kind, who had fled her own people to take shelter with a Vultor exile—she trusted him.
He didn’t deserve it, but he would earn it.
“Keep her warm,” he said roughly. “Continue the breathing exercises and the herbal steam. Cool cloths on her forehead when the fever spikes, warm broth when she’s conscious enough to swallow. Don’t let her give up.”
“I won’t.”
“I mean it.” He caught her chin, tilting her face up to his. “She’s a fighter, your sister. But she’s tired. She’s been tired for a long time. You need to remind her that there’s something worth fighting for.”
“How?”
“Tell her stories. Sing to her. Talk about the future—plans and dreams and all the things she’ll do when she’s well again.” His thumb brushed her cheek. “Make her believe it. Even if you don’t believe it yourself.”
Her breath hitched. “And what about you?”
“I’ll be in the workshop.” He released her and stepped back, already feeling the distance like a physical ache. “Don’t disturb me unless it’s urgent. I’ll need to concentrate.”
“For how long?”
He looked at the tiny bottle in his hand. At the impossible task before him.
“As long as it takes.”
The workshop had originally been a storage alcove—a natural indent in the cliff face that he’d expanded and enclosed during his first year on the mountain. He’d told himself it was just for keeping supplies dry. For storing herbs and roots and the occasional project.
He’d lied to himself even then.
The workbench ran along the back wall, cluttered with equipment he’d built from scraps and salvage over five years of self-imposed exile.
A primitive distillation setup cobbled together from copper tubing and glass vessels.
A heating element powered by carefully channeled geothermal energy.
Stone mortars of varying sizes, their surfaces worn smooth from years of grinding ingredients he’d sworn he would never use.
Everything he needed to be what he’d promised himself he would never be again.
He closed the door behind him and got to work.
The first step was analysis—he needed to know what he was working with. Human medicine was different from Vultor remedies, but their species had similar enough physiologies that treatments could frequently cross over.
The pale blue liquid was viscous, with a faintly bitter smell that reminded him of tree bark and metal. He transferred a single drop to a shallow dish and held it over the heat source, watching as the liquid slowly evaporated and left behind a residue of crystalline compounds.
Interesting.
The next few hours disappeared into a blur of tests and observations.
He separated the components through careful distillation, isolated the active compounds, and analyzed their structure through a series of reactions that he’d thought he’d forgotten.
His hands moved with a surety that surprised him, muscle memory taking over where conscious knowledge failed.
Some things, it seemed, couldn’t be unlearned no matter how hard you tried.
By the end of the first day, he had a working theory. The medicine was a combination of several ingredients—a respiratory relaxant, an anti-inflammatory, and something else. Something he couldn’t quite identify but that seemed to be the key to its effectiveness.
He worked through the night, barely aware of Jessa’s quiet visits. She brought food that he forgot to eat, water that he drank without tasting. She stood in the doorway sometimes, watching him work with an expression he couldn’t read.
He didn’t have time to read it. Every moment he spent doing anything other than working was a moment Dani didn’t have.
Dawn came and went. He lost track of time entirely, his world narrowing to the workbench and the equations spinning through his mind. The mysterious component finally revealed itself somewhere in the middle of the second night—a compound derived from a fungus that grew in the southern wetlands.
He didn’t have access to that fungus, but he knew something similar that grew in the forests just below the mountain, in the dark spaces where the trees grew so thick that sunlight never reached the ground.
He emerged from the workshop just as the first grey light of the second dawn was filtering through the entrance to the den. Jessa was asleep in the chair beside Dani’s bed, her head drooping against her chest, one hand still clutching her sister’s fingers.
He didn’t wake her.
The forest was cold and quiet as he made his way down the slope.
His body ached from the hours of immobility, his eyes burned from staring at his equipment, but he barely noticed.
The location he needed wasn’t far—a hollow tree he’d discovered during his second winter here, its interior colonized by a specific species of fungus that glowed faintly in the darkness.
He collected what he needed and returned to the workshop.
Another day of work. Another night. The substitute compound wasn’t identical to the original, but it was close—close enough that it should work.
In theory. If his analysis had been correct.
If his memory of long-ago lessons hadn’t failed him.
If he hadn’t made a single mistake in the dozens of calculations and measurements and reactions required to create the final product.
Too many ifs, and not enough time to verify them.
The finished medicine was a pale liquid, almost colorless, with a sharp herbal scent that caught at the back of his throat. He held the small vial up to the light, watching the liquid catch and refract the glow from the fire.
Please, he thought, though he wasn’t sure who he was praying to. Please let this work.
He found Jessa in the main room, warming broth over the fire. She looked up at his approach, and hope flared in her eyes—hope that turned to something more complicated when she saw what he was holding.
“Is that—”
“I don’t know,” he said hoarsely. “It should be. The components are correct and the proportions are right, but I’ve never made this specific medicine before. I can’t promise—”
“Give it to her.”
“Jessa—”
“She’s getting worse.” The words came out flat. The voice of someone who had already accepted the worst possible outcome. “The fever spiked again this morning. She hasn’t been conscious since yesterday afternoon. If there’s even a chance—”
“There is.” He crossed to her, taking her hand in his. “But you need to understand what we’re risking. If I got something wrong—”
“If you got something wrong, she dies.” Her eyes met his, steady and sure. “If we do nothing, she dies. I’d rather take the risk.”
He couldn’t argue with that logic. He didn’t want to.
Together, they walked into Dani’s room.
The child looked impossibly small in the bed he’d built for her, her dark hair spread across the pillow like spilled ink. Her breathing was shallow and irregular, each exhale rattling in her chest. The fever flush had spread from her cheeks to her neck and chest, painting her skin an alarming red.
She was dying. He didn’t need his healer’s training to see it.
He knelt beside the bed, the vial steady in his hand even as his heart tried to hammer its way out of his chest. He carefully tilted the liquid into a small cup, mixing it with water to dilute the strength.
“Dani.” Jessa’s voice was soft as she lifted her sister’s head. “Dani, sweetheart, you need to drink this.”