Chapter 19 – — Professor Nestor, Architecture of Flesh
Chapter Nineteen
“A wound cannot heal if the one who carries it believes they deserve the pain.”
— Professor Nestor, Architecture of Flesh
The library doors groan shut behind me, and the cold hits like a slap. The perpetual winter here in the Frostlands sure is pretty, but the cold…that’s getting a little old.
Snow has started falling again while I was buried in books. A fresh white layer of powder coats the ground and the bare branches overhead. The campus is silent, and I’m starting to wish I hadn’t told Jace to go back without me an hour ago.
I breathe into my hands to warm them.
My bag is heavy with borrowed books. Notes on corrupted tissue. Case studies of riftling wounds. An old leather-bound journal detailing experimental treatments most healers considered too dangerous to try.
It’s not much, but it might save Nella’s life.
My breath fogs in front of me as I cross the courtyard. The snow muffles my footsteps.
I’m halfway to the dormitories when I feel that uncomfortable familiar prickle at the back of my neck.
I walk faster, and still the feeling doesn’t leave me. It sharpens instead, pressing in at my back like a shadow with weight, a presence that is close and getting closer.
My hand slides into my satchel. Fingers close around the scalpel handle.
I spin, grab a fistful of fabric, and use my momentum to slam him against the wall. The blade is at his throat before my mind catches up to my body.
Amber eyes stare down at me.
Draven.
Snow clings to his dark hair, half down and falling in pieces around his face. His breath clouds between us. He’s not fighting back, just watching me with an eerie expression.
“Bale’s class is paying off,” he says.
“Why are you following me?”
“Who says I’m following you?”
“You were right behind me in the dark well after midnight.”
“It’s a path.”
“Bullshit.”
He narrows his eyes. He’s not used to people calling him out on his shit.
“Careful, Rose.” He tsks. “You’re shaking.”
“It’s cold.”
“It’s not the cold.”
I press the blade harder against his throat, not enough to cut but enough to make a point.
“Now look who’s pinned against a wall,” I say.
He leers at me. “I don’t hate this view.”
“You should. I could slit your throat right now.”
“Could you?”
He’s testing me, watching to see what I’ll do.
“You freeze over dead bodies.” His head tilts slightly, eyes never leaving mine. “You really expect me to believe you’d cut a living person?”
“You’re not a person. You’re a vampire.”
“Same thing.”
“Is it?”
The snow falls around us, soft and relentless. I’m suddenly aware of how close we are. I can feel the heat radiating off his body. His eyes drop to my mouth for a fraction of a second before snapping back up.
“You’ve got fire, Freckles.” His voice is barely above a whisper. “I’ll give you that.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I hate you.”
“You think your hatred wounds me, Rose? I’ve been hated by people who actually matter.”
“Ouch,” I say sarcastically, but it does kind of hurt me in a way I don’t expect.
“You’re still not moving.”
He’s right. I should probably step back, lower the blade and walk away.
“What were you doing with the headmaster?” I ask before I can stop myself.
His expression shutters. That flicker of something human disappearing behind the mask.
“Forget what you heard.”
“I can’t.”
“Try harder.”
“Tell me what deal you made with him.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because it doesn’t concern you.” His jaw tightens. “Because I’m trying to—”
He looks away from me for the first time since I pinned him here.
Trying to what?
I wait for him to continue, but when he speaks again his voice is different, stripped of its usual edge. “Go inside, Rose. It’s late.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It’s a warning.” His eyes meet mine again, something tired behind them. “Not everything that follows you in the dark wants to hurt you, but some things do.”
“And which one are you?”
He reaches up slowly and pushes the blade aside with one finger, like it’s nothing. Like I’m nothing.
“Next time,” he says, leaning close enough that I can feel his hair brush against my cheek, “aim for the heart. That’s the only way to kill a vampire.”
He melts into the shadows like he was never there at all.
I stand in the falling snow, scalpel still clutched in my hand, heart pounding.
What was he about to say?
And why do I care?
I’ve been in Rot, Ruin, and Putrefaction for the last three hours listening to Professor Rowan lecture us about different infections, wounds, and ways to combat them in the field.
Actually, I haven’t been listening. I’ve been tuning her out while reading, too focused on one wound that I thought might be getting better.
I’ve made it a point to stop by the patient wards every day for the last two weeks, even when I didn’t have a shift, to check on Nella and let Poppy hang out with Cael while he tells me insane battle stories that are almost too wild to believe.
I’ve gone to the library at least five times in the last two weeks and tried a couple different things on Nella’s wing.
The binding wraps soaked in purging solution slowed the spread but didn’t stop it.
The extraction method—cutting away the corrupted tissue layer by layer while still trying to salvage the wing—seemed promising until the decay crept back within days, angrier than before.
Venom therapy worked the best.
I convinced Senna and her serpent eidolon, Zee, to help me.
She was hesitant at first, worried about getting in trouble for administering an unauthorized treatment, but I begged, and eventually she said yes.
I think it’s because she felt she owed me that after I saved her that night from Malric, but neither of us brought it up.
The venom attacked the corruption aggressively. Within hours, the rot started to recede. Nella cried when she saw it, happy tears streaming down her face as she watched the blackness retreat from her wing.
For four days, I let myself believe we’d done it. That I’d saved her.
Then yesterday the decay started spreading again, faster this time.
I’m running out of options, but there’s one thing I haven’t tried. I read about blood mages in an old text buried in the restricted section, healers who could follow corruption into the blood and burn it out from within. They could cure what no one else could because their blood was current itself.
I’ve also learned blood mages truly are practically extinct. I thought maybe the others were exaggerating when they said so, but it’s in the text. They were hunted to death centuries ago, feared for the power they could wield.
But the headmaster is a blood mage.
Maybe he can help.
It’s possible he knows how the blood mages did it. Or knows someone who does. Or has some text, some record, some secret tucked away in that office of his. Or maybe he will be willing to try it himself.
It’s a long shot, but Nella is running out of time.
So after classes today, after my shift in the patient wards, I’m going to the headmaster’s office.
I have to ask him if he will help.
“We have a three-hour break until we have to report for ward hours. Want to come back to my room for a bit? I’ll help you relax.” Jace says, rubbing my shoulders as we exit the lecture hall.
I see the headmaster walking by himself across the courtyard.
This might be my chance. Instead of waiting and working up the courage to go to his office later, I can approach him now out in the open.
“Sounds great. Can you take my bag? I’ll meet you there in a few minutes.”
I hand Jace my satchel, and he nods, a question forming on his lips. Before he can ask it, I’m already moving, cutting across the courtyard and rounding the corner.
“Headmaster Ashmoor.”
He turns. His cloak whips around in the breeze, dark fabric snapping like a wing. His eyes land on me. Dark, narrow eyes that look like they’ve seen centuries pass and found them all disappointing.
His nose scrunches slightly.
I suddenly wish I hadn’t come over here.
But then I think of Nella and the necrosis creeping back across her wing. The fear she tries so hard to hide. The way she looked at me yesterday when I told her the venom therapy wasn’t working anymore.
I hurry the rest of the way to him.
“Miss Rose.” His voice is smooth, like he has all the time in the world and I’m an inconvenience he’s choosing to tolerate. “To what do I owe this...unexpected approach?”
My mouth goes dry. Up close, he’s taller than I remembered. The bits of red streaking through his dark brown hair catches the light. There’s something unsettling about the way he stands perfectly still, not a single unnecessary movement, like a predator conserving energy.
“I need to ask you something,” I spit out before I lose my nerve. “About a patient.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “You’re a bone year barely a couple months into your training, and you wish to consult with me about a patient?”
“Yes.”
“How...ambitious.”
I can’t tell if that’s a compliment or an insult. Probably both.
“Her name is Nella Thorne. She’s fourteen.
She has a fissure wound on her wing from a riftling attack.
The necrosis keeps spreading no matter what we try.
” I’m talking too fast but can’t stop myself.
“I’ve tried binding wraps and surgical extraction and venom therapy.
The venom worked for almost a week, but now it’s coming back faster than before, and I don’t know what else to do.
It feels like the healers have given up on her, and I’m the only one searching for ways to help this poor girl. ”
He watches me without blinking. “And you believe I can help?”
“I read about blood mages.” I chew on the inside of my cheek. “About how they could follow corruption into the blood and burn it out from within. They could heal things no one else could.”
Something shifts in his expression so subtly I almost miss it. A tightening around his eyes, like I hit a nerve.
“Blood mages,” he says, “now there’s a term I haven’t heard a student speak aloud in quite some time, at least not directed at me as a request.”