Chapter 8 In Sickness and in Health and in Everything Else
In Sickness and in Health and in Everything Else
Ragnar
The veilhounds were restless the moment they returned from the barracks.
Rarely did Ragnar indulge in violence—animals needed to be handled firmly but never brutally—yet the veilhounds had seen him turn aggressive, and undoubtedly it made them hungry for blood.
Almost as hungry as he had been for Drolmoth’s.
The Aun’eth pack wanted to leave for the woods immediately, but he insisted on inspecting each of them, tending to the most minor of injuries and ensuring there was nothing that required extra attention.
The guard had been good to them, though, and the distraction of beastkeeping lasted but an evening, forcing him to set them loose the next morning.
Chores were also too quick, but there was a letter from Kizros waiting on his worktable—another reminder of the human from the post despite that a drayk had brought it—and at least he could answer that.
The atteapir ran in circles at his feet as he wrote out his response. “Save your energy, you’ll be put to work soon,” he huffed down at the creature then took a glimpse at his healed hand.
The bandage Rand had given him was no longer needed, but the ghost of those magically induced slices remained.
He’d imagined strangling Drolmoth the moment he’d seen him touching the human.
Even if she had invited the demon’s fondling, Ragnar still had the urge to end it, to rip Drolmoth limb from limb and steal the human away for himself, an urge he couldn’t possibly understand because he’d never once had it before, not to mention the fact he himself had physically removed that very human from his own presence twice now.
But then she shouted. She lashed out. She made it clear there was nothing consensual about what was happening up against the back wall of the barracks, and Ragnar put to use all of that animalistic possessiveness for good. Drolmoth should be thanking Wrasmos to still be alive.
And yet Ragnar had touched Brioni as well.
Brioni. Her name skipped across his memory like a stone on a pond, but it never sank.
Instead it bounded right toward him, wrapped its arms around him, needled him to hold on and never let go.
Because Ragnar needed to be needled, he knew, but he was no better than any other demon when it came to touching her.
Worse, really, because he wanted to dig his fingers in, pin her down, make her his.
Fuck, where did that come from?
Probably from the same place as that funny little tickle in his chest, but he was too at odds with himself to make the connection.
He shook the feeling of her skin out of his hand and picked up his quill again to sign his response letter.
Kizros was always thoughtful enough to send a drayk before stopping by to check on the magic in the green lanterns—and to check on Ragnar too, even if that inquiry was unspoken.
But the apothecary demon’s last letter had come with a request, one Ragnar was eager to oblige, and some rather interesting information.
It seemed Kizros had a human too—well, not too since this other human was a colleague rather than a…
nuisance. But Kizros had written about his human with a fervor he usually only reserved for plants.
Perhaps she was flower-colored or had sprouted roots—Ragnar was sure he would find out when Kizros visited in the coming days.
The atteapir made a sharp turn then, knocking into Ragnar’s legs.
Moar whined in response, but when Ragnar reached down for both creatures, they were gone.
He turned, and at the barn’s entrance, a familiar silhouette stood against the green light outside: short, curly-headed, round.
But this time Moar didn’t pounce. Odd—Brioni was very pounce-on-able.
Ragnar bit back his fangs when she stepped under a yellow lantern’s glow.
Brioni was distraught. Her eyes were wide and glassy, her face was splotchy and red, and she was taking small but heaving breaths.
His immediate inclination was to find and kill Drolmoth, chastising himself for not following through on his instinct the day before, but the drayk in Brioni’s arms halted his murderous thoughts.
“Ragnar?” she said in a meager voice that made him want to gather her up into his own arms. “I need your help.” The creature was limp as she cradled it to her chest. Of course she had come with a beast-related problem—that was what he was good for. All he was good for.
He went to her with the speed of a demon who possessed the kind of magic that could fix everything, hands open and arms extended. “What happened?”
“I don’t know. She was just laying at the bottom of the rookery this morning.” Brioni hesitated to hand the drayk off, gazing down at it and as enamored as she was distressed. That might make things a bit more difficult.
“I will fix this,” he assured her because there was no other choice—he couldn’t bear to see her so—and finally coaxed the creature into his hands.
At first touch, the drayk was warm, a good sign, and her weight seemed normal, so she was neither withering away nor eggbound.
He brought her to his worktable in the barn’s center and carefully laid her out.
She was listless, but her eyes roved to Brioni who pressed herself in beside Ragnar, even warmer than the underside of the drayk.
Ragnar ignored how her breast grazed his arm, focusing instead on the creature’s pupils—normal—and then the skin about its eyes and snout—crustless.
More good signs, if frustrating as he had nothing yet to diagnose.
“It’s okay,” Brioni said quietly to the drayk. “You’re doing so good.”
Ragnar took a breath and imagined the praise was for him, chest tickling with the thought, then he snorted at that ridiculousness. He didn’t need a scout to applaud when he removed cobgruk quills from a veilhound’s leg, so how was this any different?
He ran a hand along the drayk’s spine and gently lifted its feathers.
There was no scabbing nor sign of parasites, and when he inspected the talons, they were neither dull nor brittle.
A light press to her belly told him there was no swelling, and a peek in her mouth showed the correct number of fangs with no decay.
Perhaps, then, her malady had a magical root, which was much harder to cure, but at least he could find its source. He would bring the drayk to the damn infirmary and beg one of the healers to expend their magic on the animal if he must—anything to mend Brioni’s distress.
He knelt and opened the latched cabinet beneath the table. Ingredients lined the shelves, healing herbs and bandages and ointments, but three wrapped bundles sat alone on the lowest shelf. As he picked out the middle one meant for flying creatures, there was a soft thump overhead.
Ragnar stood, gaze darting over the table and then to Brioni. She was grinning widely—strange, considering the drayk was ill—and her hand was laid flat over the creature’s tail. “Did someth—”
“What’s that?”
The linen had fallen away from what he held to reveal a shimmering stone carved with a circle of runes. “This is an oliderite. It assists in diagnosing magical maladies.”
The woman’s coppery brows lifted. “Oh, I didn’t realize you had something like that…” She didn’t sound nearly as excited as she should have. “You think she’s magically sick? It’s not just, like, a drayk cold?”
Ragnar squinted—drayks were rarely cold. “The Veilwood is full of strange things, the Dreadmoor even more so. Drayks can fly great distances in a single day, so it’s possible she cursed herself or caught some sort of hex.”
“That sounds way more serious than I was thinking.” Brioni gnawed on a nail as she fidgeted beside him instead of hovering so close. Maybe he should have been grateful for the relief, but this was odder. “I sort of just expected you to give me some medicine I could take back to the post.”
“Not until we know what’s wrong.” Ragnar traced the outer ring on the stone.
It wasn’t his magic that lit it up with a yellow glow, but it had been imbued by a number of capable demons.
Poison would turn it green, possession purple, a wasting hex orange, all afflictions he likely couldn’t cure, but he would find someone who could.
He passed the stone over the drayk’s body, watching it intently for a shift in color. It didn’t even flicker. In fact, its yellow hue pulsed an even brighter gold as if to say the drayk was exceptionally healthy.
Ragnar’s gaze slid to the drayk’s tail again and Brioni’s hand still lying atop it. The tip stuck out from under her fingers, and it twitched in a…a not-sick way. Almost a waggy sort of way.
“It’s worse than I thought,” Ragnar said, pretending to inspect the brightly glowing stone.
Brioni’s green eyes went ridiculously wide.
He wrapped the stone up in its linen and sighed heavily.
The human’s fingers drummed on the table and released the drayk’s tail, and it thumped in confirmation of what he already suspected.
“We may have to put her down.”
“What?” Brioni squeaked.
Squeak, the drayk what-ed.
“I’ve just never seen a case so bad.” Of what, he couldn’t say because he couldn’t come up with something clever while watching her face so intently for the horror that was crawling across it.
Brioni’s features moved about as if mimicking the inner workings of her mind.
There was sharpness there, surely, since she’d convinced him so quickly—never mind that he was willing to believe anything she said—but as panic set in, a new plan tried to form itself, something smart and tricky she could say, but it would take time, and he wasn’t going to give her that opportunity.
He liked her far too much like this, wiggly and nervous and just on the verge of being caught in her lie.