Chapter 31
Hours passed as I continued reconnecting the affected parts. The door kept opening and closing, the murmuring outside growing louder each time, but I tuned out the world and just kept rebuilding.
A millimeter here, another there, and arteries that fed thousands of neurons responsible for speech, writing, and reading were slowly being reconstructed.
I felt the hours slipping through my fingers, but the patient remained stable, and I would take as long as necessary to restore everything.
I spent considerable time regenerating the center that controlled involuntary functions like breathing and heartbeat.
I reconnected a group of veins that collected blood from the areas governing balance and movement.
The truth was, I held an entire universe in my hands, and I was bravely trying to recreate its constellations.
I worked like this until my legs went numb, and when my arms stopped responding, I forced them to continue.
When I finally finished the brain reconstruction, my legs were so sore it was a miracle I could still stand.
I admired my work for a few seconds, but nothing guaranteed it would function properly.
It all looked like an incredibly complex system of wires, and my fear was that turning it on would cause a short circuit. I needed a test.
“Nayra?” My voice was hoarse from hours of silence.
“Yes?” She approached. She'd been monitoring the sedative levels in the patient's body.
“Please tell me Dr. Liriope is around,” I asked hopefully. She was the hospital's head psychiatrist and had level 400 telepathy.
The nurse sighed dejectedly, and I felt myself crumble inside.
“She's helping Ambrose—they're still finishing the second surgery. We didn't think you'd get this far, so no one arranged for a psychic.”
I sighed, utterly exhausted. They hadn't left me anything—not Ambrose, not blood, and now I was without a telepath too. I needed one to verify that everything was in place.
“Now what?” I only realized I'd spoken aloud when everyone stared at me blankly. I felt like just sitting down and crying.
Where would we find a telepath for this job?
The only ones I knew were Liriope and Adele's uncle, Ivanov.
I opened my mouth to suggest calling him when I remembered a third name.
Yes! I knew someone with the ability to search minds.
The problem was: how would I contact him?
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
“Serguei?” I called mentally. Could this actually work? I wasn't sure, but I had to try. When we were at home, he'd said he could hear the king reaching out to him—maybe he'd hear me too.
“Serguei?” I insisted, a little louder, feeling like an idiot shouting into the void.
“SERGUEI?” I screamed mentally. I wasn't a telepath, but I could have sworn even Interion's outer wall heard that call.
“What kind of madness is this, girl? Are you testing the limits of my mental eardrums?”
I heard the voice in my head, so loud and clear it made me shudder.
“Thank the gods you heard me. I need help, Serguei,” I exclaimed, keeping my eyes closed and pressing my fingers against the brain tissue in front of me.
“Little child,” he said, softening his tone but sounding even more mocking. “Since when am I a philanthropist? I make deals—charity isn't in my nature.”
How could a mental voice be so irritating?
“Stop being grumpy. This is life or death. I need you to search her mind and see if everything's normal.”
He went quiet for a moment, apparently analyzing the situation.
“Do you know who she is?”
“A medusa with a privileged position in the gorgon hierarchy.”
“Oh, yes! That's obvious. But do you know who she really is?”
“Serguei, I don't have time for this. Right now, the only thing I need to know is whether something's wrong with the brain.”
I knew I should be nice and patient when I was clearly at a disadvantage, but I was tired and he wasn't cooperating.
“All right, the choice is yours, child. Don't come back later saying I didn't warn you,” he exclaimed cheerfully. “But... what do I get out of this?”
I rolled my eyes, feeling like a fool for not anticipating there'd be a price.
“Do it and we'll talk later—I don't have time now.”
I concentrated even harder on reinforcing the arteries and veins that were still fragile. He fell silent, and I felt his presence withdraw. I watched the patient as her eyelids trembled, as if her eyes were moving back and forth beneath them. Minutes passed, then Serguei returned to me.
“She has a beautiful shield protecting her mind, and inside it there are several blocked areas I can't touch. It's professional work.” Serguei sounded thoughtful and a bit disappointed. “I just touched one blocked area and it disintegrated, its contents exploding instantly.”
“By the Gods. Are you telling me you can't get into her mind?” I asked, horrified, imagining what a disaster that would be for the surgery.
“What an absurd insult,” Serguei scolded. “I crossed the mental barrier and managed to access the basics of her thoughts—I just can't open the blocked parts, or I'll cause even more damage. Whoever built these shields is a truly skilled psychic.”
“I didn't know squad members had mental barriers.”
“Only the high-ranking ones,” he replied. “But that doesn't concern you, does it? You just said you don't have time to listen to me.”
“Exactly. Just do your job, Serguei, and leave the blocked parts as they are. I don't want to have to explain to the gorgon matriarch why the information exploded,” I said, focusing on the surgery. “If they're stored, they're important.”
“If they're stored, they're dangerous,” Serguei retorted suspiciously.
“They might be, but that's not the issue right now. We need to save her.”
Serguei grumbled and disappeared. He returned a few minutes later.
“I just finished putting the thoughts and memories back where they belong. It was a complete mess.”
“Thank you!”
“But something's wrong with her speech and intelligence. She's not thinking normally. Take a look.”
I focused on the frontal lobe, scanning again. My power probed, searched, and swept through every system. I found nothing.
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. I had her replaying an old memory, but she can't speak or think straight.”
I investigated again, millimeter by millimeter, now that I knew the exact area affected.
Just when I was about to give up, I found the problem.
The speech and intelligence systems were wired backwards.
Recognizing the error, I disconnected and reconnected everything, which took almost an hour. Serguei stayed with me.
“Done. Everything's fine now. Congratulations, girl.”
“Thank you, Serguei.”
“Don't thank me until you know what I'm going to ask of you.”
“Does everything have to be a trade? Couldn't it be simpler?”
“How else would I keep ties with people? This way is more fun.” He laughed, and I rolled my still-closed eyes. Then he left me alone.
I opened my eyes and finally took in the perfect, gleaming brain I had restored.
Now I just had to reconstruct the three protective membranes and then the skull bones.
I looked around, stretching the stiff muscles of my neck, and realized the nurses I'd started the surgery with had been replaced.
Three human doctors stood there now, along with Lorenzo, and all four were staring at me.
I almost lost my train of thought when I saw them.
“How long have you been here?” I asked, startled.
“About two hours,” Lorenzo said, smiling.
“And why didn't you help me?”
“Because we've been working nonstop for sixteen hours, and I don't have a single drop of power left. We didn't want to interrupt—you're doing well.”
“Why don't you go rest?” I asked, reconstructing the last protective layer. When my power touched the cells, the tissue stretched and reconnected, tracing its original shape.
“Because we're witnessing something never before seen in elemental medicine,” he said proudly. I was afraid to look at him directly and lose control of the regeneration.
“What about the other patients? There were twenty in total.”
“We've done everything we could. They're all in recovery now. We distributed them among the hospitals—five are here, six more are at the fae hospital, and the rest, those with minor injuries, stayed at the human hospital.”
A wave of relief washed over me. No patient had died, just as I'd promised Zion. I stayed quiet and continued—I was almost finished.
The bones required even more elemental power.
Their solidity didn't demand concentration like the brain neurons did, but a raw, massive amount of power.
So I pulled even more from the elemental well, enough to make my hands emit white light.
I held the patient's bald head and sent everything in one massive surge.
The skull and scalp began to reconstruct at an incredible speed, and the doctors leaned in to get a better look.
“How many hours have I been here?” I was tired—so tired. It wasn't my gift that was drained. It was my body that no longer obeyed me.
“You've been here for fourteen hours.”
That explained why I felt so sore and heavy. All that time in the same position was too much.
Minutes later, the skull finished fusing, and soon the scalp covered it. I removed my gloves and ran my hands over the gleaming head—not a trace of a scar. Still, I imagined she wouldn't be happy to wake up and find she'd lost her precious hair.
A nurse entered the room with a blood bag, and I helped her hook it up to the equipment.
“I need you to do another scan. Check if any external structures are out of place.” The five doctors stared at me, smiling. “Oh, right—you already know what to do.”