Chapter 17
KIT
SFS POLARIS
It is rare that Kit and Nevis are in the medical bay at the same time; Oswald has made sure they are always assigned separately.
Today, though, Tullia had said she wasn’t feeling well and Oswald had directed her to stay in her quarters, sending Wynstann with a testing kit to make sure she hadn’t somehow contracted the virus.
Kit and Nevis bustle around each other in the dimly lit ward, Kit checking Grayson’s vitals again before making her way to the medical cabinet in the hallway to retrieve more Siloslumber.
Over the last month, it’s become clear that as the patients deteriorate, they become more agitated when awake.
Last week, Ambassador Remulus attempted to wrestle a syringe from Wynstann’s hand, shouting about the darkness.
Kit hadn’t had any idea what he was talking about, thought that perhaps the Fever was making him delusional, but they’d had to administer Siloslumber to get him to calm.
Now they’ve taken to administering it almost around the clock, keeping Grayson and Ambassador Remulus sedated.
She supposes the only saving grace this week, if you could call it that, was that the ambassador had experienced a seizure, and had fallen into a coma shortly thereafter.
Oswald had made the decision to let him remain in it, hoping it would ultimately help his body heal.
She’s glad for it. They’ve made it to the month mark and managed to sustain both Grayson and Ambassador Remulus.
They’re not cured, but at least they haven’t died.
She grabs a vial, making a mental note to speak to Luminary Oswald about the dwindling supply.
Kit reenters the bay and Nevis turns, beckoning her to the ambassador’s bedside. “I need to show you something.”
“Alright,” Kit says hesitantly, joining Nevis.
“I ran a more detailed scan a few minutes ago,” Nevis says. “We’ve only been using the magitech for diagnostics, but it’s capable of more.”
She’s right, of course. The magitech is capable of much more, but using stronger magitech drains the Calandrian tokens more quickly.
Like everything else, they only have a finite number of tokens on board, so Kit has been trying to ration use of the magitech.
She isn’t going to chastise Nevis, though.
Nothing in her research into the Fever has proven fruitful yet, so maybe a different tack is necessary.
“Go on,” Kit says.
“I used the magitech to cast a diagnostic to check his vitals, and his temperature was elevated, which is to be expected with Crimson Fever. But then I thought about doing a more in-depth scan, and…” She pauses, searching for words. “It’s probably easier if I just show you.”
She lifts a hand, holding it above the ambassador and speaking under her breath, until a turquoise-gridded image of his body floats above him.
Over it is a set of numbers, indicating his oxygen levels, his temperature, his heart rate.
Within it, a swirling black mass, spreading from his toes, up his legs, through his torso, and taking root directly in his heart.
Kit gasps. “What is that?”
Nevis moves her hands slightly, tilting the image towards Kit. The mass moves, trickling out from the right chamber of the ambassador’s heart and down his arm. “I am fairly certain it’s the virus.”
“It’s never appeared like that on a diagnostic,” Kit says, perplexed. “We’ve only seen indicators of it in the readings, the vitals.”
“Kit,” Nevis says, her face a bit pale, “it hasn’t appeared like this before because while there was a magical element, it was so small as to be almost meaningless.
But now, I think it’s taken hold, rooted its way into his system.
Look at his heart, just there.” She points at the image, where the ambassador’s heart is wrapped in black webbing, nothing else visible.
“How can you be sure?” Kit says.
“I’m not,” Nevis says. “It’s a hypothesis. Obviously, we’ve studied magic and its interactions with the body, but maybe we should show this to the healers from Nexarium. I’ve never seen anything like this in person before. Maybe they have.”
Kit nods. As much as she’s wanted to figure this out on her own, she’s not equipped. She doesn’t know enough about magical maladies to be meaningful. Yet again, she falls short.
She banishes the thought from her mind. “Let me get Amaltheia.”
Several minutes later, the women stand around the bed, observing the coursing black mass. Amaltheia is quiet, her eyes tracking its movements.
“Well?” Kit asks. She’s impatient, wanting answers that she’s been attempting to find with no success over the last month.
“It looks like black magic,” Amaltheia says, after what feels like an eternity. “It’s not as common now, but we sometimes still get cases of people suffering from it on Nexarium. This is usually how it appears.”
“Black magic?” Nevis asks.
“We call it nixos on Nexarium,” Amaltheia explains.
There are footsteps behind her, and Wynstann appears, coming to relieve Amaltheia from her duties. Instead, he stops dead as he takes in the scene before him, mouth slightly agape. “What the fuck?”
“Hush,” Amaltheia scolds him. She knocks Nevis’ hand, forcing her to lose the hold she had on the scan. It falls apart, the air over the ambassador empty again.
“You can’t hide that from me,” Wynstann says, crossing his arms, brow wrinkled. “Nixos, huh?”
“I’m not hiding it, Wynstann,” Amaltheia says. “I just…we need to be sure. It looks similar, but there is also something different about it.”
“Different how?” Kit cuts in, her mind racing. Nixos. The magical signature she had yet to come across in her research, but the one she so desperately needed.
Amaltheia moves away from the ambassador’s bed, gesturing to the vestibule. “Let’s talk out there.”
“I’m coming,” Wynstann interjects.
“Fine,” Amaltheia sighs, stepping through the door as it slides open, releasing them into the interior vestibule.
She leans against a supply cabinet, brushing a stray piece of hair out of her face.
She flicks her hand, a glimmer of light emerging and circling around her body before settling.
Wynstann does the same, then flicks his hand at Nevis and Kit.
It doesn’t feel like anything, but she sees the golden glow settle into her skin, sinking below it.
“So,” Kit says. She’s nervous, her heart beating hard against her ribcage as she tries to understand what’s happening. Nevis stands next to her, fidgeting. “What was that all about?”
“Nixos is tricky,” Amaltheia says. “It can find a way into almost anybody that’s unprotected. From now on, we all should be protected with a Defendis, in addition to the standard protective gear. I’m surprised Oswald didn’t mandate this precaution for all of us earlier.”
Kit isn’t concerned about a Defendis right now, whatever that is, though maybe she should be. She’s too focused on the ominous black mass that was swirling through Ambassador Remulus’ body. The way it moved, contorted. “And that…thing is nixos?” Kit asks.
“Maybe,” Amaltheia says, “or something like it.” She pauses, exchanging a glance with Wynstann. Kit senses there is more they aren’t saying.
“Nixos is curable. Tamable. Pink salt draws it out,” Amaltheia says.
“We’ve not had problems with it on Nexarium in decades. Maybe longer,” Wynstann says.
“So you’re saying that the pink salt should have neutralized it, if it was nixos,” Kit says, slowly, trying to make sense of everything.
Trying to wrap her head around the concept of nixos, of black magic.
She’d never heard of it on Lumaria, but apparently it was all too familiar on Nexarium. Maybe on other planets too.
Amaltheia nods. “Yes. But it’s still there. Thriving.”
“Okay,” Kit replies, still processing, wishing she could keep up.
She should be keeping up. She wonders if there was a lesson she’d missed somewhere, a class that would have taught her about this.
“I just…this is the first I’m hearing about nixos.
I knew there were magical maladies, of course, but we never…
I never…” The image of the black mass is imprinted upon her mind, the way it swirled throughout the diagnostic, seeming to sweep every organ into its path.
She looks to Nevis, who appears equally puzzled. Nevis asks, “Before you learned pink salt could mitigate its effects, what happened to infected people?”
“It would make them go mad,” Wynstann says, simply. “Take over their minds, until they weren’t themselves anymore. Many killed themselves.”
“Well, we haven’t seen that at all,” Kit says, letting out a breath. In all the patients she’d seen Crimson Fever progress in, it hadn’t made anybody go mad. Sure, Ambassador Remulus had shouted a bit about some kind of darkness a few weeks ago, but that was hardly madness, right?
She feels out of her depth, confused as to why Luminary Ellsworth has trusted her with finding a cure.
Now, more than ever, she feels like perhaps she’s an imposter, moonlighting her way through her career, through her life.
She swallows over the lump in her throat, unable to shake the image of the black trellis that enveloped the ambassador’s heart.
There is so much she doesn’t know, so much she still needs to find out.
It’s just after ten in the evening, and Kit walks towards the sundome, needing a moment to herself after the day. Everything feels heavy, though she should feel elated that they’ve identified the magical signature of the virus. Instead, she feels overwhelmed.