A Bigger Vial
The fire was already burning when I ducked through the doorway.
Eravic glanced up from the herbs spread across the table.
"You are precisely on time."
"I thought punctual patients were every healer's dream."
"Not a healer."
"You have certainly been acting like one."
"I have been handing you increasingly unpleasant things to drink."
"That sounds suspiciously like poisoning."
"If you ask the wrong person, yes."
One corner of his mouth lifted. Then dropped when he saw my face. "How long since the last cough?"
"This morning."
I did not tell him it lasted longer than the one before it. Or that my vision went white at the edges the way it had the night I died.
The look on his face told me that he already suspected the answer.
He reached for the newest vial. Larger than the last.
I frowned. "It keeps growing."
He handed it to me. "Drink."
I took one cautious sip and immediately grimaced. "It tastes like boiled moss."
"It is boiled moss."
I stared at him.
"You're joking."
"I am."
"You hesitated."
"I enjoy keeping you humble."
I sighed. "You are impossible."
"I've been called worse."
I finished the treatment with considerably less enthusiasm than dignity.
He took the empty vial and motioned toward the chair nearest the fire. "Sit."
I lowered myself into the chair. The warmth chased away the chill that had worked into my bones during the walk.
He dragged the small table between us and took the chair opposite mine. A worn deck of cards came out of his coat. It had been coming out of his coat every evening for three weeks now.
The treatment always made me tired. Eravic had apparently decided that was the perfect opportunity to cheat at cards.
"I saw that."
"You did not."
"You put the ace beneath the deck."
He looked thoughtful. "I don't believe I have an ace."
"You already looked."
"I did."
"You are impossible."
"So I've heard."
I reached across and snatched the top card from his pile.
He sighed. "Princess."
We played for a while. I lost twice and refused to acknowledge it and he refused to point it out, which was the version of kindness he had eased into over the past weeks without either of us naming it.
"You've become annoyingly difficult to read," I said.
"Almost certainly," he said.
I laughed. "You're infuriating."
"So I've heard."
The fire burned between us. Outside the wind pressed against the walls of the hut. Inside the game continued.
As usual, the quiet between us did not feel like something to fill. It simply was.
I set my cards face down. "I don't understand Teorin."
He put his own cards down.
"What exactly don't you understand?"
"What did he want from me when I was in Veynar?"
"I think," he said at last, "what Teorin wanted in the beginning...and what he wanted later were two very different things."
I frowned.
"What changed? What does he want, exactly?"
His expression softened, almost imperceptibly.
"I believe..."
He paused.
"...you." He looked at me. “He likely still does. “
He leaned forward. "Have you ever been told what the Protectorate Bond is?"
"Yes. Mostly."
"King Fyris never intended to stop at the Alarnan bond between you and Teorin," he said. "And in the beginning, neither did Teorin."
I stared at him. "Start over."
A faint smile. "Very well."
"Have you ever heard the name Brina?"
"No."
"Brina is Teorin's mother. She is also King Fyris's sister. And she is in Sarenal."
I frowned. Sarenal had never seemed to matter, yet lately it seemed to be the only thing that mattered.
"He told me his mother was dead."
Eravic sighed. "He is not known for telling the truth."
I looked into the fire and let that arrange itself. "So Brina lived behind Sarenal's wards and King Fyris wanted her back. He thought he needed me because....?"
"The Protectorate Bond itself is real," Eravic said. "But what King Fyris intended to do with it was not. He twisted something that was meant to protect into something that would serve his own purpose."
He looked at me steadily. "He believed your power could be used to accomplish something far beyond the bond itself. Something that would allow Brina to return from Sarenal."
"Drain me."
His silence was answer enough.
Something cold moved through me. "Teorin knew this."
"Yes. He agreed to it. In the beginning." He looked at the fire. "Word from the docks is that he had been visiting your father's land for years before any of this began. Watching you from a distance. Learning who you were."
"He was visiting the Baron's estate?"
"So it has been said."
I thought about that. A man standing outside a life he was meant to destroy, watching it, deciding something privately that nobody had asked him to decide.
"At some point," Eravic said, "he decided he was not going to do it. That keeping those wards sealed mattered more than retrieving his mother." His voice dropped. "That you mattered more."
Neither of us said anything.
"But the wards have been getting looser," I said.
"Yes. For years. Whatever was always meant to seal them permanently has not happened. And the longer it does not happen the more vulnerable everything becomes."
"So it did not matter what Teorin decided."
He was quiet. "It mattered to him," he said. "Whatever it cost him to make that choice, it was real."
I looked at him across the fire. The lamp was low. Outside the dark water moved.
"You sound almost sympathetic," I said.
"I am almost sympathetic."
"To Teorin."
"To anyone," he said quietly, "who wants something they cannot have and decides to protect it anyway."
The fire crackled once.
I looked at him and he looked back and neither of us said the thing sitting in the space between the words we had just said.
"It is a lot to carry," I said.
"Yes," he said. "It is."
Neither of us reached for the cards again.
His eyes moved to the empty vial on the table.
"There is something else we need to discuss."
I looked at him.
"The treatments are helping," he said carefully. "But they are not stopping what is happening."
I looked away. "I know."
"Elsan is trying to find something else. A strong treatment, perhaps. Another treatment. We are all searching everywhere for the antidote but there has never been known to be one for this. But I need you to understand something, princess." He paused. “There may not be one.”
The words sat heavily between us.
"There may be another option."
I looked back at him.
"The Arrolyn. It can be activated,” he said. “It is not ideal. But it would restore what was missing. It would give you the power you need."
“Why is it not ideal, Eravic?” My voice was tight. “What is the cost?”
His expression tightened.
"I do not know everything. That is the truth. The Arroyln is Sarenal magic. It is powerful magic. Dark magic, made by ancient bloodlines for those of Saren descent.”
He sighed. “Sarens are known to have a certain…darkness within them.”
I thought of Dali.
“Speak plainly.”
“It may change things. Bring things forward that already exist beneath the surface. Feelings. Attachments. Instincts. Things you may not expect."
I was quiet.
“It could change you. Some say it can even change memories. Still others say it does nothing at all.”
“Could it split me in half like Dali and Maridale?”
“I do not think it is the same mechanism, but in truth, I do not know.” He sighed. “What I do know is that it will make you strong. Strong enough to not need any antidote. Strong enough to leave here.”
“Strong enough to kill Orsin of Yorali,” I finished.
He nodded. “Yes. Strong enough for that.”
"I would never ask you to choose it lightly," he said. "But I also cannot watch you get weaker every day and pretend we have unlimited time. You should know your options.”