The Stormcrow Cycle [Slow-burn Slice-of-Life Tragic Fantasy Romance]

Chapter Two: A Guest

The wound was not as bad as she had thought.

He had been lucky; if his intestines or stomach had been punctured, she would not have been able to save him. The blade had gone into his side, tearing open skin, fat, and muscle, but just barely nicking his organs. His bloody spit had likely been courtesy of a blow to his jaw—a cut in the mouth, as far as she could tell. It had stopped bleeding already.

What kind of luck was that?

It had been difficult to sew him up alone. Usually Vaa'ti or Salu'ka would have helped, blotting the blood away so she could see and helpfully handing her whatever tool she needed when she needed it. But Vaa'ti and Salu'ka were not here; they were home.

Only Ba'an was here, because only Ba'an had been banished.

It would scar. Not only that, it would pull. She had not been able to stitch it as tightly and neatly as she could with assistance. Magic could be used to coax the flesh to mend, but everything had to positioned manually, and this was difficult to do alone. Ba'an did not like doing subpar work, but it could not be helped. Even if she were not an exile, she would not have been able to take an outlander man into the saa-vuti vur as she pleased. They would have told her to let him die; the life of an outlander, especially one who had been wounded outside of their domain, was no problem of theirs.

It was no problem of hers, either.

But there had been something in him that had called to her. She had felt it even from a distance, a sort of heat as he lay dying like the last lingering traces of a bonfire.

The K'Avaari called it rei-tat. For good or ill, this man had an air of destiny about him. Ba'an had been trained to recognize such things, and she was not likely to be mistaken.

It was warm. His soul—it was warm, and bright. Even as she retreated to the kitchen, she could feel its heat and hear it humming, sunny and clear. It was making her...peckish. She had expended a great deal of effort today, transforming not only herself but a passenger as well. She was tired, and a little hollowed out. She would need to go hunting soon, to placate the growing hunger inside her.

Everything had a price, after all, and magic was especially expensive.

Ba'an frowned into her mortar, pulling her attention away from the clamoring hunger building inside her. No. Now was not the time. Infection control was the most important thing now. She had done everything she could to keep the wound clean, but he needed to drink peloiti to flush out any sickness that may have made its way into his blood.

Ba'an had never made peloiti without the proper tools before. Most of her things had been left in the shi-vuti for her successors. The distillation had to be made inside the hollowed-out rocks carved specifically for that purpose, else the temperature would be too hard to control.

There was no way to make peloiti properly in her...cave.

She could make peloiti-sahum, though. It was a precursor to true peloiti, and though not as potent, it would have to do.

What a bother.

The man was still sleeping. He hadn't stirred, not even when she'd stitched him up. His breathing was even, however, and steady; he wasn't feverish either, which was a good sign.

It took most of the day and evening to make the peloiti-sahum. In the end she had made it a thick paste, which was the best she could do. She slathered it onto his wound, then saved some for later, wrapping it in a scrap of cloth. She would have to store it somewhere dark and a little damp, but not too damp.