I placed the last jar upon the neatly organized shelf, the top level of a wall of neatly organized shelves. My fingers lingered along the smooth fist sized bulb, some of the lantern oil still sloshed in the bottom.
I had been regulated to the medic's old room, and somehow put in charge of healing in general. The Onyx Aerie pack had been retrieved, and quarantined within the Amber Aerie. A process which had sparked a high degree of argument between the aerie Lords, and a string of councils aiming to change the Archon's mind.
Almost a quarter of the family I once knew had been infected, the others, not knowing to keep those bitten at a distance, at high risk of infection themselves. Fortunately we managed to separate the ill, and guard them well. Unfortunately, I had no way to cure the possession, or even slow its progress. Three days I had worked tirelessly, seeing to my duty when all I wished was to chase my sister down myself. And in three days I heard nothing of what became of Adda.
Scet had taken off after her, nearly as soon as she was discovered missing, reinstating his vow to keep her safe. Perhaps I should have protested, should have released him from any such promise, but Adda was out there alone and I couldn't bring myself to take away any advantage she might gain. Strale too, when he returned, had gone after her. His reasons I was less certain of, I only knew that he and Cillumn had spent a long hour in deep conversation before he announced his intentions and flew off into the night.
I should have been relieved, but it worried me that I still had no word of her.
In the passing time I had occupied myself by studying the progress of the disease, enough to know that once one was infected they did not have much time left as themselves. Already the Dragon Lord who had been bitten had to be destroyed, along with three warriors from my pack. A devastating loss, and all I could do was to prevent more damage.
Mother was one of those unaffected, thank the Six, but now she, and the new Alpha were insisting it was time for them to leave the Amber Aerie. Truthfully I only heard it in passing as I moved through the quarantine distributing lantern fuel. I had been trying to avoid the woman, how could I face her now? I failed to bring Adda back and I mated a dragon. I was shame embodied.
Rumor abound that the Onyx Aerie had a new Archon, one not tied to Grim...and whatever he had become. So the pack wished to return, to beg re-entrance into the aerie and the servitude of the Lords, as it once was.
I didn't like it, but I was hardly in a position to influence their choices. Hells, I had never been in a position to influence their choices.
I returned to my workbench and sat, folding my fingers on top, staring at the room but not seeing anything.
"You still saved her, you know."
Cillumn's voice sounded from the doorway, where he stood a tray of food balanced in one hand and two glasses and a jug of wine in another. He was talking about Adda of course, guessing where my mind had been. The same thing he'd been telling me for three days, yet I still felt as though I failed her somehow.
"She is free from her captivity and the horrors she might have faced there. How she chooses to use that freedom is not up to you. Besides, I would trust Strale with my life, and I am certain he feels responsible for her escape somehow. If he is still out there, then he must be guarding her."
Sure. If he could find her.
Cillumn eyed the bench warily, likely worried that there might be remains of poisonous frog mucus lingering somewhere.
"It is safe," I gestured to a clean spot. "But I do not need you to feed me Cillumn, I am not a child."
Things hadn't been the same between us since the mating. Oddly I found myself missing our camaraderie. It occurred to me, several times over the last three days, that Cillumn just might be my first true friend...more than that now obviously, since there is no undoing a Dragon Mating. Still, I never had anyone, besides Adda, that I might count as a friend, and I missed it now that our relationship was strained.
"So long as you will not take care of yourself you are behaving like a child and I will care for you as though you were one."
I flinched. There was more in those words than an admonition for forgetting to eat. The tension of our mating was a sore spot. It likely didn't help that I had chosen not only to spend my days in the medic room, but my nights as well, curled on a tiny cot I found in the back. Maybe it was a bit childish, but it was as though my choices had been taken from me and I could not just accept it, no matter how hard I tried. Now, however I sighed. I was too tired to argue. I reached over to the platter and lifted a slab of cheese.
"I cannot feel her any longer," I confessed. Since Adda had escaped I had felt nothing of her. It was as if we did not share a bond at all. It terrified me that something might happen to her and I would have no way of knowing.
"Are you in pain?"
"What?"
"Gayriel and Scet share a bond that is breaking, apparently it is vastly painful. Are you in pain?" Cillumn plucked a grape from its bundle, a casual movement, but his gaze was nothing but. He studied me intently, as if suspecting I might be able to hide such a thing from him.
I shook my head. I was not in pain. But...
"Wait, isn't Gayriel mated to Dynarys? How is it that she shares a bond with Scet?"
Cillumn didn't answer for a moment, simply focused on me, assessing. Then he shrugged.
"I am not entirely sure how it happened. Dynarys does not like to talk about it. The last time Strale brought it up I thought he might tear his throat out...though now I can understand his frustration."
And we were back to the same argument.
"The dragon does not understand your rejection Lis, he is becoming irritable and ornery."
I frowned. I kept telling him, the dragon was not my problem.
But even in my head I knew that wasn't true. I was just as responsible for the beast's claiming of me as Cillumn. I mated with him willingly after all, no coercion necessary. Besides, spending all my time in this room was starting to wear on me. I needed to be out and among people. And the only person I knew that would be happy in my company was sitting across from me now. Besides, the events had not made Cillumn any less attractive to me. And now that I knew what he was capable of...I had a difficult time regulating my thoughts to anything else.
"Here," Cillumn pulled something from his side and handed it across the table. "You mentioned wishing to study this."
I reached forward, palm up and allowed him to drop a cool metal bit into my hand. Intense little sparks crawled up my arm from where his knuckles brushed my skin. Even that slight touch was enough to awaken my longing for him.
I looked down.
"The Glyph?"
He nodded. "The second one, the one that Scet had possession of. When Illaise took the first Grim and his force followed, and they haven't been back, so we must assume that this one is somehow less important. The Archon agrees that if you can figure out why...then it is worth the trouble he faces by giving it to you."
I flipped the thing back and forth in my fingers, not quite seeing it. He was giving me a boon, a neutral topic, but he must struggle with his desire at least as much as I did. I risked a peek upward. He sat leaned forward, muscles tense and ready to pounce, amber eyes glowed like coals in a hot fire.
"Lisrith!" Dynarys appeared at the medic room doors, silent as always in his approach. His words, however, were not silent. Nor were they calm. His face pulled into tight lines. Something unpleasant had happened.
"It's Gayriel," he pushed inside, reaching out for me. I had the impression that he would have grabbed me if Cillumn had not stood at that moment and blocked his path. "She is dying."
Dying? How could that be? Gayriel was fit and healthy for a human woman.
"What happened?"
"There is no time," Dynarys growled. "You must come now."
"If you do not explain the situation I will not know what to bring, and more time will be wasted. Possibly fatal time."
Dynarys paced back toward the door, ran a hand through his short black hair and glared at me. "I do not know what happened, we were walking through the corridor, back to our apartments. She tripped over something, I know now it was a trip line, a trap. I couldn't..." he broke off, something vulnerable, desperate came across his face. "I didn't sense it, I don't know how that could be. But she was shot with this."
He held out an arrow, but it was not a normal arrow. This one was a fair bit smaller than the arrows I was used to, and black. Fletched with black feathers.
I took it from him.
"I cannot heal a fatal arrow strike," I warned.
He shook his head. "It was not fatal, I managed to shove her to the side far enough that it pierced through her shoulder instead of her heart. But the wound grows black. I believe it is poisoned."
My throat tightened, and I suddenly recalled what my trials had pushed from my mind. My poisons had been stolen. Six hells, this was bad. All the creations I made were concentrated for effectiveness. That meant she had minutes to live, if she was lucky. A shot so close to the heart might reduce that time a great deal more. I sniffed the arrows tip, and then carefully dabbed it to my tongue. Right enough it was Gayriel's unique scent that covered the sharpened tip, the shaft and even the fletchings. It must have passed straight through her. But there was something else as well, a bitter and sour note. A common poison, one of my older creations from the pitcher plant that grew in the swamps around the Onyx aerie. A poison both quick and deadly.
"Go," I growled at him. "Stem the wound and keep as much pressure as you can between it and her heart."
"What..." he began.
"She will die, Lord Dragon if you do not obey."
Dynarys's face paled and he dashed from the room, I dashed too, for my satchel, locked neatly in its own cabinet and hidden around the bend of a shelf. I kept all my important creations close to me at all times. The medic's room had better locks than my last room had, but I was taking no chances. I remembered that someone had still snuck in here to do away with the man. I pulled the satchel out and dove my hands inside, looking for the right phial. A tiny capsule, much like those I made for my dart launcher, but with an injection tube and a plunger.
Panic made me clumsy and it took longer than it should have, but at last I had it. The antidote. I hesitated at the door, realizing I had sent Dynarys away and had no idea where their apartments were. For a shaky breath I thought such a mistake might mean the woman's death, but Cillumn pressed by me.
"This way," he trotted ahead. Despite the severity of the situation he appeared calm, moving fast but not carelessly through alleys and streets until we reached a medium sized building. It was constructed with the same pale stone as everything else in the aerie, and lined with fruit plants. All the way up the walls decorative lattice allowed light into the outer walkways of the building. We ran up a set of stairs, and then another until we reached a crowded corridor. A mess of Shifter warriors and a few women crowded into the space.
"Make way," Cillumn snapped, physically pushing at one of the men. I cringed at the insult but slid my way behind him through the mass of bodies until I reached the woman collapsed upon the floor. Her breathing had already shallowed, her lips turning blue. I did not wait for farther signs of impending death, I quickly found the fading pulse at her neck and jabbed the injection tube into the artery there, pressing the plunger as fast as I dared.
Then we waited.
The world around me stilled. I did not know this woman, not more than a passing meeting, but she had seemed kind and thoughtful. Bent on protecting those she loved. She did not deserve such a trick. And with my own creation too.
But I could guess at why she had been targeted. I looked at her mate sidelong. Dynarys. Half Dragon, half Shifter. That sort of animosity was what I had to look forward to for the rest of my life, not to mention any children we might have.
What I couldn't answer was who had done it. I was certain it was the same individual, but there was no more clue between the wound and the arrow than there had been in the room when I discovered the poisons missing in the first place.
Gayriel drew a long ragged breath, some of the color returning to the skin around her face.
I had made it in time.
The wound still gushed blood, but the blackness around it receded, the antidote canceling the poison's effects as soon as the blood pumped it out to the area.
Relief poured over the crowd, and the Lord before me, always firm and stoic gathered his mate into his arms and buried his head in her neck.
A little embarrassed I braced myself to rise, but something jammed into my skin, bruising. It was the Glyph, I had forgotten I still held it with the threat of life lost.
I stared at it now, an excuse to avoid the acknowledgment of the attention turning my way. As I focused I noticed the gem at the center, a smokey black similar to the glass of a lantern when the wick burned out.
And that, I knew suddenly, was the difference. This glyph was empty...which would mean that the glyph the Master had used upon Adda...must have been full.
Foreboding forced a deep shudder through my heart. I had a feeling that Adda was in deeper trouble than ever before, and I had no way to help her now.