Isavel collapsed onto the floor. She recalled no dreams.
When she woke again, she found she had been buried in ponchos and tucked into a corner. She was still hungry, but a flat watcher appeared with food for everyone, and she ate quickly and efficiently as Kelena, Sam, and Tanos stared at her. Zoa and Yarger were still nowhere to be seen.
When she was done eating and drinking, finally, Crimson’s voice sounded out across the room.
“Isavel Valdéz, you went on quite the journey. I did not expect you to cover such distances so quickly.”
“Spare me the praise, you glorified old relic.” Leaned her head back against the wall. “Is Hail still okay?”
Crimson showed no signs of offense. “She remains unchanged.”
Isavel nodded, standing up. Her muscles were stiff. “How long did I sleep?”
Kelena helped steady her. “It may be nightfall outside.” So all afternoon - not unreasonable, given the circumstances.
“Where are Zoa and Yarger?” She looked around.
“We’ve been locked in here for days.” Kelena frowned at her. “They’ve kept to themselves. They may be exploring… something.”
Something? “Good for them.” She pointed at the pillar of red light in the centre of the chamber. “Okay, Crimson. Get Hail down here. I’m ready.”
Kelena looked at her, puzzled. “For what?”
“To heal her. I went and found an earthling with a talent for healing. I took some of it for myself. I can fix her.” She felt the cool, green, pulsing energy of the medic’s hands, and glanced at Crimson. “I can, right?”
Crimson’s response was curt. “She is suffering from a fairly simple puncture wound. With those… gifts, you should be able to heal her, though she will require time to recover from the blood loss.”
Tanos and Sam stared at her. “You what? How?”
She looked at them and wondered what she should tell them. Would it be easier to lie? Maybe. But she ultimately answered only to herself, and she had never been a very proficient liar. So she tried to fight down the shame, and reached for the hunger and fire instead. “You know why I’m called Dragoneater.”
They both paled, and Tanos stepped back a little. She tried to smile.
“He’s alive. Don’t worry. I even freed him from Azure’s people.” The revelation was no comfort to them, as indeed it wasn’t for her; they backed away as she stepped towards the god’s light. She turned to the things she knew how to change. “Come on, Crimson.”
Crimson’s voice boomed out across the room. “I will keep most of the body in stasis, selectively excluding the wounded areas for you to repair the structure first.”
“Is she aware of anything?”
The watchers holding Hail slowly descended to the floor of the chamber, hovering before Isavel until one settled onto the ground. She looked at her dying friend, and found that after two days apart, her face seemed different somehow. She felt guilt and shame all over again, but buried them in a pit of anger and determination. She was what she was, and this was the best she could do, and she should feel no shame. Even Crimson seemed to want to reassure her. “She will not even be aware of any passage of time.”
“So she’s going to be scared.” Isavel took a deep breath, and the medic within readied herself. Healing the mind was different to healing the rest of the body, or so the medics always said; she had no notion of that. But maybe she could try, once the body was healed. “I can deal with that.”
Isavel could deal with anything she wanted to deal with. And she had three of those things. The first started now.
Chapter 16
The column of light held Hail in place, deforming and shimmering as Isavel slowly reached inside. “Any advice, Crimson?”
Crimson spoke flatly. “As I loosen the stasis around your hands, her tissue will begin to suffer again. Blood has pooled in her lungs - probe around with your biogenic fields. You’ll notice - ”
“My what?”
“Your gift .” At this, the god’s tone shifted pointedly. “Though I believe at this point you’ve understood such powers were never given to you.”
Isavel gritted her teeth and said nothing, bringing her hands closer to the wound in Hail’s chest. As she did she saw cloth and blood start to move, and the hunter’s body and torn tissues echo up through her hands, through her bones and spine, into her mind. The shape of the wound weighed in her gift like a shard of stone; through the back, through a lung, out near the bottom of the ribcage. She felt the fluids, too, the sloshing of blood in the longs. Hail would drown if she didn’t die from the loss of blood first.
“So after I’ve healed her, what do I do with the blood?”
“Drain it first. Puncture the bottom of her lung, to aid flow. The stasis will prevent more of it from flowing into the cavity; but do not delay. Stasis-differentials across a body are not harmful if measured in minutes, but in hours or worse, they can harm.”
There was a world inside the human body, a world Isavel was only just beginning to see, and here that world was scarred and broken. Crimson wanted her to break it even more? “Puncture?” She frowned, though, feeling around with a medic’s senses. She could feel the shifting mass of fluid in the lung, but had no way to move it or coax anything out, none the newborn medic in her could reveal in any case. “She’s already lost blood.”
“Her own bodily repair systems will recycle the blood, especially in her abdominal cavity, but she will need to expel it from the lung itself to breath properly in the immediate future.”
So… she tried to breathe calmly, thinking about this. Blood pooling in the bottom of the lung; blood could be reabsorbed beyond that. She needed to open up the bottom of the lung, without leaving another open wound that could drain her.
The hunter saw in lines of attack, ironically, and so she new what to do. A tiny warrior’s blade, sharp and bright, flickered onto her right index finger. “You’d better not be wrong, Crimson.”
“It costs my considerable mental faculties almost nothing to fully analyze the problem. I am lacking only in tools.”
She shook her head, pressing her left hand against Hail’s lower side and spreading her fingers. Between her index and middle, she jammed the blade on her other hand through at the right angle, up into the lung, and pulled it out even as her fingers closed and seethed with the medic’s healing.
It was torn tissue, just like Isavel’s skin and Tellac’s veins had been. The glow of her hand was like a clay she could mold and shape, flatten and pinch together, press against the tattered edges and bind them together. She felt the wound burning under her hands, and let the soothing waters of this ancient power flow over them. And as the blood drained, she went on to the main would - the gunshot - and began knitting everything back together.
After that, she felt around, feeling the give and the resistance of the medic’s skills against wounds and blood, and as soon as the blood had drained she set to work mending the lung itself. Stranger tissue, a more delicate texture to these stolen senses, but still tissue nonetheless. All just tissue.
“She will feel unwell and uncomfortable, when she awakes. It will take time for her organic recycling systems to clear her abdominal cavity.”
“She’ll also be afraid, won’t she? You said she wouldn’t know time had passed.”
The machines lowered themselves, and after a second Isavel realized Crimson was making to release the hunter from stasis. “She will not, no.” Panic suddenly struck her, as she wondered how she was going to explain this to Hail, without telling her…
Well, she had to tell her, didn’t she? And that did nothing for the panic.
Still, she stuck out her arms, and Crimson released the stasis field all at once. The light snapped, Hail groaned and thrashed, but Isavel caught her and held her still. “Hail - Hail, it’s okay! You’ll be fine!”
Between coughs the hunter started to wheeze, her eyes wide, and she looked around in a panic quickly overcast with confusion. Isavel kn
elt down and set her on the ground, resting the hunter’s head in her hands.
And as she did, strange sensations like flavours flickered against her fingertips. Things she had never noticed before. It tasted like fear, and death. She almost withdrew her hands in shock, but she tensed her arms at the last second, clamping down on that instinct and instead facing the thing she was feeling. Body and mind were one, they said, and the medic was meant to heal both. This, unlike knitting flesh, was not something she immediately understood. But she hadn’t even considered -
“Isavel?”
Hail still coughed, as Kelena knelt next to her. Sam and Tanos approached cautiously and reached for the hunter as well, and as Hail seemed to regain some balance she looked around at them, gaping and saying nothing, looking even paler than she normally did.
“Crimson -”
“She will recover more quickly if she eats. I will bring food.”
“Where are we?” Hail’s voice was creaky, and she tried to sit. “Isavel - we need to keep running - or -?”
Isavel shook her head and wrapped Hail in a hug, squeezing her tight. Her hand carefully sniffed at the flavours of her mind. “It’s been over two days. We’re safe. You’re healed.”
“Two - two days?” Her breathing quickened, her hand going down to her stomach. “I feel like shit. There’s something wrong -”
“You’ll be fine.” She was aware of something rushing around in Hail’s head, and whatever it was smelled like fear, anxiety, anger, blood, emptiness. It wasn’t good - it was sour and trembling and unstable, and even though her wounds were sealed Hail started to look more and more panicked. Isavel’s eyes widened - what good was it for a medic to know the mind was in danger, if it couldn’t heal it?
Or could it?
“Isavel - Isavel what happened -”
Some gifts were slower to come into their own than others. She didn’t have time to wait, if that was the case, so instead she tried to interrupt whatever fear was running through her friend’s head. “Hail, it’s okay. You’re fine. Do you hear me? You’ll live.”
“I was -”
She was trembling, grasping weakly at Sam and Isavel alike. Sam shot Isavel an odd look - largely blank, unjudging but unencouraging, heavy with anticipation. What was she going to do? To say? The unspoken questions weighed on her more heavily, and so she focused on what she could do, holding the hunter close, as Sam and Tanos reached for her. Even Kelena, with an odd solemnity, reached out to lay a hand on the hunter’s knee.
They held her like for a long moment, Hail breathing into Isavel’s shoulder. Eventually, still pale and haggard, her blond hair a tattered mess, Hail pulled away and looked at Isavel. She looked… better, but still deeply confused. “Isavel.” She touched Isavel’s face. “I was going to die. What happened?”
Isavel tried to smile, rubbing her shoulder. “I healed you.”
“With what?” Hail’s eyes seemed a little vacant. “You don’t have the medic’s gift. Do you? You’ve never used it.”
She pursed her lips, and looked at Sam again; Kelena didn’t understand how Isavel had come by the dragon’s blood, and Tanos had likely never done much wrong in his life, but in Sam she hoped she might find some kind of encouragement, or acknowledgement. All she saw in the ghost’s freckled face, though, was a measure of sadness.
Maybe that was all that could come of this. Hail might not understand - or, rather, she might not agree. But it would do no good to hide things from her. “Hail. You know I… You have to understand. I wanted you to live.”
Hail blinked at her, shifting in discomfort and pressing against her side as she did. “What are you talking about?”
She knew she would regret this in the next minutes. She had to hope she wouldn’t regret it in days, or weeks, or years. “Remember when I got my dragon wings?”
Hail’s smile was just barely strong enough to come off as wry. “You ran out of the woods, threw a decapitated head at our feet, then jumped Venshi and tore her mask off.”
Isavel smiled at that memory. “Yes. That. Well, I’m a medic, now, too.”
Hail’s smile slowly crumbled as she started to piece together what that meant, and she leaned back slightly. “What? How?” Her eyes darting around. “No. The medic near the gate? Where we came here?”
Isavel nodded. “He’s fine -”
Hail’s expression of horror grew, and she struggled away. “You ate his heart?! ”
“No! I only drank his blood!”
Hail’s pall only worsened as she scrabbled free, and Isavel let her go. “Only drank his blood? Only?! ”
She was swaying unsteadily as she tried to stand. Isavel stood to match her and tried to step closer, but Hail backed off. “Hail, I couldn’t let you die. Here, of all places! There’s no Elysium! You would just be gone - forever.”
Hail was breathing fast again, but she had frozen otherwise. She was looking down slightly - then she made a clutching motion at her own neck. “That stone.”
Isavel’s cheeks reddened when she realized what Hail was thinking. “Listen, Hail, I -”
“You went back and got it?” Hail stared at her, bewildered. “You run off and find that damned rock and then go drinking human blood -”
The truths in the statement made her panic even more than the falsehoods. “No, no, the wraith found it and gave it -”
“And you put it back on! ” Hail backed off. “This is something Ada would do. Is she some gods-damned cannibal too? Isavel, you don’t eat people. The gods made rules for us, Isavel. You don’t eat people. What are you doing? ”
The others had cleared off, giving the two of them a wide berth. Isavel tried to take a step forward. “Hail, the gods are not what you think -”
Hail’s eyes widened. “What happened in the last two days?”
“They’re not - they’re not that powerful. They’re just -”
“Who are you?!”
Who? Who was she? She was Isavel. She was who she had always been. Her heart raced. She was many things - too many things - one thing more now. “Hail, it’s me! You know me!” She took a deep breath. “Crimson showed me the history of Mars. She showed me the history of the gods. I saw her birth. I know where the gods come from, what they are. They aren’t the ones who make the rules, Hail.”
Hail’s eyes flicked up to Crimson, to the red light. “Crimson?” She glanced at Isavel. “What are you talking about?”
Crimson’s voice was flat. “I showed Isavel the truth of our history, and hers. I had hoped she might have unique insights into our situation, on account of her lack of technophage. Alas, she did not.”
Hail looked back to Isavel. “So, what, she gave you permission to go eat someone?”
“No - no, it’s just - the gods are doing their best to help us.” Isavel remembered the feeling Crimson had had when she was brought into the world, and knew she couldn’t possibly convey that, now, in a way that made this any better. “But they don’t always know best, and they aren’t all-powerful, and -”
She felt stares on her, but they weren’t all real. She, and all the people she had ever been, could judge herself if she wanted. And maybe she did. She did not like to think of the taste of human blood on her tongue - it was, perhaps, the worst thing she had ever done. But she could stand tall nonetheless; she was not alone. Her other selves were at her back, and she straightened and shook her head.
“Fuck the gods. Hail, listen - if my best friend is going to die, and I can drink a little blood from a medic to keep her on this side of death, then I will fucking well do it. I don’t answer to the gods.” She thumped her chest. “I answer to myself. ”
Hail stared at her. “What about answering to me?”
She opened her mouth to speak, but words failed her. She didn’t know how to respond to that, and for a moment she hesitated. But the locator stone shifted across her sternum, and she imagined a world where she had not done the thing that so horrified Hail now. Hail would be dead. Even if Hail was wil
ling to pay that price, Isavel wasn’t.
It might be wrong, but it was true. “I don’t answer to you either, Hail.”
“Your best friend.” Hail’s eyes fell back to the locator stone. “Isavel, what’s that thing doing around your neck? Ada left -”
Isavel took a step forward, trying to calm herself, but didn’t reach out. “Hail, you’re the best and most loyal friend I have, and I love you for that. But you’re not…”
She struggled for the words, and Hail’s face grew harder. “Not enough? I’m surprised you went through the trouble to save me. Wouldn’t it have been more convenient -”
“Don’t say that!” Gods, what did Hail think she was? “I saved your life! I couldn’t stand -”
“At what cost? You told me I might die being around you, Isavel, and you were right. If not today, one day this sin is going to come back to you - to me -”
Hail looked desperate, angry, and afraid all at once, and gods, why? Why couldn’t she just be…
Grateful . She couldn't say that. Why can’t she be grateful? She couldn’t think it. I did a terrible thing for her. But behind Hail stood her selves, her tangle of roots, and amongst them stood the sadly smiling medic, a fresh face and a new pair of arms for her army of one. And she wondered, genuinely, whether she had done it for herself. Or whether she had finally cracked.
Finally? She had always been that way. Naciste rota . Ambas veces. She had been made and remade this way. She was finally accepting it.
“I saved your life.” She set her shoulders. “I didn’t want you to die. And no god will hunt you down or punish you or condemn you for what I’ve done.” She shot a glance at the god’s pillar. “Will you, Crimson?”
“On this, I can assure you Isavel is correct. We do not care in the slightest.”
Hail stared at the light again, backing off slowly. “How do we even know that’s a god? Isavel, what if that’s some demon -”
“What if it is?”
Hail stared at her. “She could be tricking us -”
“Let her try.” She tightened her fist at Crimson, and for a second she wanted it. She wanted the god to provoke her, to lock her in here, to criticize her, to tell her what a fool she was. She wanted to find the pettiest loose thread and pull and pull until the entire edifice unwound and came crashing down.
Fourth Under Sol (Digitesque Book 5) Page 27