Broken
The Book of Maladies
D.K. Holmberg
ASH Publishing
Copyright © 2018 by D.K. Holmberg
Cover art by Rebecca Frank
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Contents
1. A Giant Augmentation
2. Searching for Answers in Caster
3. The Unexpected Visitor
4. A Job Offer
5. An Offer at Work
6. The Warehouse Job
7. An Attack on the Tavern
8. The Aftermath
9. Testing
10. Returning Home
11. Balan Day
12. Pursuit
13. A Brother’s Conversation
14. Meeting with Marin
15. Difficult Discussions
16. An Answer
17. Another Job
18. The Warehouse
19. An Apprenticeship
20. First Days
21. An Incurable Patient
22. Search for Antivenom
23. Lessons
24. An Attack
25. Visit to the Library
26. A Friend in Need
27. Opportunity to Impress
28. A Surprise and a Fall
29. A Painful Awakening
30. A Summons
31. A Dangerous Journey
32. A Healing
33. Awake and a Plan
34. To the Palace
35. Answers Sought
Epilogue
Names and Terms
Author’s Note
Also by D.K. Holmberg
1
A Giant Augmentation
The sharp blade of the knife passed along the fleshy inside of her palm and Sam winced, trying to ignore the biting pain that worked through her hand as it did. Even after the many times they had done this, she still hadn’t grown accustomed to the sensation, and she still hadn’t figured out a way to bite back the pain completely. She yelped softly, pleased that it was only a little.
“Stop jumping,” Alec said.
She glared at him, her knees bumping the underside of the table as she tried to fight back the tension within her. “Maybe if you let me be the one to take the knife and do the cutting, I won’t have to jump.”
Alec flicked his gaze up to hers for the briefest instant, taking his deep brown eyes off the knife as it passed along her hand, before refocusing. She knew better than to distract him while he worked—especially with this. She didn’t want him to slice her completely open. He could heal her—and had, many times—but that defeated the purpose of their practice.
“I’m trying different ratios of our blood to see if it makes a difference,” Alec said. A strand of his wavy brown hair fell forward and nearly blocked his view, but he seemed to focus through it. “I need more of yours than of mine for this.”
“That seems convenient.”
“You think I like cutting you?”
“I think you like it that it’s not you.”
Alec grinned briefly. “That’s true enough. Now stop moving.”
When he finished, he tipped her hand to the side and squeezed. There was a gentle pressure from him, and she sensed strength in his grip that she ignored. Alec had an issue with the fact that he wasn’t the one augmented when they attempted this.
Her blood dripped into a glass bowl and ran down the sides. Sam looked away, trying not to be too squeamish about the sight of her own blood. How could she not be? Every time she saw her blood, she questioned why she let Alec do this to her.
“We’ve always mixed it pretty evenly, but what if that’s not necessary?” Alec asked. She turned back, making a point of meeting his eyes and not looking down to watch as he took the vial of his blood and mixed it in with hers. “Maybe there’s a better ratio that we can try.”
“Why not more of yours than of mine?” She pulled her hand back and clenched it tightly, cutting off the flow of blood. Her tan pants were already stained enough from their attempts, and she thought she looked like she worked in a slaughterhouse. If Marin caught them, she would know what they had been doing.
“You’re the Kaver, Sam. I think that’s what matters in this.”
“And you’re the Scribe. We’re two parts. Don’t think I haven’t been paying attention.”
“I know you have,” he said softly.
He used a pen to stir their blood together. There was a flush of warmth through her that she didn’t know if it was due to what Alec did and the magic the combination of their blood created or from the fact that she was sitting next to him. Lately, it was hard to tell.
Alec lifted the pen and took it to the page lying on the table next to him and started writing. He had a neat script, and it flowed across the page, the pen scratching as he wrote. The words were a description, one that Sam had begun to recognize after all the time she’d spent working—and training—with Alec.
Decreased reflexes. Minimal strength. Short stature.
That last one was new.
Sam shot Alec a hard look, but he ignored it.
If this augmentation worked like the others, she had better—
Her arms started to burn. Then her legs.
She jumped up from the table, knocking over the bench she’d been sitting on.
Alec looked up then, as if only now realizing what he’d done. “Oh. Sorry about that.”
“Sorry?” she asked.
Her voice was pinched, and higher than she liked, leaving it so that she practically squeaked. It wasn’t pain that did it. She was determined that it would not be, even if she couldn’t control it.
“I didn’t think—” His eyes widened. “Sam?”
“What?” she demanded.
She was focused on trying to keep her body from drawing away from her, the fire burning through her arms and legs seeming to elongate them.
The mixture of her blood with his had an effect like that… and Alec knew it. He should have been more careful, and now she was stretching out, like a baker drawing out dough, or an artist stretching his clay. It wasn’t painful—other than the burning—but it was an odd sensation, nonetheless.
“Watch your—”
Her head smacked into the ceiling. The room didn’t even have a low ceiling, not like so many buildings in this section of the city. Usually, it wasn’t even something she worried about. She wasn’t tall enough to hit the ceiling even when standing on a chair.
The blow stung and diverted her attention away from the strange sensation in her arms and legs.
Sam glanced down. Alec stood, but seemed much farther below her than usual.
“What did you do?” she snapped.
Her voice was low and seemed to rumble.
“I think the extra bit of your blood had a stronger influence than I expected. Maybe I should counter it…”
He started to sit, and Sam reached for him, extending her now much longer—and surprisingly muscular arm—toward him, lifting him away from the chair.
“If we’re going to test, then we need to test everything.”
Alec stared at her, his eyes still wide, but he nodded. “Um, Sam?”
“What?”
“You’ve… torn… your clothing.”
She released her grip on Alec, and he turned, a flush rising in his cheeks. As she glanced down at herself, she discovered that she had torn through her clothing. The augmentation had been for her not for her clothing. Sam wasn’t even sure whether Alec could do anything that would augment her clothes.
The augmentation had turned her into something like the giants rumored to roam the mountains to the far west, but had left her with nothing but tatters of cloth covering. Or like one of the Thelns, only bigger. Either way, she was naked in front of Alec.
Heat rose within her that had nothing to do with the magic they shared.
“You’re the Scribe. Fix this,” she rumbled.
He averted his eyes, which she appreciated. He might be a healer, and might have seen enough to make her nudity nothing to him, but regardless of how tall she might be, there was a strange vulnerability to having him see her like this. “I thought you said we should test it?” he said.
Sam took a deep breath, almost extinguishing the flame of the lantern burning on the table. At least she hadn’t knocked that over as well. They’d had enough of fire and the destruction it could bring.
“Fine. We’ll test it. Since you’ve made me so… large… how do you want us to try this?”
She didn’t think she’d be able to even get out the door, regardless of what she might be able to do once she was outside. It was late enough that darkness might shroud her, but how much did she really think a giant could be shrouded, even in Caster?
Not enough to avoid detection, which was what they had to do, at least until they understood why they had the abilities they did and what they were supposed to do. Marin had shared some, but not nearly enough for Sam to know what it meant that she was a Kaver and that Alec was a Scribe.
“Maybe we should just practice what we can in here,” Alec suggested.
“And maybe I should flick you across the room.”
He glanced up briefly before averting his gaze again. “What happens if you stay like this? Who will help you then?”
“The augmentations aren’t permanent.”
“So far, but I used a little more of your blood in this attempt, so…”
She wanted to lift him up and smash him back down but resisted. It was a minor victory. Was that anger because of the change or was there something more to it? Had the fact that he had turned her into a giant changed her in other ways?
“At least I gave you extra strength and reflexes as well,” he said, taking a seat at the table again. “Otherwise, I think you might have struggled to move at all.”
“Wouldn’t making me bigger make me stronger?” She took a seat in the corner of the room. The space really wasn’t large enough for them to do any practical testing of what her size could do. Had Alec known a bit more, had a little more control, then maybe they would have managed, but they were still trying to understand what it all meant, and still testing to gauge even how much blood was required. So far, neither of them knew, which meant further testing.
At least by sitting, she wasn’t quite so exposed. She wrapped her arms around her knees, pulling them in to cover her breasts, and hoped the table blocked Alec’s view otherwise.
Alec glanced up, the intense look in his eyes one that she recognized. Sam had seen it before when they worked through problems and attempted to try new augmentations. The intensity came from his desire to understand. Alec had a sharp mind, and he could puzzle through pretty much any problem if given enough time.
“Bigger mass might mean increased strength. Size makes a difference there, I think, but can your body handle the stress of your increased size? And for how long? I don’t know the answers. Maybe another test?”
“Not like this,” Sam said.
“Maybe not even here. I think if we are to understand how your size can be used to our advantage, we will need to go somewhere we won’t have to fear exposure.”
“We? It’s my exposure we’re talking about.”
He flushed. “I don’t mean your clothing,” he started quickly. “We could account for that and dress you in something that could accommodate the change before we started. That way when you… elongated… you could remain covered.”
“So now, I’ve elongated? It’s not that you turned me into a giant?”
“Giants aren’t real, Sam,” he said, turning back to his page. He studied the paper, making a few notes off to the side in regular ink as had been his usual practice. They would test something with the special paper—what the Thelns had referred to as the easar paper—and then he would make notes on other sheets of paper that he kept bound together.
“How do you know they’re not real? I’m real enough. Maybe giants are nothing more than a Kaver tormented by her Scribe. I bet Marin would know. And we know there are plenty of things you once thought weren’t real that are real enough.” Especially in the outer sections of the city. It was almost as if strange people from outside the city came here thinking they could find protection, but they never did—not the way they wanted. They were left isolated, though to hear Bastan talk about it, that might be what most wanted.
Alec continued jotting his note, and she wondered if he had stopped paying attention to her, not that she minded. Better that he ignore her until the augmentation wore off.
While sitting there, arms wrapped around herself, she couldn’t get the idea out of her head that they still didn’t know all that they needed to prevent another attack. The last time the Thelns had come, they had poisoned the princess—and Marin. The latter had been accidental, or what Sam thought was accidental enough… but what if it hadn’t been?
When Marin was around—which wasn’t often since the attack—she didn’t speak of what had happened, even when Sam pressed. There were many things she didn’t speak about, such as Tray and why he would take after the Thelns and what that meant for him. He’d been jailed because of Sam’s attack on the highborn house, and had survived, so for that, she was thankful, but there was so much more that she needed to understand.
“You’re real enough. We both are.”
He was distracted. Sam had grown accustomed to that from him, though didn’t know how to help when he was like that. There wasn’t anything for her to say, especially since she was often the one getting augmented.
“If I could only try something different…”
“You’d make me even bigger?”
He glanced over before shaking his head. “Not bigger. And we don’t have enough paper to keep experimenting like that.”
“We’ll have to find more. Bastan is hiding some, so I know that we can get it from him.” And then they wouldn’t be limited, at least until that ran out. When it did, then what would they do? How would they practice?
She’d have to find more. There was a supply somewhere, only she didn’t know quite how to find it. The last time a supply had come into the city, the Thelns had followed. Sam had seen no sign of other Kavers, so it might even be that the highborns didn’t know what they had stolen, only that the paper mattered.
Would she have to break into another highborn house to find the paper?
He nodded absently. “We will, unless we learn more and don’t have to experiment quite so much… I’m going to look into something,” Alec said as he got to his feet, pointedly meeting her eyes rather than looking down at her nakedness.
She snapped away from the thoughts and leaned forward, almost to the table. With the augmentation, she could reach it from where she sat, had she been willing to expose herself. “You’re going to leave me like this?”
“It’ll wear off. Besides, I need to get you a blanket or cloak or something for when it does.”
He scooped up the page of the easar paper and hurried from the room, leaving Sam sitting against the wall, a giant troubled by thoughts that were still somehow even larger than she was.
2
Searching for Answers in Caster
Alec glanced back at the door after leaving,
debating whether he should lock it or not. If he did, Sam might think he was trying to lock her in, when he would only be doing it to prevent someone else from entering. But at her enormous size, with the augmentation that he placed, she would be able to defend against almost anyone who might stumble into the room, even if it were a Theln.
It was better not to lock it. If he did, he would risk her temper. It was bad enough that he made his mistake of adding the height piece to his notes, but he thought he would only augment her a little. Then again, when they practiced with augmentation, when had he ever managed only a little? Every time they tried, there was a significant change. That was the power of their magic that they sought to understand.
It was difficult to do. Were it up to Marin, there would be no opportunity to practice. She felt the easar paper was too valuable to waste, but there was no alternative if they wanted to practice. It left Sam and Alec with no choice but to use what they could.
Alec hurried down the hall with a sigh. The building was still not entirely familiar to him, though they had spent the last few months here. He didn’t want to know how Sam had discovered this place—abandoned on the lower level and only reachable by sneaking through a particular doorway along an alley within a bad part of Caster. Then again, weren’t all parts of Caster bad? The building itself would provide Sam protection while she was in her current state. They didn’t want anyone else to reach her, and since no one had in the time that they had been using it, he doubted that would change unless he got careless.
Broken: The Book of Maladies Page 1