Gabrielle intended to seal off the poisonous Veil and help the undamaged flesh beneath grow a protective layer of skin, just as a wound does under its scab. Then she would simply peel the membrane away. If she did the job right, the membrane would slough off with the seal intact, the poison contained and harmless.
Pray to all gods I’m right, she thought.
She laid her hands on either side of Madeleine’s neck and sank once more into the light.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
DOMINIC AWOKE IN THE FIRST CHILL half-light of dawn. Dew had settled heavily over the deck and his blanket. He was damp, stiff and cold. He eased himself up with a grimace. Matthieu lay curled in the spot beside him, burrowed under his cover. Dominic shook off his blanket and tucked it over top of his son. Not that he’d sleep much longer—once the sun rode free of the horizon and lit up the yellow sails, they would all be awake.
All didn’t look to be very many, though. Only Yolenka was still on the deck. Féolan’s and Derkh’s rumpled blankets lay empty. Maybe they had awakened early as well. He hoped by all that was holy they had not taken ill. What if the captain had been right and the Gray Veil spread throughout the ship?
He needed to check on Madeleine. The captain frowned on anyone entering the cabin, but Dominic was her father. He would at least stick his head in the door and find out how she fared.
EVEN IN HER SLEEP Madeleine knew that the tide had turned. The trembling and twitching of her limbs first eased and then stopped altogether. The racy skip of her heart steadied. The pounding in her head, the aches that racked her body, above all the terrible weakness that made every breath an effort and sapped her will—they weren’t gone, but they were fading. It was as though she had been trapped on a sled, rushing down a long snowy slope toward a pool so deep and icy she would sink into it like a stone and never rise again. And then someone pulled the hand brake on the sled, and it slowed, groaning and complaining from the strain but slowing nonetheless, and came to rest at the edge of the pool.
And now she was making the long climb back up the hill. With every step her body felt a little stronger and more at ease. All except her throat. That pain was constant. For nearly two days she had been unable to swallow, the muscles in her tongue weak and useless. Drool had spilled down her front during that endless pounding horse journey, and she had been too sick to care. Later her spit had dried in her mouth and her lips had grown cracked and parched. And none of it—not the pain, not the paralysis—was as bad as the revulsion. She could not escape having to feel and taste the alien thing that lay in her mouth. Her tongue knew its leathery tough skin, the sickening press of its swelling growth.
Now, for the first time, the pain of the accidental press of her tongue against the membrane was blunted. “Fingernails or knives?” she and Matthieu used to ask each other, rating the ferocity of some childish hurt. In the pain department, she was heading back toward fingernails.
Yet the irritation of it was worse. The Veil hung in her throat, rattling and flapping with each breath like a heavy wet curtain. It brushed the back of her tongue, and she gagged on it, blocking her own air. Then she couldn’t stop gagging, her body trying uselessly to eject it like a rotten chunk of meat. She struggled up from sleep in a panic.
Patience, dear one. Soon you will be free of it. The words floated into her mind, soothing as a mother’s touch. Her throat relaxed and opened and her breath came a little easier. Her eyelids fluttered and closed, and she slept again.
ALMOST DONE. The temptation to rush pricked at her, but Gabrielle resisted. If the seal did not hold, if the poison found some minute overlooked channel to escape through, that tiny outlet could burst open under the pressure when the Veil was removed and throw everything into jeopardy. Gabrielle’s mind hovered over that word, everything, and she pulled it away. Don’t think about what’s at stake, she told herself. Think about the work.
Madeleine was restless under her hand, her sleep becoming lighter as her strength returned. The membrane was no longer embedded firmly against her throat but hung by mere threads, obstructing her airway even more than before.
Suddenly the girl choked and gagged. Gabrielle felt the fear course through her, the panic to draw air, the reflex in her throat working against her. She touched Madeleine’s mind, spoke soothingly to her. Sent her light to the back of the tongue, let it fall away from the flap that brushed at it and lie flat against the jaw. Air flowed back into Madeleine’s lungs, and she sighed and settled back.
“Gabrielle!”
Derkh’s voice was sharp, the hand that shook her rough. “Gabrielle, wake up!”
“What is it?” Gabrielle struggled to focus her eyes, to bring her mind back to the world. Being jerked out of her healing trance was always difficult and disorienting. And tonight—this morning, rather, to judge by the thin light seeping in the cabin’s tiny windows—she was slow with fatigue. It waited for her like a silent vulture, ready to float down and take her. She shook her head, fighting it off. There was only one reason Derkh would interrupt her.
“Féolan?”
Derkh nodded, his eyes black and staring. “He can’t breathe. Gabrielle, I think he’s dying.”
She flew to Féolan’s bedside, not even aware of having risen. Behind her, Madeleine coughed and gagged, choking again. Gabrielle glanced back, agonized. Not both at once, she prayed. I can’t.
Madeleine was up on one elbow, her shoulders heaving. A retching tearing cough shook her, and she spat a dark mass onto the towel. A sound of pure revulsion escaped her. And then she looked to Gabrielle, still frozen at Féolan’s bedside.
“I’m okay. Look after him.”
FÉOLAN FOUGHT TO draw air with everything he had. The thrashing of his legs and hands was worse than useless, draining what stores he had, yet he was powerless to stop it. Already his lips and fingers tingled, starving for breath. For hours now he had survived on small whistling passageways through the swollen mass of his throat, using what skill he had to ease open the tissues around them and sip miserly streams of air. Now he was in the desert, the tiniest streams vanished in a solid wall of sand. He was dying, and he knew it.
Gabrielle’s presence swept into him like the sun sailing out from behind black clouds. She was too late, he was certain—but, oh, how lovely to feel her near him once more. He was so sorry for the grief she would suffer and so grateful to be with her at his life’s end.
The warm light blasted into his throat, shoving at the swollen edges of tissue so that he could feel the sudden give, the rush of air into his grateful lungs. Then the flap closed again.
One more, Féolan. Her voice in his head, scared but firm. Commanding him. I’m going to push it back again. Breathe deep, love, deep as you can. Again the light rushed against the swelling, and Féolan thought, ridiculously, of a mountain ram, crashing headlong against his opponent to claim his ewe. My stubborn Human, he thought, and then cast thought aside and sucked at the glorious air like a greedy baby, as deep into his lungs as he could.
And then she was gone from him, and he was back in the desert, stumbling into the eternal night.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
GABRIELLE RUMMAGED FRANTICALLY in her kit. Féolan’s life was measured now in heartbeats. The Veil extended right back to his windpipe and the surrounding tissues, saturated with poison, had swelled together into a solid wall. It had taken every bit of her power to open the brief cracks that allowed Féolan to win a couple of breaths. Even fresh, she could not have held back that mass of flesh and accomplished the healing that would open his airways again. And she was far from fresh.
She chose hurriedly from among her bonemender’s blades and pulled out the glass pipette used to measure out drops of medicine. It was far too narrow, but it was all she had at hand.
“Derkh, do you see this glass tube?” she asked. She did not look at him but prepared Féolan as she spoke, rolling up a blanket and placing it under his neck so that his head tipped back and the bump known as the baby’s fist pro
truded. “I need something like this, only bigger around. Glass or metal, even wood at need.” At home, the delicate neck of a wine bottle, broken off at the base, would serve. But Tarzine wine was stored in jugs with short, broad mouths. She could think of nothing to suggest to Derkh.
It was Dominic, who had stuck his head in the door just moments earlier, who replied.
“I can get it.”
“Okay.” There was no time for thanks or further instructions. “Then, Derkh, you can help me here. I need the dropper end of this pipette broken off.”
She turned to Féolan. His lips were blue, hands twitching weakly. His eyes stared unseeing. She must act now or give him up for dead.
Her fingers found the bottom ridge of his baby’s fist. She laid the tip of her knife against the indentation directly beneath it and cut in to the second mark on the blade—about from her fingertip to her first joint. She pinched the ends of the incision toward each other so that the wound gaped open and heard the fleeting sucking gasp as air found its way into Féolan’s windpipe.
“Derkh?”
The pipette he laid into her hand was not jagged shards at one end, as she had feared, but finished with a clean sharp break. She hadn’t seen him score around the end with his knife and tap it sharply over the table edge. She was just glad she had given the job to a jewelry maker.
“That’s perfect. Thank you.” Gabrielle tucked the smooth end of the pipette into the opening she had made in Féolan’s windpipe. She put her lips around the cut end and blew.
She heard Derkh’s excited exclamation as Féolan’s chest rose with her breath. It was so little, though, the stream of air she could send through the narrow pipette. There was no way it would sustain him without the extra force of a person blowing into it. She counted a slow three and blew again. One–two–three. Again. Beside her, Derkh dabbed with a towel at the blood that had spilled. There wasn’t much from this sort of incision—not to her bonemender’s eyes at least. It probably seemed a lot to Derkh.
She kept up the steady rhythm, and felt Féolan flutter back to consciousness. He would be awake when she had to widen the incision for the new tube. And he was still so sick—she had only bought him a little time, not healed anything.
Fear and exhaustion welled up, and she found her throat so choked and tight that her breath drew in with a noisy ragged gasp. She shook off the tears, furious, and bent to the tube to blow. She couldn’t. Her breath escaped in useless sobs that gasped out around the pipette. Oh, Great Mother. She would kill him if she didn’t get hold of herself.
Derkh’s hand squeezed her shoulder, coaxing her aside. “I can do this for a while.”
She let him take her place at Féolan’s side, relief and gratitude bringing more tears. She sat on the floor, rocking with the ship as the freshening dawn breeze gusted at the sails, and wept.
SHE WAS CRYING still, though softly, the tension that had stretched her nerves tight as lythra strings eased by the tears, when Dominic returned. He stopped just inside the door, confused by the scene before him: the blood, Derkh bent over Féolan, Gabrielle in tears on the floor...
“Is he...?”
Derkh shook his head. “He’s hanging on.”
“Then why...?” Dominic cut his eyes toward his sister. He had seen her work many times, always calm, in charge, unflappable.
Derkh’s reply was sharp. “She’s been up for two days straight without a break. She worked right through the night on your daughter.” He paused to blow once more into the glass tube. “It drains her. It’s like she pours her own life into her patient.” Derkh was surprised Gabrielle’s own brother didn’t know this. He had learned it first-hand, when Gabrielle, still a complete stranger, had worked herself to the point of collapse to save his life.
“I’m not so drained I don’t hear you talking about me.” Gabrielle wiped her eyes and stood up. She stretched out her back and neck, squared her shoulders, and the weepy overwhelmed woman disappeared. She was, once more, the healer.
“Did you find anything?”
Dominic held up a copper whistle. About a hand-span long, it was used by the Tarzines to give orders that could carry from one end of the ship to the other.
Gabrielle took it in her palm and considered. Copper was soft—Derkh could probably cut off the end with the mouthpiece and holes in short order, and the remaining length was about right. But if the pipette was too narrow, this was really too wide. Féolan would be able to breathe through it freely, once he got the knack, but Gabrielle would have to cut into his vocal cords to make room. The damage from the scarring could be permanent.
It would have to do. She took over at the pipette and sent Derkh to saw off the whistle. “Clean it up as best you can too,” she added. The inside would be coated with the spit from who knew how many Tarzine sailors.
FÉOLAN HOVERED AT the edge of consciousness, unable to speak, his thoughts wheeling and floating with the fever. His throat was blocked tight, yet somehow air came—though never quite enough—to his lungs. Pain ate at him. He was sickening everywhere at once: the Veil had sent tendrils twining through his body, and they fastened like leeches and sucked away his life.
Gabrielle was back. He heard her voice in his mind, tried to follow her words. She was apologizing for something. Not saving him, he supposed. It’s all right, love. He was ready to die. Or rather, he was tired of trying to live. Tired of the pain, tired of starving for air, tired above all of fighting the terror that made him want to scream and claw for breath.
The cut that she made seared into his neck. The Veil has made me deaf, he thought wildly, for he could not hear his own cry of pain. But the pain abated, and sweet air came flooding into him, free and ungrudging, his lungs gulping it in of their own accord without any direction from him. He was momentarily drunk with it, the air rushing to his head like strong wine. I’ll die happy now, he thought, his own voice a giddy babble in his mind, and drink air for all eternity.
DOMINIC RETURNED WITH breakfast, and he and Derkh each stationed themselves at a bedside while Gabrielle ate. Madeleine was awake, weak but clear-eyed and lucid, able to sip at the tea Dominic had brought and nibble at the fruit. She reached up to wipe away the tears that tracked down her father’s cheeks, and he caught up her hand and held it tight, kissing the palm. They grinned at each other foolishly, though Dominic felt a twinge of guilt at his happiness. He was worried and sorry for Féolan and his sister, but his daughter lived, and he could not stay his gladness.
Derkh watched Féolan and Gabrielle with equal watchfulness. Féolan lay with a copper pipe protruding from the middle of his neck, the pale skin streaked with blood that had run back into his dark hair. He was shockingly pale—the phrase “deathly white” came to Derkh and he shoved it angrily from his mind. The gray luminous eyes glittered under half-open lids. Féolan’s chest heaved and fell—he was, indeed, breathing through Gabrielle’s tube—but Derkh didn’t think he would have the strength to haul air from this strange well much longer.
And Gabrielle? Her drawn face and shadowed eyes betrayed her fatigue. She ate steadily, mechanically, not tasting the food but merely taking it in. Like feeding a woodstove, he thought, remembering the great ovens in Castle DesChênes where bread and pastries were baked. He had fed those ovens on occasion, felt their roaring blind hunger.
He waited until she was done and had drained her water mug.
“Gabrielle?” She glanced at him, too weary perhaps to respond with words. But then the smudged eyes sparked with warmth, and she managed a small but genuine smile.
“Thank you for your help,” she said. “I don’t know how—”
He waved it off. “Can you rest a little now? I can wake you if—”
She shook her head. “We are already at the ‘if.’ Féolan has one chance to live, and it’s now.”
Derkh nodded soberly. “I feared as much. Can I do anything to help you?”
She was climbing into the narrow bed, burrowing in between Féolan and the wall. “I’m
going to work until sleep takes me. Another blanket would be nice, over both of us. And make sure his breathing tube stays free.”
Gabrielle closed her eyes. Derkh watched for a bit, filled with the memory of the long hours Gabrielle had spent healing him. It was a wonder to him still, the mystery of her power.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
FÉOLAN OPENED HIS EYES and knew that he would live. Gabrielle slept beside him—for more than two days, she had done nothing but flood her light into him and sleep like a dead woman. Féolan did not know how much time had passed, knew only that she had been a constant presence in his heart and mind, that she had sent a light blasting after him more than once when he had wandered into utter darkness. Only for the last half-day or so did he have any coherent sense of time or reliable memory. That was when the illness finally loosed its grip enough that he could perceive what she was doing and rally some strength to help her.
She had dammed up the leakage of poison into his system, and when at last the seeping stopped, the reactive swelling in his throat began to diminish. Yet she left the tube in place, though the irritation of it had become a trial, and the membrane as well. Instead she was sending her light to places where the poison concentration was most dangerous. Bit by bit, she labored to clear his heart, kidneys and eyes and to undo the damage that had begun there. The tube, the thick ugly growth in his throat: these were minor discomforts by comparison, and Féolan tried to bear them patiently.
Féolan woke and slept; the stuffy cramped room grew dark and brightened; the seas rocked soothingly or slammed against the ship. People came and went, bringing food for Gabrielle or visiting Madeleine. Often Derkh sat near him. Gabrielle sometimes slept in a hammock Dominic had scrounged and strung across the middle of the cabin.
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