POV: Sylra
The workshop smelled of copper and herb-smoke and the wax of a candle that had been burning too long.
I saw Kael on his knees first. Then I saw Vedran.
He was on the floor in the way a body is on the floor when it did not choose to be there — one arm folded wrong, the other reaching, his face turned half against the boards. His mouth was open a fraction. His chest moved. I watched it move twice before I let myself believe it.
The rage I had been holding all the way down the corridor went somewhere I could not afford right now. I put it in a drawer and locked it. The man on the floor needed me to be useful before he needed me to be furious.
"Tell me he is breathing," I said.
Kael did not look up. His fingers were at Vedran's throat, two against the artery, his other hand under the back of the skull, lifting it off the floorboard so the airway opened.
"Pulse is fast and thin," he said. "His skin is cold. He is breathing on his own. No vomit. No tongue obstruction. He hit the desk on the way down — there is a contusion at the temple, not deep, no bleeding from the ear. His pupils are uneven. That is the compound, not the fall."
"How long has he been like this?"
"Not long. The lamp is at full wick. He had been working when it happened. The page is turned. He was conscious within the last stretch of an hour."
I crossed the room and crouched on the other side of him. Up close, his lips were grey at the edge. The vein at his neck was beating too fast. I did not touch him. If I touched him I would not be operational, and I needed to be operational for one more turn of this corridor.
The guard was at the door, breathing hard, sword out for nothing.
"You," I said. "Get Ithara. Tell her medical room, now, full kit. Run. If she is in her wing, send the second guard ahead of her with word of what we have. Move."
He moved.
"Get him up," I said to Kael. "Two of you. Do not let his head drop. The medical room in the east wing has the heated pallet. Use it."
Kael did not argue. He was already lifting from underneath while the second guard came in at the run and took Vedran's legs. They carried him out the way two people who had moved unconscious men together before knew how to do it.
I stayed in the workshop for a count of three. That was all I let myself have.
The fear came up. I put my palm against the desk and let it pass through me without going anywhere it could be useful. He had been working alone for a couple of months while I did not know.
The rage was still in the drawer. The drawer was holding.
I went to the medical room.
Ithara was already there. She had not run — Ithara never ran. She was at the side of the heated pallet with her sleeves up and her case open and her hands moving in the order she always moved them. Pulse at the wrist. Pulse at the throat. The back of her hand at his cheek for temperature. The small lamp at his eye to read the response.
Kael stood at the head of the bed. His face was the face of a man who was not allowed to have a face right now.
"Talk to me," Ithara said to him.
"The fourth antidote is at the holding stage in the workshop," Kael said. "Sealed flask, stable temperature. It has not been integrated with the binder. The binder is mixed and on the second shelf in the green vial. I can have both here in the time it takes me to walk and come back."
"The pulse you took before you moved him?"
"Fast and thin. Now it is faster and thinner. Skin colder by a measurable amount. Pupils still uneven. He has not surfaced. There has been no twitch, no swallow that was not reflex. The compound is moving."
Ithara did not nod. She did not say good or bad. Her face was the face she wore in the worst sessions, and that face is the one no one in the room wants to see.
I stepped forward.
"Can the antidote still be given," I said, "or has the window for it passed?"
"It can be given. It should be given now. Every minute the system deteriorates further is a minute it has less to work with. Bring it to me, Kael, and bring the binder, and do not stop in the corridor for anyone."
He went. He came back fast — the flask in one hand and the green vial in the other — and he set them on the small table beside Ithara's case and stepped back without being told.
She mixed in front of us. Two pours, a stir with a glass rod, a count under her breath. Her hands did not shake. I have never in my life been so grateful for hands that did not shake.
She drew the dose. She lifted Vedran's head with the practiced grip of a woman who had given many unconscious men a vial of something that might or might not save them. She tipped it down.
His throat moved once. Then nothing.
For a stretch of time I could not measure, his vitals dropped. Kael was at the markers. I could see his jaw lock and unlock once. The pulse at Vedran's throat slowed. Then slowed again. Then it stayed slow, low, but steady.
I had not realized I was holding my breath until Ithara exhaled, and the exhale gave me permission.
"What does that mean?" I said.
"It means we have bought him time. The system did not collapse under the dose. It absorbed it. He is at a low floor and he is holding there."
"How much time, Ithara?"
"I will not give you a number I cannot stand behind. Give me an hour with my texts and I will give you something honest. Anything I tell you in this room right now would be a guess dressed up to make us feel less useless, and I do not have the patience for that today and neither do you."
"How much time, Ithara?"
"I will not give you a number I cannot stand behind. Give me an hour with my texts and I will give you something honest. Anything I tell you in this room right now would be a guess."
She gathered her notes. She moved to the door. Kael did not look up from the markers. I had my hands at my sides, and they were steady, which surprised me, because nothing else about me was.
She gathered her notes. She moved to the door. Kael did not look up from the markers. I had my hands at my sides, and they were steady, which surprised me, because nothing else about me was.
The door closed behind her. The room was quiet except for the low rhythm of Vedran's breathing and the sound of Kael's pen marking intervals he did not want to be marking.
I pulled the chair to the bedside and sat down. I did not take Vedran's hand. I sat close enough that if he surfaced, the first thing he would know was that someone was there.