Chapter 51: The Last Time You Close Your Eyes (I)
In Marren, Halden was in the communal house’s inner courtyard when it happened.
The courtyard was small—a square of packed earth with a well at the center and some culinary plants in clay pots. The afternoon light fell on the stone floor with the specific orange tone of day’s end. Halden was pulling a bucket of fresh water from the well when the air, approximately a meter and a half above the ground, coiled in on itself with the specific texture of an activating return stone’s energy.
Halden recognized the effect immediately.
He dropped the bucket.
Moved to the courtyard’s center.
And when the silver light dissipated, an elf was on the ground. Lying on her side. A gray cloak partially covering her body. A green braid undone over her shoulder. Skin specifically pale from someone carrying active poison in their system for at least twenty minutes. And her right hand still closed around a round, silver fragment emitting an inner light.
Halden crouched beside her.
Three more people had come out of the communal house upon recognizing the activation sound. One woman, two men. All approached without speaking.
"Lady Sael’thoryn," Halden said without turning to them. "She’s poisoned. Corrupted stinger. Apparently several minutes already."
"Is that the fruit in her hand?" the woman asked.
Halden looked down at the silver fragment.
He observed it exactly half a second.
A fragment of divine fruit.
"Yes," he answered.
"It can’t be."
"It is."
The woman, whose name was Ilena, had lived in Marren for twenty-two years. Her Seal wasn’t official—it was one of Sareth’s Seals the Church had decommissioned during the second district purges. The decommissioning hadn’t taken her ability, only its recognition. Ilena could still heal. She just couldn’t do it under her own name in any city of the kingdom.
She knelt on the other side of Liaraen.
Took her pulse at the left wrist.
Very weak.
"Time remaining," Ilena said.
"Estimated."
"Minutes."
Halden nodded.
He turned to Liaraen. Carefully lifted her closed right hand. With his other hand, he opened her fingers one by one. The half-cut fruit was intact. The inner light still active. The silver liquid still slowly seeping from the cut edge.
"Do we apply it orally?" Halden asked.
"Orally, yes. One fragment in the mouth. Another fragment near the sting site. The divinity will seek out the poison by affinity."
"Alright."
Halden split the half fruit in half efficiently. One quarter for her mouth. One quarter for her shoulder where the stinger had entered. He carefully lifted Liaraen’s hair. Located the small point of broken skin where the poison had entered.
Ilena applied her quarter of fruit over the point.
Halden gently opened Liaraen’s mouth and placed the other quarter between her teeth.
"Ilena," Halden said. "The divinity needs to be activated. Your Seal."
"It’s been fading for twenty years."
"You still have enough."
Ilena closed her eyes. She placed her hands—one on Liaraen’s shoulder, one on her mouth. And slowly, very slowly, with the specific concentration of someone using what little they have left, she pushed what remained of her Sareth healing inward.
The fruit reacted.
The silver light intensified. The two fragments began to dissolve into Liaraen’s shoulder and mouth—like water into cloth. The inner liquid was absorbed by her skin. And where the stinger had entered, the skin closed with a speed Halden had never seen in twenty-eight years of living in Marren.
Liaraen’s breathing changed.
It grew deeper.
Color slowly returned to her face.
The three observers watched.
"She’s stabilizing," Ilena said without opening her eyes.
"And the poison?"
"Neutralized by approximately ninety percent. The remaining ten percent her body will process over the next few hours."
"Good."
Halden carefully lifted Liaraen. Carried her into the communal house. The guest room was at the end of the hall. The bed was simple. Halden laid her down gently.
Ilena entered with a bowl of fresh water and a cloth.
The other two stayed in the courtyard, picking up the broken stone fragment Liaraen had clutched during transport and that had fallen to the ground upon landing. They brought it inside. Placed it on the table beside the bed.
Halden stood beside the bed for a moment.
*She returned alone.*
*Which means he sent her alone.*
*Which means he stayed behind.*
*Which means he’s most likely no longer alive.*
He looked at the stone fragment on the table.
Then at Liaraen, breathing peacefully for the first time since she’d appeared.
*When she wakes, she’s going to ask. And I’m going to have to answer something I don’t know how to answer.*
He left the room.
---
In the deep dungeon, Nathan was on the floor of the eastern passage.
The first creature that had knocked him down was on top of him with all four limbs. Its claws pinned his arms to the ground. Its snout was thirty centimeters from Nathan’s face. The creature’s breath had the specific smell of old meat mixed with the dungeon’s corruption.
Nathan smiled.
He smiled at the creature, specifically, in its face.
The creature seemed confused for half a second.
Then it struck him.
The claw hit Nathan’s right cheek. The skin split. Nathan felt the blood run toward his temple. It didn’t hurt as much as it should have, because the poison had dulled approximately sixty percent of his peripheral nervous system, and everything he felt arrived with delay and reduced volume.
He smiled again.
With the same tired smile as before.
The other creatures arrived.
A second one placed a paw on his chest. Pressed his lungs. Nathan’s breathing became shallow.
A third stepped on his right hand.
The bones cracked.
Nathan heard it as if it were a distant sound—a sound happening to someone else. The specific distance poison produces when the body begins to accept it’s going to die.
And above the creatures, walking slowly toward him, the leader approached.
It stopped beside the creature pressing on his chest.
Looked down at Nathan.
"Hunter," the leader said.
Nathan looked at it.
"Yes," he replied, weakly.
"Not so powerful now, Hunter."
"Apparently not."
"Now that the poison’s taken effect."
"Yes. That’s exactly where I am."
The leader crouched beside him. Its black eyes observed Nathan with the specific satisfaction of a hunter that has finally finished the pursuit. Its unpoisoned hand—the one that hadn’t touched the fruit—reached out slowly. It lifted Nathan’s chin with a claw. Turned it to get a good look.
"You’re laughing," the leader said.
"Yes."
"Why are you laughing?"
Nathan thought about it for exactly half a second.
"Because you lost," he said.
"I haven’t lost."
"Yes, you have. The elf is safe. You ate the fruit, but that doesn’t change the fact that she escaped. The operation failed in its primary objective. You have this small victory of crushing me in a passage, but the big victory you lost."
"You’re a defeated adventurer."
"I’m a defeated adventurer who managed to save the person he came to save. That, technically, is called a victory by objective. Your operations manual is miscalibrated if you think crushing me here counts as success."
The leader looked at him for a moment.
Then it laughed.
A guttural, specifically cruel sound that bounced off the passage walls and came back amplified.
"Verbal adventurer," the leader said. "You’re going to die talking."
"It’s a cultural trait. I mentioned it before."
"Boys," the leader said to the creatures. "Have fun. But slow. I want it to last."
The creatures obeyed.
They began to stomp. Not with enough force to kill him. With enough force to hurt. Systematically. One foot on a leg. Another on his stomach. Another on his shoulder. Another on his ribs.
Nathan felt the bones cracking.
Felt the air escaping his lungs.
Felt, with the muffled distance of the poison, each specific point of pain arriving at his brain with delay.
And still.
And still.
Somewhere in his chest—where neither the poison nor the stomping could reach—there was a specific feeling.
*She’s safe.*
*Sprout is safe.*
