by Andra Leigh
Cyan and the missing Triplet appeared at that moment.
“Oh dear. Put her down, son,” Cyan said with gentle insistence.
This time the man obeyed, lowering Eliscity to the floor where he stood. Though he didn’t let her go. This annoyed Jinx.
“He’s a doctor. Just let him work.”
The man rounded on Jinx. “I know exactly what kind of doctor he is.”
Despite the inflection Acanthea couldn’t help but notice the man didn’t seem to have an issue with Cyan. Just Jinx.
“What happened?” Cyan interrupted.
The man immediately snapped his attention back to Cyan and Eliscity. “It was just a graze. I swear.” He directed Cyan’s gaze to a small flesh wound on Eliscity’s shoulder that Acanthea hadn’t noticed. “I checked it myself. It was her only injury.”
“What was it that hit her?”
“An arrow. Eliscity thought that was stran–”
“I heard the guards talking about coating their arrows,” Jinx cut in. “I don’t know what with.”
Acanthea shuddered as Eliscity convulsed again, white blood bubbling from her mouth and streaking down her lip.
“Coating?” one of the Triplets asked. “Poison?”
Acanthea blanched at the thought of any poison that could achieve this.
“Fletcher, I need the tubes from one of the med-rooms,” Cyan ordered.
The brother closest to her jumped into action before Cyan had finished speaking, sprinting off down the hall toward the underground levels.
“Cyan, what is it? Do you know what’s happening?”
Cyan didn’t answer Jinx.
“I didn’t know what to do. But when I felt her blood, it was so hot…”
“Please,” the man’s deep voice crackled with desperation. “Is she going to be okay?”
Cyan gave him a pained look and just shook his head as if to say he didn’t know.
Acanthea tripped backwards until her back hit the hall wall. Sinking into a crouch she could only watch as Eliscity convulsed and bled. Sentences and words she couldn’t focus enough to connect floated past her.
“…too fast for the guards…”
“…horses in the courtyard, should be fine…”
“…would have been caught at Hynxt’s border if I hadn’t caused a distraction…”
“…what were you thinking…”
What Acanthea did understand was that Jinx seemed to be the only one talking. Surprisingly he sounded triumphant. He had left the Manor three or four days ago, the moment Cyan had received word that a Clinic’s escapee had been spotted in Hynxt. The whole Manor had been tense and humourless for weeks, from the point when Eliscity’s name and face had become the target of every guard.
Jinx had left to make sure he got her back safely. Obviously Jinx thought he had succeeded. Acanthea thought he could have brought her back in a slightly better condition. What was the point of her being safe if she was almost dead?
Fletcher skidded back into the hall, the rest of the Family a step behind him. Falling at Cyan’s side he carefully dropped his armful of glass tubes which were all different sizes, some tapering into a needle thin tip.
Laleita’s eyes locked onto the mess of pale blood pooling around Eliscity’s arms. “If she loses too much blood… We don’t have compatible blood to give her.”
Cyan shook his head as he hurriedly sorted though the tubes. “She has more chance of surviving blood loss than she does if she doesn’t lose enough.”
Acanthea didn’t bother trying to understand.
Laleita stepped toward the man still at Eliscity’s side. He jumped as she laid a hand on his shoulder.
“You must be Drae.”
There was a momentary flicker of surprise in the man’s worried eyes, then he gave a nod.
Acanthea frowned at Faust and Forrest and muttered in an undertone, “Do we know a Drae?”
The brothers shrugged in unison.
Cyan had a thin tube in hand, his other hand pressing firmly down on Eliscity’s shuddering body.
“This isn’t going to be pleasant,” he said.
Acanthea realised the warning too late.
Cyan plunged the point of the tube into Eliscity’s chest with a single stab. Acanthea screamed in horror, thinking for certain he had just killed her.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Dusted Decisions
• Eliscity •
Eliscity was waking up. It wasn’t a comfortable feeling. Her mind felt sluggish, her body heavy. The tips of her fingers tingled as blood pulsed thickly through her body. Her insides felt charred and dry. So brittle and burnt that she may crumble into ash within her skin.
Murmurs jammed themselves into her skull, elongating with strange echoes as her ears adjusted to the world around her.
She didn’t have the luck of waking up quickly. The process seemed to drag out for hours. Her body was like a stone, unwilling to move no matter how much she commanded it to. In the end she was forced to wait. Over time the murmurs that swirled around her mind sharpened with words and formed sentences.
“ – can’t expect them to just give up.”
She recognised Casamir’s gravelly bark. She must be back in Vance Manor. How though, she couldn’t remember.
“ – not just the Clinic that’s looking for her. They have all of Rylock on edge.”
“You can’t force her to stay here. After everything the Clinic did to her she deserves a life.”
That was Drae’s voice, his deep tone washing over her and giving her the final push to open her eyes.
A panelled ceiling was the first thing she saw. Then the glass tube that was coming out of her chest. At first she assumed it was giving medicine directly to her heart, but after a moment of studying the line she noticed the dribble of liquid inside was moving out of her body, bubbling up.
“And you think you can give her that?” That was Jinx’s voice. “You’ve proved you can’t protect her.”
Rolling her head over on the firm pillow below her neck, she found Drae standing next to her, facing away. She assumed Jinx was on the other side of him. Casamir and Laleita sat close to each other in the corner, pointedly looking at the floor. Raiden and the Triplets were piled onto a sofa. Cyan was fiddling with a glass tube like the one coming out of Eliscity’s chest, while Acanthea leant against the wall opposite the foot of Eliscity’s bed.
“And she’s so much safer in your world?”
“My world? My world is her world. That’s something you’ll never understand,” Jinx’s smooth voice scoffed at Drae’s rough one.
Acanthea was the first to notice she was awake. While she didn’t jump up and excitedly point this out to the room, she didn’t smother her to death with her pillow either – which given how they’d left things, Eliscity took as progress. Instead, Acanthea heaved a sigh and rolled her eyes. Eliscity had been on the receiving end of Acanthea’s facials long enough to recognise she wasn’t rolling her eyes at her, but for her. Apparently the two men hadn’t become best of friends during her time unconscious.
“She tried your world. She ran away from it and came back to me.” There was a harshness to Drae’s voice she’d never heard before. He was angry.
She tried to speak, to stop the back and forth that was happening, but found her mouth was too dry to even make a sound. She reached for a glass of water sitting on her bedside table, but found she was unable to pick it up. Her arms, from her elbows to her knuckles, were heavily bandaged. She couldn’t bend her fingers, let alone curl them around a glass. What had happened to her arms?
Acanthea realised what was wrong and approached her bedside. Uncharacteristically, she offered Eliscity the glass of water, tipping the liquid into her mouth. Eliscity tried to offer her a look of thanks, though suspected she only achieved one of suspicion.
“Yeah and I had to step in to save her from dying.” Eliscity could hear a sense of victory in Jinx’s reply.
Eliscity coughed as the wat
er hit her throat. As painful as it was, it did serve in breaking up the brewing argument. Drae was at her side immediately, revealing Jinx standing in the open doorway. Acanthea, caught in her moment of kindness, slunk back to her piece of wall.
“Hey.” Drae stroked her hair. “What do you remember?”
Eliscity frowned. That seemed to be the question of her life.
“Everything was going to plan,” she winced, trying to recall what had happened. “Right? I’d let them see me. And we were in the Cityel Border?”
“Wait, you were seen on purpose?” Jinx said. “I see – Mhm, mhm. Were you also shot on purpose?”
Shot? Eliscity frowned. That’s right. An arrow had grazed her shoulder.
“Yeah, I thought it would be fun,” she coughed.
“And was it?”
She glared at Jinx. “Immensely. In fact, I’d recommend it. Find me a bow and I’ll happily shoot you.”
“Unlikely. You can’t even hit me with your fist.”
“I’ll hold him down for you,” Drae muttered low to her.
“I was on fire,” she told him. She could remember the flames now. The flames which had flared inside her. “What happened? How’d I get here?”
“Um.” Drae looked to Cyan, who had moved to check the line in her heart.
“You were Dusted.” Cyan wrinkled his nose. “To use the crude term.”
“No I wasn’t.” Eliscity looked around the room, waiting for someone to correct Cyan or burst out laughing. No one did, not even Acanthea. If anyone could correctly list the effects of Dust it would be her, yet all she did was lean against the wall looking solemn.
She hadn’t taken any Dust. There had been no Dust. Just a graze.
“It was on the arrows they were shooting,” Drae told her. “You were right, you knew there was something strange about it. I should have paid more attention.”
“There was Dust on the arrows?” She was completely baffled.
Cyan refilled her water glass. “Do you know why Dust was named after Faeries, of all the Bloods?”
Eliscity opened her mouth to tell Cyan she wasn’t a fool, but snapped it shut when she realised Dust couldn’t actually contain any real Faerie Dust. Certainly none of the Blood highs could contain any real part of the Bloods they were named after.
Meekly, she shook her head. “It was convenient?”
“I suppose so, yes,” Cyan chuckled. “Dust attacks the oxygen in the blood, smothering it momentarily, which is why as a high it can give the effect of leaving one’s body. And why the long term side effects are ringed eyes, blue skin, blood clots, heart and lung failures.”
“I definitely did not leave my body,” Eliscity interrupted, her voice scraping against her throat.
“Well no. Dust, like all the Blood highs is formulated from the Nymph Shade.”
Eliscity nodded. Nymph Shade’s magical properties were well known.
Cyan was now taking Eliscity’s vitals, using the pulse at her neck, since her wrists were unavailable. “While Nymph Shade is the only ingredient in Dust with Bloods properties, it is the other ingredients that alter how the Nymph Shade affects the body. To make Dust, the Shade is powdered down and laced with the bark of oak trees, salt and iron. For humans, the first two powders aren’t of consequence, while the iron when infused with Shade is what specifically attacks the oxygen in the blood.”
“I’m still not understanding, Cyan,” Eliscity breathed.
Cyan smiled at her impatience. “You’ll notice I said most of the ingredients weren’t of consequence for humans.”
Eliscity hadn’t missed it and was somewhat irritated that she didn’t seem to fall in the category of human for this conversation.
“For the descendants of Feyfolk it’s a rather different story.”
Eliscity didn’t think she was going to like where this was going. “What would that story be?” she asked tentatively, aware of Drae’s hand resting on her shoulder, his thumb massaging her in light circles.
Cyan busied himself with unwinding the mysterious bandages around her left arm before continuing. “Dust was not originally designed as a drug, but a poison. At the height of the Bloods War, Dust and many of the other highs we have today were created. All without the one ingredient that is used today to affect the blood. Nymph Shade.”
“Why?” That was Drae.
“Well, first because Nymph Shade hadn’t been…invented. For lack of a better word.”
Eliscity cringed at the scientific term Cyan tacked onto the death of an entire species.
Cyan was now nearing the end of the bandage. “But mainly because they were all formulated as weapons. Weapons against the Bloods. Weapons that ultimately won us the War.”
Cyan’s revelation was met by a room full of silence.
“So…” Jinx was the first to find his voice. “What you’re saying is that Dust was made by some expert during the War to kill Feyfolk? Salt, iron – those are all known substances for deterring them, right?”
Cyan inclined his greying head.
“Dust is designed to kill me,” Eliscity said. “Does that mean Acanthea breathing on me too hard would kill me?”
Acanthea scowled at her.
“She’s clean now,” Cyan said. “But anyway, just being in its proximity won’t hurt. It has to touch the blood to infect the entire body.” Cyan had reached the end of the bandage. A bloody wound pad lay across the stretch of her forearm. She was relieved to see that her blood was returning to red. She knew he was going to remove it and realised she didn’t want to see the reason behind the heavy bandages.
“When you were dosed with the Dust, it was like an allergic reaction. Being in direct contact with it heated the Fae components of your blood, while also repelling it. This caused your blood to boil and for it to need to escape your veins.”
“Yeah, I remember that bit. Why are my arms bandaged?”
“That was me.” Jinx didn’t move from the doorway. “I’d lost you briefly after tossing that guard from the roof. When I found you again your blood was white, you were tearing at your wrists. When I felt how hot your blood was I did what I thought would be the fastest way of getting that heat out of you.”
Cyan peeled away the wound pad. Her arm from palm to elbow was cut open in one deep slice. Small stitches pinned it together in places, in between them blood that was still slightly too pale seeped over her flesh. Cyan started to redress the wound.
Cyan was securing fresh thick bandages around her arm once again. Moving around her bed he began the same process on her other wrist. “Slicing open two main veins released enough Dust to give them time to get you here where I tapped a line into your heart.” That explained the tube coming out of her chest. “The first hour it was pumping out so much infected blood we were afraid you wouldn’t be able to survive the blood loss. But after that it slowed to a trickle. Your blood cleaned and restarted pumping correctly rather than just trying to escape your body. You shouldn’t have to have it in much longer.” Cyan gave her a small smile. “Your arms will have to be bandaged for a little longer, though. And you should be careful about moving too much. The Dust scorched the inside of your veins. The burns will heal, but it’ll take time.”
Eliscity nodded, looking away from her arm as he pulled the wound pad off. One arm had been enough to see. Her eyes met Acanthea’s gaze who, she realised, hadn’t said a word.
“Does that mean all the highs are actually weapons?” Drae asked. “Does what – Aconymph gas Wolves? And – and um, Drops. I don’t know what Blood they’re based off.”
“Tear-Drops. Like Maiden tears.” Jinx’s voice was flat as he regarded Drae with a look of implied stupidity.
Eliscity glanced between the two. The way they levelled their eyes at each other suggested they’d already spent more time together than they would have liked. Eliscity wasn’t sure whether she should play peacemaker and try to make a happy family of them or if that was a delusional daydream.
Eliscity glanced
at Cyan, hoping to find some answers there. He only sighed like Acanthea had and returned his attention to Eliscity’s bandages.
“I can say for certain that the active ingredient in Aconymph is Aconite, so yes, Drae, it would be correct to assume the vapour was designed as a deterrent against Wolves. As for Drops, like many other highs, I’m unfamiliar with its recipe. So I can’t speak of its origin.”
Eliscity thought for a moment about everything she’d just heard. The people who the Realm had trusted to win them the War had done just that. They had mixed together potions and pills that destroyed the species Eliscity descended from. And once the War had been won those same people allowed for their weapons to be armed as drugs for the population. Worse still, they were given street names that identified them with the Blood they had so viciously and effectively taken down. Eliscity felt sick and it had nothing to do with the punctured flow of blood in her veins.
“If…” Eliscity coughed as a sudden thought grated across her throat. Drae helped her take a careful swallow of water and she kept her hoarse voice low as she tried to speak again. “You said before that the other ingredients in Dust don’t do anything to humans. So, if they don’t do anything to enhance the drug and that’s all it’s being used for now, why are those things still in it? What’s the point?”
Drae, sensing she was becoming worked up, stroked her hair.
“It’s population control,” Jinx said quietly. He looked over at Eliscity from the doorframe and she knew immediately that he had reached the same answer to her question that she had. She gave him a small nod. He continued. “It’s a way to control bloodlines of the general population. Obviously not a hundred percent effective, not everyone takes the highs but enough do. And fatalities, well, Blood highs are illegal so to the people, it’s no one but the taker’s fault.”
“Why keep a weapon circulating that destroys the very thing you’re trying to awaken in those with lineages?” Drae asked. “That doesn’t make sense. Does that mean it’s different people who are trying to kill lineages with these highs?”
Drae looked to Cyan but it was Jinx who answered him, as if enjoying any opportunity to prove him wrong.
