Chapter 12: The Fever

I got to the door on bare feet, with the blanket around me, and threw the bolt.

"Aldith!" I screamed down the stairwell. "Cadoc! Now!"

They were both already running.

Cadoc took the stairs three at a time, white-faced, and stopped dead in the doorway.

He looked at the bed.

He looked at the black veins on his brother's throat.

Then he looked at the mark on my neck, red and swollen above the blanket.

"What have you done?" he whispered.

"What he asked me to."

Aldith pushed past him.

She laid the back of her hand on Torren's forehead and flinched.

"Wolfsbane fever," she said. "Gods help us. How long?"

"Since before dawn."

"Cold water. Ice from the river cellar. Black elder from the herb room, the whole shelf, and clay. Cadoc."

"I'm going."

"And bring Gethin," Aldith said, "if he can stand."

Cadoc went.

I pulled on my chemise and skirt with shaking hands.

Aldith knelt at the bed with a basin and cloth, and she did not look at the black veins.

She looked at me.

"It's in him," she said. "You've taken it out of yourself and put it into him."

"It was the only cure."

"Did you know it would be like this?"

"Torren knew. I didn't believe him."

"You believe him now?"

"I don't know what I believe."

"That's honest," said Aldith, and she began to unbutton his collar.

We worked for hours.

I would have thought that nothing could be worse than watching a child's chest stop under my hands.

I was wrong.

Torren burned, and shook, and tore at the sheets.

He said things in a boy's voice.

Twice he called for his mother.

Once, very clearly, he said my name.

I put clay poultices along the black lines and bound them with linen, and the clay turned grey as it drank.

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