Chapter 8: The Dark Edge

Cadoc found the linen at dawn.

I was still in the infirmary, asleep on a stool with my head on the table, when the door banged open.

He had Gethin over his shoulder.

My friend's face was grey and wet, his curls plastered to his forehead.

"What did you do to him?"

I lurched upright.

"Put him down. Put him on the bed, now."

He dropped Gethin on the nearest cot.

I tore open the shirt, and my stomach turned over.

Gethin's long scar, the one I had dressed myself the night before, had gone black at the edges.

The dark rim had spread across his chest, and fine blue threads ran out from it under the skin.

His breath came short and sticky.

"It was fine yesterday," I whispered.

"It was fine when he came to see you last night. He told me so himself."

"Then I found him on the stairs at dawn."

Cadoc grabbed my wrist.

"What's in the salve?"

"Comfrey and honey. You tasted it yourself."

"Then what's in you?"

His fingers closed over my pulse, and he stopped.

"You're cold," he said, almost to himself. "Your hands are like ice."

I looked down.

Under the nails of my right hand, thin as pen lines, ran the same blue-black stain I had seen on Torren.

I had not noticed it before.

My mouth went dry.

I did not understand it, but I knew what it looked like.

"Cadoc," I said. "Let go."

"Tell me what you've done."

"I haven't done anything. I swear it."

"She swore too."

"I am not her!"

He hauled me out of the infirmary by the arm.

He hauled me across the yard and through the double doors of the great hall.

Bowls and spoons stopped halfway to mouths.

Torren sat at the high table with his hand on a letter.

"She's poisoning us," Cadoc said, and threw me forward.

I stumbled, caught myself on a bench, and straightened.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Healing the Scarred Alphas from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.