Nico finally stopped chasing Rasia, and now, here she was. Bloody and offered to Nico like some half-wilted flower.
“Nico-ji, save her.”
Nico didn’t hesitate.
She ordered, “Kelin, grab water from the windship, and drag Azan out of the way. Suri, go get your supplies. Zephyr, carry Rasia.”
Barely anyone had time to catch their breath before the next incident came ramming on top of them, but nevertheless, they pushed through Nico’s orders.
Kai’s arms shook. Whatever adrenaline had gotten Kai this far threatened to fail him at any moment. Kai buckled in relief when Zephyr retrieved Rasia’s weight.
Nico directed Zephyr over to her bedroll. Zephyr placed Rasia atop the reed mat, and Rasia’s arms and legs spilled out of the cloak wrapped around her. Rasia’s weak breathing unsettled Nico. Rasia was nothing if not tough and near indestructible, and it was hard to reconcile that with this image of sickness and naked vulnerability.
“Zephyr, we need light.”
Zephyr relit the campfire, which had burned out while rescuing Azan from the silk spiders. Faint strings distracted Nico’s vision, glistening off the firelight. She snatched the spiderwebs from her hair.
Suri walked out of the darkness with her bag of medical supplies. She crouched and pressed the back of her hand to Rasia’s forehead.
Rasia smelled horrendous. The smell should have warned Nico what to expect when Suri tossed aside the cloak, but she found herself startled to spy the chunks of vomit in Rasia’s hair, the sticky sheen of sweat, and smears of blood. She looked like Death.
“I’ve been cleaning her between seizures, but I ran out of water. I did the best I could,” Kai said, defensively.
“Poison?” Suri asked. Before Kai could confirm, she began digging in her satchel for her stash of antidotes. Zephyr handed Nico a torch, and Nico moved over to give Suri more light to aid her search.
“Yes. Gonda venom,” Kai said.
“This looks like a severe reaction, even for gonda venom. How much did she breathe in?”
“It was the liquid form. She ingested it.”
Suri’s eyes widened.
“With all due respect, Suriyah, I’m not here for your expertise. It’s too late for that.” Kai turned to face Nico, full of fire. “I need you, Nico. Your magic allows you to control anything in liquid form. You can get the poison out.”
Kai was talking but Nico’s brain was still stuck on the first part. There was absolutely no reason anyone would ingest undiluted concentrated gonom venom, unless they didn’t have a choice, and there were no better options. It was the type of stupid desperation someone would do if—if—Nico’s mind blanked to a startling silence. Before she could get her thoughts that far, Kai formed the words for her.
“I accidentally seeded her.”
Nico slapped him.
The strike echoed off Kai’s cheek. It echoed off the boulders and howled in the wind. Nico stared at her own hand, stinging, with absolute horror and clutched at the rebellious limb.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—I . . .”
She wasn’t sorry. She was so sorry. Nico had never struck Kai in her entire life. How could she have done such a thing? Anger choked her. Disappointment flooded her senses. Both at Kai, and at her own reaction when that first strike of fury zapped through her.
How could Kai do something so utterly stupid? This wasn’t just a mistake of one. This was the sort of mistake that could affect and ostracize an entire family. One male. One female. That was the cost of an unplanned seed. That was the sort of cost that ripped families apart. If Kai had died out here, and Rasia made it back to the Grankull pregnant, someone would still have had to pay that price.
Nico had spent so many drums of planning, and so many days of other people’s Forging trying to protect him, trying to make sure he survived, and here he was practically spitting in her face.
And for what? For what?
For Rasia?!
That kulo could burn.
Kai grasped her by the arms. “Nico, please. She’s dying. I need you. Help me.”
Now, he was asking for her help. Nico squeezed her eyes shut and tried to get all her fury, dark thoughts, and worst impulses under control. There was no time for anger or regret or forgiveness. When the ground vibrated, you did what you had to do. You put it all aside and got it done.
Nico crouched in front of Rasia’s prone form and confronted the monumental task Kai had asked of her. Nico could barely control anything other than water. And she was drained from the silk spiders. And all the bruises, the demanding heat, and the relentless pace of the Forging suddenly weighed on her shoulders. She was so exhausted.
What if she wasn’t enough?
Rasia’s body shuddered, then quaked as Rasia arched off the ground with a breathless scream. Suri and Kai pounced to hold Rasia down.
“Nico!”
The poison stopped. A breath from Rasia’s heart. Nico licked her lips in concentration.
It was so much easier to call upon the full might of her magic, but to control it so precisely, to move it through branched veins, had Nico’s nerves churning. All Nico’s life, control and perfection had been battered into her bones. Nico couldn’t afford to fail the moment it mattered the most.
The vacuous venom weighed heavy and thick. Flush out the digestive tract. Collect all the strays. Coalesce the poison particle by particle, one by one, like counting fine grains of sand. Nico was moving not just venom, but also water and blood, breaking apart infected cells in the bloodstream.
Nico was so focused, for once she didn’t feel the loose strands of hair at the back of her neck, or the spiderwebs she missed on her shoulder, or the sweat dripping and stinging her eyes. Nothing mattered but the work, particle by particle.
Nico willed the poison through Rasia’s veins, up and up, through the digestive tract, then the throat, until a thick tar cloud came vomiting out.
It hung suspended in the air, and Nico swatted that black cloud into the fire.
Nico tilted forward.
She blinked, finding herself collapsed over Rasia. Nico was so cold she couldn’t feel it. She saw her breath when she breathed. But Nico scraped dirt under her fingernails to push herself back up. She scanned Rasia again to make sure she had gotten all the poison. Rasia’s breathing evened out.
“She’s clear. It’s gone,” Nico croaked out.
“Thank you,” Kai whispered, hoarse. “Thank you.”
Nico surrendered to the unforgiving chill, and Kai caught an arm around her waist. As long as Nico had known Kai, he had always been warm, but depleted of magic, Kai felt like a fire. Like falling into the sun.
The next time Nico opened her eyes, she found her cheek laying on Kai’s thigh, and the sight of Rasia slumbering on the other.
Rasia’s eyes peeked open.
Nico and Rasia stared at each other, blinking, and both at once, went back to sleep.