The body goes limp.
I'm standing near the healing supplies, hands still wet, and I watch the body crumple and hit the dirt.
The crack sits in my ears. I've set traps that broke spines. I've cut throats for meat. The man on the ground was trying to kill the people standing around me.
Keer's eye finds mine across the clearing.
I hold it. Don't flinch. Don't look away.
He looks away first. Turns to Axan, voice low, and they move together toward the edge of the clearing. The pack disperses around me, murmuring—settlements, attacks, poisoned, weeks—and I go back to my supplies because that's what I do.
The paste jar I opened is half full. Seal it. Set it aside. Check Soren—breathing wet but stable. Change Liara's outer wrapping. Clean the arrowhead I extracted and set it on the table because I want to study the coating later. If I can understand the poison preparation, I can improve the cure.
"You should eat something."
Dara. Arms crossed.
"I had breakfast."
"You didn't."
"I had a thought about breakfast. Close enough."
"Eat this." She holds out bread.
"You're very bossy for someone who's supposed to be my apprentice."
Her eyebrows go up.
"Eat the bread, Melori."
I eat the bread. She watches every bite go in, and alsothe bread tastes like sawdust but my body doesn't care because bread is bread.
"Liara's next dose in four hours," I say around a mouthful. "You can handle it?"
"You showed me."
"Twice."
"I learn fast." She pauses. "The arrowhead. The coating. I saw it."
"Oily. Concentrated. Different from what they put on blades."
"Adapted for penetration wounds. Releases slower."
I stop chewing. Look at her. "Yes. That's exactly right. How did you—"
"I've been thinking about it since you pulled it out." Her face gives nothing away. "If they're adapting the poison, the cure might need adapting too."
"You're good."
"I know."
"Don't let it go to your head."
She huffs, smothering a smile.
I go back to the coop.
