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*Cackles in maniacal delight* I love a good poison. *Hides search history and manuscripts.* Not that I’d… ever do that… in my books. Never. *Cough*

*Also coughs, diving to cover up the computer screen with a picture of a rattlesnake bite* Nope! Definitely not. Never. No. Way! Wouldn’t that be like so cruel if I ever actually did that to one of my characters??? Who would do something like that???

Sahar glared at me as if I’d suggested a murder. No, probably more. She laughed when I suggested murder.

I’M SO DISTURBED AS TO HOW SAHAR AND I ARE LITERALLY THE SAME PERSON!!!!!!!!!!!!! Don’t worry. I don’t plot murder. *coughs* usually…

Niarok

Just. A. Little. Further!

Niarok’s legs burned as he tried to strain his way up the hill. The wound he’d found on his arm that he may have neglected to tell Yila about had bled itself out and sat threatening infection.

Niarok growled and set his feverish sister on the ground. The sun beat down hot on his unprotected head, turning his black hair into an oven.

Niarok grabbed his herb bag with some anger and bound his wound with as much efficiency as he could. Hopefully it had bled enough to remove any bacteria left by the ferral wolf’s teeth. Thankfully, it wasn’t a werewolf bite.

If I can keep it from getting infected…

Niarok turned to his sister and grimaced at the sheer size of her right arm.

Yila whimpered in her delirium, and her eyes opened for a moment, glassy and full of pain and fear. Niarok felt his eyes well up.

I couldn’t protect her. And now she’s going to die.

Niarok shook his head and grumbled a word through clenched teeth that would have made his mother blush and his sister laugh riotously.

Niarok searched for a poison-slowing herb, struggling within himself. If he opened the wound, it would bleed some of the poison out. But his sister was so weak, it would probably kill her before the poison could.

Niarok shook his head and grabbed a small knife. He mixed the leaf into a poultice, removed the bandage, and pricked the swollen, oozing wound with the knife.

He grimaced as pus oozed out, and his stomach rolled.

Stop it! She’s just another patient.

Niarok waited for the infection to reduce its flow. The second he saw a drop of blood, he stuffed the poultice in the wound and bound it tightly.

She might lose her arm.

Niarok bowed his head.

If she can’t shoot a bow…

He fought back the anger and sadness – and fear of what his sister, if she lived, might do to him – and lifted her in his tired arms.

The castle was so close. He would reach the moat within the hour.

Maybe, just maybe, his sister would live…

~~~

Niarok collapsed on the edge of a festering swamp, gasping for breath and trying not to choke on the putrid stench permeating the air.

He needed Miranweed, and he needed shelter. The castle had shelter, but it wouldn’t help if his sister was going to die.

I can’t leave her here! Her asthma will kill her in this air!

Niarok grimaced and stepped into the swamp, searching deftly for solid ground. He found it.

Yila

She wandered in a dark wilderness, feverish and alone.

Pain shot through her arm constantly.

She thought she would throw up.

Vaguely she heard a familiar voice, but she couldn’t place who’s it was.

“You’re going to be okay, Yila. Just hold on. I’m going to help you.”

Who was Yila? She couldn’t remember. The name sounded so familiar, but it hurt her brain to search for it.

Then she heard cackling.

And rumbling.

And screaming.

And a strange voice she had never heard taunting her, telling her to come out from the shadows.

Maybe this was death.