Page 113 of A Drop of Corruption

“We take great risks now, but…I worry you shall not find him in time, Dolabra. Perhaps I shall be forever stained as the imperial servant who came so close to securing a better future for our people, only to lose it all at the last moment.”

The lamps of the chamber seemed to grow brighter to me, and the darks darker, until it seemed like Thelenai was a bright, burning, crimson icon, standing over me as if to grant a benediction; and there behind her, a hunched, shadowy figure, black and watchful, teeth glinting in the shadows.

“I cannot yet say,” said Ana’s voice. “But in some ways, you are already stained, ma’am—are you not?”

“What?” said Thelenai.

“Gorthaus did betray us, true. But again, it was your works that created the devil that tempted her. Even if I were to perform some miracle and save all you treasure, the deaths of those Apoths—members of your own Iyalet!—would still hang upon your name. Is that not so?”

The tall, crimson form of Thelenai bent very slightly. Then she poured a cup and said in a high, quavering voice, “Another dose for you, Kol.”

Chapter 42

Once I’d consumed the grafts,I was stripped yet again, taken to one of their observation chambers, and washed. Then we waited, I sitting there on the floor of the chamber, no more than a blanket to veil my form, and Ana hunched and blindfolded on the other side of the glass.

“Fourteen hours until your departure,” she muttered. “Unless my math has gone awry…Are you still well, Din?”

I gave a vaguely affirmative grunt.

“Not feeling a great gust of high spirits yet?” she asked, grinning. “Perhaps once this is done, I’ll let you try katapra pure. It can make for a very giggly day.”

I gave another grunt, this one far more hostile as the potions in my belly began to affect me. There was the abrupt hypersensitivity of various body parts: a nipple suddenly flaring hot, then the back of one thigh tingly and cold; and, inevitably, the pounding headache, though this one felt chilled and foggy, like a stone from the bottom of a mountain river. The only thing I could feel with any great awareness was the powerful itch of the blotley welt upon the flesh of my arm, which irritated me so much that I couldn’t stop scratching it.

Ana sat up. “Boy—what are you doing there? I can hear you fuss with something. What is it?”

“The blotley sting, ma’am,” I said resentfully.

“What about it?”

“It pains me still.”

She cocked her head. “Doesit? Despite all the healing treatments you’ve received since the creature was applied to you?”

I grunted vaguely.

Ana paused for a very long while, her head crooked on her shoulders. Then she asked, “Tell me, child—how large is this welt? Is it about…about the size of a talint coin, say?”

“I would suppose so. Perhaps smaller, ma’am.”

“How fascinating,” she whispered. “Howfascinating.Sometimes the smallest thing can sometimes prove to be of greatest importance…”

I grunted again.

“Hm! You seem rather bitter about this whole thing, Din,” she said. “Usually you’re very prim and proper in your speech.”

“Perhaps it’s on account of that you’re on that side of the glass, ma’am, fully clothed,” I muttered, “and I am here on the other, and am not.”

“Maybe so! But I feel there is something else on your mind. Speak, boy! Speak at will.”

I glowered at her, pulled my blanket tight about me, and said, “It’s the wardens, ma’am. I find it hard to tolerate the idea of abandoning them here, after they’ve served us so. I proposed to Malo the thought of transferring them to the Iudex to reassign them elsewhere…”

“Did you?” Ana said, bemused. “I did not think you such a deft bureaucratic navigator, boy.”

“But Malo doubted if this would work,” I said. “And I understand why. For…the Empire has not always proven willing to allow its people to serve it, or serve it to the best of their powers—even if they may fervently wish to.”

Ana arched her eyebrows at that. “Ohh? Am I to believe, Din, that you now compare your own struggles with those wardens andnaukariof Yarrow? That your own stymied hopes of transferring to the Legion make you akin to abandoned warriors and entrapped slaves? That’s really rather rich, isn’t it?”

“I made no such comparison,” I said, blushing.