“Are you okay?”
He shook his head and staggered to the side.“His sword, the tip was dipped in poison.”
Fuck.
Seven
Ursula
“I needto know what kind of poison he used,” I said, shoving the door open.“Depending on what it is, with your diminished powers, it could cause permanent damage or knock you out cold for days.”If that happened, it was tournament over for us.
“I know,” Silas said, looking furious.
I steered him to a chair and applied pressure to his shoulder.“You need to slow your heart rate and the poison’s progression.”He sat, and I grabbed my bag.“That had to be Nathaniel’s backup plan.They couldn’t kill us at sea, so the alternative was incapacitating one of us so we missed the next event and got disqualified.”
“More than likely.”
“Do you know what it was?”I said, riffling through my supplies.
“No.”
“Symptoms?”
“Blurred vision.Numbness at the tips of my fingers.Abdominal pain.”
I leaned in, sniffing his wounds, and instantly got hit with something sickeningly sweet.“I know what it is.”
“Can anything be done to stop it?”
“I have an antidote.”I snatched up the leather pouch I carried containing every antidote I could get my hands on and quickly searched for the right one.“It’s already gotten in, but I should be able to minimize the poison’s effects.”
“And if it’s already traveled too far in my bloodstream?”
“At best?A four-day coma.At worst?Permanent blindness or paralysis.”
His eyes flashed with alarm.
Found it.I popped out the cork.“But I’m sure we’ve got it in time.”I fucking hoped so anyway.I handed him the antidote.“Drink this, all of it.”
He gave a subtle dip of his chin; his mouth was in a grim line.He was furious and trying to regain control.He downed the liquid without hesitation, without asking what it was or what would happen to him, then handed back the empty bottle.I popped the cork back on and put it in another pouch, the one I stored my empties in so I knew what to stock up on, and waited.If he was going to react to the medicine, it would happen almost immediately.
His breathing was harsh, but so far so good.
“You have more of those?”he asked.
“I carry at least two of every antidote.”I studied him, the seconds ticking by, but still no change, thank fuck.
“What are you looking for?”he asked, not missing my scrutiny.
“If we’d been too late, you’d be convulsing on the floor after drinking that.You’ll be fine.”
He did another dip of his chin, while his jaw did the thing it did when he was angry, the muscle twitching.It didn’t happen often, even when I was giving him shit, probably because nothing caused Silas to be demonstrative, not in any overt way.He was always in control, but right now it was easy to see he was angry at himself.
“You didn’t know what he had planned,” I said, trying to stop the self-flagellation he was putting himself through.
“I should have seen it coming.”
“You’re being too hard on yourself,” I said as I packed everything back in my bag.Maybe I was feeling charitable after the way he’d protected me in that ocean, even if it was a fucking stupid thing to do.