In a heartbeat, I’m in the large, circular chambers at the top, poring over a detailed scientific text alongside Vinciel Sacrosan, my brilliant healer, and formerly medicin-chief of the armies under my command.
“Ciel,” I say quietly, from over his shoulder. Ciel is what he prefers to be called.
He jumps out of his seat, the wooden chair hitting the floor with a clatter. “Hecoa be damned,” he blurts. “Could you at least knock or something? You disrupted my flow-state. Iacovo’s Compendium of Quaternian Physics is not a text that one simply—” Vinciel’s mouth clamps shut as he realizes what’s in my arms. His attention shifts like lightning. One look at the lad’s face, and he’s immediately grasped the gravity of the situation. “It was quicker to bring him straight to me, wasn’t it? Well, if you want me to save his life, then you’ll do exactly what I say.”
I tip my head obligingly. “What do you need?”
“What’s the damage?”
“I haven’t dared check the wound. Impaling from a blade is what I’ve been told. He’s obviously lost a lot of blood. Too much.” I’ve seen many such injuries on the battlefield. I’ve held men in my arms as they died, watching the life fade from their eyes. There’s a feeling when you see death take hold; a certain kind of dread. And the thought comes—or at least, it used to: tomorrow, that could be me.
Suddenly, her face blazes bright in my mind. I can’t forget that fierce look of hers. If this boy dies, then surely she will curse me for all eternity.
But death does as she pleases.
“Just save his life, won’t you, Ciel?”
“Lay him on the table.” Vinciel removes his gold-rimmed glasses, folding them and slipping them into his pocket. He rolls up his shirtsleeves and ties his long golden hair at the nape of his neck. He goes over to the basin and fills it, dipping his hands and forearms into the water. Then he starts to scrub, raising a soapy lather. “Do not unwrap his bindings until I say. That green chest of drawers over there. Third drawer from the top. Get me all of the gauze. And in the top drawer, there’s a blue bottle of ether. I need the wooden instrument-case from that desk over there. Open it, lay it beside the patient, where I can easily reach.”
I lay the young man on the table and gather the equipment, exactly as Vinciel has instructed. I think nothing of the fact that he’s issuing me commands as if I’m some young apprentice.
In Vinciel’s lair, even the Archduke of Tyron defers to his knowledge and expertise.
After my transformation, he was the very first one that understood what I was. He’s saved my life more than once—along with my sanity.
I expect him to do the very same for this lad, who bears more than a slight resemblance to Finley, my betrothed-apparent.
Her brother, would be my guess. Even though their coloring is completely different, there’s a similarity in his face; his bone-structure.
“You can unwrap him now. Use that blade to cut the belt.”
I make quick work of the makeshift belt-tourniquet and the wadded blankets. Pulling them away, I uncover a mess of blood and organs.
The smell of blood hits me right in the nose, but I’m not even tempted, because Finley’s sweet aftertaste lingers on my tongue.
“Looks like someone ran him through with a sword,” I growl. “He’s too young to be fighting like that.”
“Correct. Liver’s damaged, but the rest of his organs are intact. He’ll live. Remove the rest of the cloth from the edges of his wound. I’m going to push the organs back in and stitch him up.” A needle and catgut thread and forceps have appeared in Vinciel’s hands. “Go and get scrubbed,” Vinciel snaps as he reaches my side. “I might need your precious royal hands for more than just carrying things.”
I oblige, rolling up my sleeves. The water’s still running; a warm trickle coming from copper pipes that are heated by coals in the basement. I quickly work up a lather and clean my hands and arms up to the elbows, copying his routine.
Vinciel is very particular about clean hands. Even on the battlefield, where blood and dirt and gore and filth are inescapable, he somehow manages to drill clean hands into every single one of his healers and apprentices.
He’s obsessive about certain things, even though his working environment is a cluttered mess in every other way, driving me mad at the worst of times.
“Corvan, come here.” Vinciel beckons with a flick of his chin. “Give me your hand.”
“What do you need me to do?” I return to the healer’s side.
“Hand. Palm facing upwards.”
It’s strange, but I cooperate. I trust Vinciel implicitly, no matter how infuriating he is at times.
He takes his blade and makes a neat cut right through the middle of my palm. The pain is sharp and sudden, but it’s nothing compared to the countless war wounds I’ve suffered.
“What was that for?” I growl. Even as my blood trickles down, dripping into the lad’s wounds, the cut in my palm is already starting to heal.
“Your blood is useful.”
“I do not want to create another… like me.”
“Won’t happen. All the texts I’ve read say that it’s pretty much impossible. You’re either Chosen, or you aren’t. But there’s a temporary healing effect that can be transferred to others. It’s a gift, Corvan. A gift.”
Vinciel lets out a low, appreciative whistle as he makes quick work of the surgery, his long, nimble fingers dancing across and in-between flesh and organs until he reaches the outermost layer—the skin.
“Give me that red lacquered box over there.”
I retrieve a small box from amidst the clutter on one of Vinciel’s many desks.
“Open it.”
He takes the contents; a small spool of black silken thread, and quickly threads a fresh needle.
His bare hands are soaked in blood.
“Let’s close. Cut my sutures as I go.”
When Vinciel’s done, all that’s left of the terrible sword-wound is a neat incision about the length of my hand. The healer takes a large wad of gauze and douses it in astringent-smelling brown liquid from a glass bottle. Then he proceeds to clean the area, removing dried blood and leaving a thin film of the brown stuff on and around the sutured wound.
“Bandages,” Vinciel orders. “Fourth drawer.”
I find the neatly-rolled spool of cloth and hand it to him.
“Lift him for me, Corvan.”
I gently lift the lad’s body at an angle, allowing Vinciel to loop bandages around his torso.
When he’s done, he liberally douses a wad of gauze in ether and lets the lad breathe it in. “Thanks to your magnificent blood, he’ll awaken soon if I don’t do this. Best to keep him sedated until he’s healed enough to tolerate a bit of pain. He’ll live.” Appearing satisfied with his work, Vinciel raises his bloodstained hands and walks toward the basin. “This kid isn’t a local, is he?”
“No.” I close my hand and open it again, staring at my palm. The cut has completely healed. There’s only my bare skin and the sword calluses I earned before I became a vampire.
A necessary reminder that I was once human.