Chapter 403

ARIA

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‘Someone wanted what you would have become at the end of the third stage,” Ivory said. “The curse wasn’t about killing you. It was about making you into something that could be directed. The third stage was going to produce something that looked like a wolf but responded to specific commands from the caster’s bloodline.”

The silence that followed was very complete.

‘Directed,” Kael said.

‘You would have been – functional,” Ivory said, and the word was careful in the specific way of someone choosing the least errible accurate description. “Present. Responsive. But the Kael part would have been-”

‘Gone,” he said.

“Yes,” she said.

And whoever wanted that would have had an Alpha-form wolf that was essentially-”

A weapon,” Nina said, from the corner, in the flat voice of a security chief putting pieces together. “That could move through pack erritory without being perceived as a threat. That had Alpha status and the size and capability that goes with it. That could be ointed at targets.”

Yes,” Ivory said.

Cael was very still.

How long have you known this,” he said.

The full picture – since I got the information from Vela’s sources,” Ivory said. “About two years.”

Two years,” he said.

I couldn’t tell you without telling you everything else,” she said. “And telling you everything else meant telling you things I wasn’t ready to tell you. So I held it while I kept looking, trying to find the caster’s identity, trying to find the root’s location so we could do something about it rather than just knowing it was there.”

“Ivory,” he said, and her name in his mouth had every version of everything he’d said to her over twenty years of being each other’s constant, compressed into one sound.

“I know,” she said.

“You carried this for two years,” he said.

“I was managing it,” she said.

“You were shot with a silver bolt,” he said.

“That was an unforeseen development in an otherwise manageable situation,” she said, and the phrase came out with the specific

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exhaustion of someone who’d been saying versions of this sentence to themselves for two years and had finally run out of the energy to make it sound convincing..

“Vela,” Nina said. “The attacker. She escaped. Which means whoever she reports to now knows that her pursuit found its target. That Ivory is in Shadowmere. That the information Ivory took is here.”

“Yes,” Ivory said.

“Which means whoever has been protecting the root and the caster’s identity now knows where Ivory is and that Ivory knows what she knows,” Nina said.

“Yes,” Ivory said again.

“Which means Shadowmere’s security situation has just changed significantly,” Nina said.

The door opened.

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I’d been aware of footsteps in the corridor for the past thirty seconds – multiple sets, moving with the particular cadence of people on a purposeful errand rather than passing through. The door opened and the clinic’s senior healer came back.

She had been gone for several hours. She had apparently used those hours productively.

a bottle that I recognized from the clinic’s She was carrying a tray. On the tray were several items arranged with professional care supply cabinet as a sedative, the specific kind used for patients who needed deep rest for healing and were resistant to the recommendation. Three lengths of the soft securing rope, coiled neatly. What appeared to be a small bottle of chloroform, which I was fairly certain required authorization for use and which she had apparently either obtained that authorization or decided the situation warranted.

Behind her was Elite.

Elite, who was in training clothes, who was moving with the specific energy of someone who’d been briefed on a task and had showed up prepared to execute it. Who was looking at Ivory on the bed with the expression of a woman assessing a logistical challenge.

Ivory looked at the healer. At the tray. At Elite.

“Absolutely not,” she said.

“1,” the healer said, setting the tray down with professional calm, “have concerns about the patient’s capacity to maintain therapeutic rest voluntarily.” She looked at Nina. “I consulted with the security chief while I was away We’ve arrived at a contingency plan.”

“The contingency plan,” Ivory said, “involves chloroform.”

“The chloroform is a last resort option,” the healer said. “Available in case other measures prove insufficient”

“What measures,” Ivory said.

“The sedative is the first measure,” the healer said. “Non Invasive. Administered in tea. You like the chamomile blend”

“I’m not drinking tea you’ve-”

“The rope is the second measure,” the healer said, indicating the three coils on the tray. “We now have four available lengths

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between this tray and the cabinet, which should be adequate for most configurations.”

“Configurations,” Ivory said.

The healer looked at Elite.

Elite looked at Ivory.

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“I’ve been asked,” Elite said, with the professional simplicity of someone stating a task they’d been assigned, “to benchpress you back onto the table if you attempt to leave.”

The silence that followed this was the most complete silence the clinic had produced all morning.

Ivory looked at Elite. “You’d benchpress me.”

“You weigh approximately fifty-eight kilos,” Elite said. “I can manage fifty-eight kilos without difficulty.”

“I don’t care what you can manage,” Ivory said. “You’re not-I’m your healer. You can’t-I treated your shoulder last year when you

“You gave me excellent treatment,” Elite said. “I’m grateful for it. This is unrelated.”

“This is extremely related,” Ivory said.

“Patient safety,” Elite said. “The healer has concerns. I’ve been asked to assist.”

“Nina asked her,” Ivory said, turning to Nina.

“I suggested the consultation,” Nina said. “Elite volunteered.”

“Elite volunteered to benchpress me,” Ivory said.

“Enthusiastically,” Elite said, which was the most terrifying word she’d said.

Kael had not moved from the foot of the bed. He was looking at the assembled scene with the expression of a man who had arrived with rope and books and a plan, and had found that the plan had been expanded in his absence by people with significantly more resources and fewer hesitations.

“You brought Elite,” he said to Nina.

“Elite brought herself,” Nina said. “After I described the situation.”

“Why,” he said.

“Ivory once made me run laps when I came back from a mission with an untreated injury.” Elite said “Forty laps Because thadn’t reported it promptly” She looked at Ivory “I consider this proportionate”

“That was a completely different situation,” Ivory said.

“You had a knife wound that had partially sealed because you’d waited three days to report it,” Elite said. “Iran forty laps in a leg brace.”

“The laps were therapeutic,” Ivory said..

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“They were forty laps,” Elite said.

“Ivory,” I said.

She looked at me,

“You’re losing this,” I said.