“What’s the rush?” He was sweating now in full force, dampness seeping through his back in ribboned patterns. The scars on his back never sweated. Most of the time, he could ignore that. But now the memories of the fire he’d set to the sky came crashing back, his imagination so strong he could almost feel the lick of the flames eating his shirt away, kissing his skin all over. The same flames that’d mottled Thratia’s cheek.
Awareness of the selium seeped into his being, his senses reaching out on instinct, finding the bladder Aella held, feeling out its shape and its volume. Some small part of him lamented that there wasn’t nearly enough there for him to set the sky afire again. Maybe… Maybe he could thrust it up. Make a little fire. Just fill in the top of this thrice-cursed well with some real life. Show the sun’s rays what real heat could do.
Pain splashed over him, danced those thoughts away. He winced, hopped back, grabbed at his shin and cursed himself and Misol and just about any other handy name that came to mind. The doppel just looked at him, gaze hooded and bored.
Aella sighed and clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “As I feared. As soon as withdrawal sets in, he becomes almost as unpredictable as before his training.”
“What–” he sucked air, made himself put his aching leg down and resist an urge to blow all four of them to itty bloody bits. “What in the pits did you do to me just then? I wasn’t even thinking about…” he waved a hand, describing the rough shape of a blob of selium with the edge of his palm. “And then I was ready to blow us all to smoke.”
“I did nothing to you, I merely introduced the presence of selium. Made you remember its existence, its nearness. You have grown so unstable over the night without your dose that that was all it took.”
“Donkeyshit,” he snapped. “I’ve never felt that way before – never without reason.”
“And don’t you have one?” She gave him a real smile now, a coy little thing that he’d bet his right testicle she practiced in the mirror to get just right. “You have quite a lot to be angry about, Honding. All the time. We all do, really. All the petty injustices of the world, they just pile up. Mount and mount until we break. Some people reach for a bottle, some mudleaf. Some practice meditations, or skies forbid, talk their worries out with another sympathetic being. We’re all simmering, just a little. You’re just quicker to boil than others, and the injections have made you more sensitive. And yet, without them, your irritation comes so swiftly it’s like you’ve never had them at all. Fascinating.”
“Fascinating? Really? Would you find it just plum-bloody-interesting if I stubbed my toe and took all our heads off in retaliation? Skies above, Aella, you swore you could teach me control. Real control. This is moving backwards.”
She shrugged, as if it mattered not at all to her. “You really can be thick sometimes. This isn’t a regression – not technically. It’s a revelation. A hint as to what exactly is pumping through those veins of yours, or going on in that tiny brain. Did you know, before I left the Bone Tower, that the whitecoats had yet to discern just where exactly in the body sel-sensitivity originated from? I can’t even tell you the amount of cadavers they mucked around in trying to find a source, peeling the brain layer by layer looking for any anomaly. They found nothing in all that long research, and here you are upset because your control slipped a touch. Pah. You’re cleverer than that, though you try very hard not to be. Think it through, now. The injections gave you finer control, and the removal of them has shaken the baseline of ability you already possessed. Why?”
“I am not your tailcoat-clinging whitecoated pupil, Aella. This isn’t some twisted school quiz – and don’t expect me to believe for a moment that your esteemed colleagues in the Bone Tower were rummaging around in the bodies of just the dead.”
An eyebrow twitched, her head jerked back just slightly. He’d scored a point against her, reminded her of things that broke through even her veneer of indifference and unsettled her. His small victory lasted only a breath.
She reached into the pocket of her tunic, produced a syringe, showed it to him, swirled it, let the sel mingling with the blood gleam in the light.
“I mixed it just a moment ago, before you arrived. Thratia has a whole stable of diviners, did you know? She cultivates that deviation, sends them out into the harsh and hot world to find untapped resources of selium. They were all happy to donate a sample, after Thratia explained the situation to them. This one’s from a woman. Healthy girl. Keen sel-sense. She was eager to help.”
Aella tucked the syringe back into her pocket and pinned him with a look. “Such a shame blood goes to poison so quickly in this heat.” She glanced at the hot sky. “We’d better work quickly. That woman has gone out scouting, and do you want to know a secret?”
He grit his teeth and asked, “What?”
“There just aren’t that many people in the world who can donate blood for these types of things.” She stroked her pocket, cradling the outline of the glass hidden within. “Took us – apothiks and whitecoats both, you know – ages to figure out the secret. Some bodies produce blood of a certain, special flavor. It can harmonize with all other types. But try to mix any other two together?” She drew her thumb across her throat and made a croaking sound. “It’s not a pretty way to go.”
“Aella.” He hated the rasp that’d worked its way into his voice but, to pits with it, if she thought he was dangerous – thought he verged on going out of control – then maybe she’d give him the injection for all of their safety. He caught himself scratching at his inner elbow, in the place where previous needles had left tiny scars, and forced himself to make fists instead. “It wasn’t my fault I missed last night’s dose. Whatever you’re punishing me for, bring it up with Thratia. I have to do as she says, same as you.”
“We are not the same,” she snapped, fingers clenching around the syringe so hard he winced, fearing she’d break it. “And unlike you, I can do as I please. Thratia may have taken you to her bed, but do not confuse her use of you as a political tool with protection. You came to me – kneeling – to discover the secrets of your power and I have found something here, Honding. Found something interesting, and short of killing you I have free rein to do as I please, do you understand? I will make you understand yourself, whether you’re willing or not.”
“This can’t be useful, please–”
She waved him off. “That’s withdrawal talking. Unfortunate, but we can work through it. Now–”
Detan lunged. Hadn’t even thought about it. One moment he was standing there, trying to find another angle to weasel that syringe into his arm without losing too much dignity, and the next he was lurching forward like someone had yanked on his puppet strings.
But he’d never been a fighting man, and that was probably best for them all.
Misol swept his legs with the butt of her spear and he went down hard, chest-first into the hot sand. His instincts reached out, flung in all directions, mapping all the amounts of selium in the room. Numbness fell over him like cold water – Aella clamping negating power over his.
He shivered, clinging to the scorching sand, and tried to pretend that in the moment he’d lunged, in the moment Aella’d leapt back to avoid him, he hadn’t heard the crack of glass. Wasn’t seeing, now, the dribble of sel-infused blood pooling on the ground.
Aella sighed, low and disappointed. Detan picked up his head, forced himself to look at what he’d done. A red smear spread out from Aella’s pocket and she was, gingerly, peeling off the over-tunic.