Limits of Power Read Online Free Page B

not satisfied—”
    Kieri shook his head but then agreed. He felt more than simply tired, he realized, and the Kuakgan had said—something—about iynisin and injuries. Was it fever coming on? Had the iynisin poisoned him, or was this an effect of the poison they had all eaten at the feasts?
    When the Kuakgan Elmholt arrived, he looked keenly at Kieri. “You
are
injured, king—I thought you said the blood was not yours.”
    â€œI thought it was only a bruise.”
    â€œI will be back shortly,” Elmholt said, and left as swiftly and silently as he had come.
    Arian looked at Kieri with wide eyes. “What do you think?”
    â€œI don’t know,” Kieri said. He shifted in his chair, trying to find a comfortable position. Then Elmholt returned, his hands full of greenery, both the other Kuakkgani at his heels.
    â€œIt’s been poulticed,” Kieri said, eyeing the greens.
    â€œThat is well,” Elmholt said. “But as I said before, we have some skills your physicians are not like to have, and with the Lady’s death no elves are here to aid. Would you permit?”
    â€œYes,” Arian said before Kieri could say anything.
    â€œBut what about my Squires who were wounded worse than this?” Kieri asked.
    â€œWe spoke to the physicians, sir king, but it was too late for one; the other we hope will live, and we will continue to give aid.”
    Kieri nodded to the Squires who had come in with the Kuakkgani and tried to stand, but his knees trembled and he had to lean on the table. Arian slid her arm around him while his Squires helped him shed the robe and the shirt under it.
    â€œYou should lie down,” Elmholt said.
    He lay facedown on his bed; Elmholt cut the bandages and lifted the poultice. “This poultice was well done,” Elmholt said, “but not enough. Look: the poultice is black, the leaves withered. That is kuaknomi evil the poultice drew out.” Kieri felt the poultice being pulled from his shoulder.
    Kieri turned his head; Elmholt showed him what looked like rain-rotted leaves. “How?” he asked. “The kuaknom’s blade did not touch my skin—the mail held—the arming shirt wasn’t ripped.”
    â€œIt’s full of holes now,” one of the Squires said from across the room. “And they’re spreading.”
    â€œThe shirt was once alive,” the Kuakgan said. “Wool, linen, silk—all were once alive, and on anything alive the touch of a kuaknom’s finger or blade or curse has deadly power. Once you bled, your blood was tainted by that same curse. If it is not properly treated, you would slowly wither and die.”
    â€œCan you heal—?” Arian began.
    â€œYes. This wound is not deep, and it has not been that long. Pearwind, you know what herbs we need: gather a good amount.”
    Kieri heard Arian give the orders for a basin, for hot water, her voice steady. He thought of the blood on her clothes—was she in danger? He tried to ask; she put her hand over his. “My clothes were riddled with holes like yours,” she said, “but I had not so much as a scratch.” She took her hand away and moved back as the Kuakkgani went to work.
    He felt peculiar lying there and doing nothing, but he found it hard to summon the energy to speak. He could not feel whatever the Kuakkgani were doing to his back and shoulder. Shadows crowded his mind, as they had at Midwinter, visions of death and dissolution. Then Arian’s living face appeared in his sight, and her warm live hand touched his face, stroked his forehead. As before, he clung to her—the hope of her and the reality of her. A sharp, clean smell came to his nostrils, the scent of a forest in winter, firs and spruce and pine. Some errant current of thought wandered from firs to Paksenarrion—from Three Firs, he remembered—and he remembered how she had healed him … after a Kuakgan