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In case you haven't picked up an excerpt at BookFunnel or the ARC at NetGalley or Edelweiss, I cut out a section of chapter 1 for you.
...
Livoik had settled into its early-afternoon rhythm with the
rap of hammers and calls of craftworkers when Astria found its dusty main
street. The town was small, with only the Inne of Three Bastards exceeding a
single floor. Adorned with baubles and surrounded by gifts of food stood a
shrine with a three-headed goddess in an alcove between buildings. Past the
shops and dry-goods store, she followed the smell of burning dirt to the
blacksmith where the traveling doctor had set up his temporary practice.
The smith’s fire was hot but the anvil quiet as Astria
joined the line outside the door and listened hard to the chatter of others to
understand. A spindly young woman in a tunic came to each, spoke to them, and
changed their place in line. From their actions, Astria decoded the words until
the girl stood in front of her.
“Your ailment?” the girl asked.
“A curse,” Astria said, to which the girl rolled her eyes
and tapped her foot until she offered an alternative. “A poison.”
The girl raised her eyebrows, took Astria’s arm, and hurried
her to the front of the line. “How long ago?”
“A year,” Astria said, after which the girl frowned and
returned her to the end of the line. There, even as new patients arrived and
were sorted, Astria remained.
As she waited, men carrying a stretcher rushed past with an
unconscious man with one leg bandaged at the knee. Another arrived with a wrist
at an unnatural angle, and later, a child groaned with one hand on a swollen
cheek and his other gripping his mother’s pocket. None carried weapons or tools
that might be used in defense.
Short cries of pain and muffled screams echoed from inside
the blacksmith’s shop, and patients walked out with splints, bandages, or
limping on a new crutch, none of them smiling. Men carried the stretcher out
with the man on it one leg short, and the child left with his mother and a
bloody rag in his mouth. Not wanting any of those outcomes, but with no
alternative, Astria waited.
As sundown approached, the line of patients decreased, and
the girl led the last patient out the door. “The doctor will come to examine
your horse tomorrow,” she said to the man.
With the glow from the fire tinting her tunic red orange,
the girl turned to Astria, her palm open. Into it, Astria placed Tor’s note.
“So the college will pay our fee, then?” the girl asked with
a raised eyebrow. When Astria did not reply, the girl stuffed the note in her
pocket with a pile of others. “So be it.”
Inside, on a stool by the fire, sat a gray-haired man in a
white tunic stained with splotches of red and greenish yellow, and Astria
turned away to curb her imagination. A box behind him opened to a portable
cabinet with many tiny drawers, each labeled with unfamiliar runes. On the
anvil lay a bronze saw next to needles, probes, and blades in a tray of bloody
water and, near the fire, a pile of stained rags. Next to them sat the girl who
pointed to a chair opposite the doctor for Astria to sit.
“My daughter tells me you were poisoned,” the doctor said.
“Your symptoms?”
“Numbness at the wound. Sporadic delirium and a spreading
stain.”
“Spider bites often cause confusion, but only for a day. The
rock korkimon or the winsover scorpion can leave a lasting stain near the
wound. When did this occur?”
“A year past,” the girl said.
The doctor frowned. “Our aim is to remove poisons and venoms
before they get into your system. Once they’re systemic, we have limited
options. Rarely does the event occur when I am near, and most victims die or
recover on their own.”
“Do you have treatments?” Astria asked.
“Some. But antivenoms are hard to make. They require time
and a sample of the venom. Do you know what bit you?”
Astria nodded. “A crossbow bolt.”
“Ah. Delivery by a weapon implies manufacture and might be a
mix of venoms and poisons working in concert. Do you know what was in it?”
“No.”
“Well, if it’s taken a year, it’s slow, so it’s traveling
through your flesh, not your blood. Bleeding you won’t help. May I see the
wound?”
Astria frowned with a deep furrow between her eyes. Show
him the thing most likely to betray me?
He glanced at his daughter, smirked, and opened his hands
palms up. “Come, come. You can’t expect me to treat you without seeing your
wound.”
The dinner bell tolled at the college, but Astria would not
be put off. “In confidence?” she asked.
“Of course,” he said, and beside him, the girl nodded.
Astria pulled up her jumper to expose the purple wound which
glimmered in the firelight. Using a wooden probe, the doctor prodded and poked
her thigh and pelvis around the purple corona but did not touch it. Frowning,
he pulled on his ear.
“I’ve not seen anything like this.” He pointed back to his
portable cabinet. “I have antidotes for most poisons. But treatment requires
knowledge of the specific one. The wrong antidote might kill you.” He poked
around the purple stain again. “Perhaps we could cut it out, but it’s not clear
how deep it goes.”
“Find out,” Astria said.
He looked to his daughter, who nodded, reached into a cloth
bag for a leather strap, and handed the strap to Astria. At the same time, the
girl removed a knife from the tray and sharpened it with slow, circular motions
on a whetstone.
“This may hurt,” he said. “Do I need to put you to sleep?”
What might happen to me at the mercy of strangers with so
many blades? “No.”
“Bite on the strap,” he instructed as he took the knife.
The knife was razor sharp, and Astria did not feel the
incision. As he began, his eyes were bright with interest, and the girl leaned
closer.
Horror of the wound
But as he cut, their faces changed to wide eyes and open
mouths. The girl stood and her stool fell behind her, and the doctor pushed his
stool back. Astria followed his eyes, which went to the knife in his hand,
where the purple stain seemed to crawl toward his fingers. He dropped the knife
in the dirt and stepped back while examining his hands. Without a word, he
grabbed the knife with the blacksmith’s tongs and threw it into the fire. The
girl handed Astria a bandage, and the pair immediately doused their hands with
brandy and washed them with the smith’s gritty soap.
Astria looked at the cut, which quickly sealed with
congealed purple rather than blood. Over the cut, she applied the bandage and
covered her thigh. After inspecting the area, the doctor and the girl sat
again. But this time, his face was drawn.
“Why do you shy from continuing?” Astria asked.
“Your wound is more extensive under your skin,” he said.
“And I suspect it surrounds your blood vessels.”
“Can you cut it out?”
He pursed his lips. “Only if we amputate your leg and pelvis
from the waist, and that would kill you.”
“And there’s nothing more you can do?”
“I’m sorry, no,” he said.
“What about other doctors or healers?”
He raised an eyebrow. “I was trained in the Imperium, and
there’s likely no place other than Capitolia to the south or Branwyn to the
southwest where you might find someone with more knowledge than me or an
apothecary with more cures.”
“Where are these places?”
“Both are many months away by wagon and dangerous journeys
alone.”
Then much farther than Vandrare can fly without the
berries. “What about alchemists?”
“They promise eternal life, but their elixirs often deliver
only an upset stomach and the runs.”
“Do they visit here?”
He smiled. “You rarely find them along a doctor’s route.”
“Sorcerers?”
He shook his head. “There are shrines nearby to Junera and
Madema to offer sacrifices if you are inclined to miracles . . .”
And I should pray to the gods who turned their backs on
me. What hope is that?
“Or perhaps a priest,” he said.
Astria rose to leave. “Thank you.”
As she walked out the door, Astria turned back to see the
girl burning everything that had touched Astria, and the doctor hastily packing
their things.
