Mira's POV
The patient wasn't breathing.
My hands moved on autopilot, fingers pressing against his neck. No pulse. His lips were turning blue. Shadow serpent venom had stopped his heart.
I had maybe two minutes before brain damage became permanent.
"Mira!" Kael's voice cut through my panic. "What do you need?"
What did I need? A defibrillator. Epinephrine. A full crash cart and a team of doctors.
I had none of that.
Think. THINK.
In the ER, we had protocols for this. Chest compressions. Rescue breathing. But this wasn't cardiac arrest from a heart attack—this was venom shutting down his entire system.
"Chest compressions won't work," I muttered, my mind racing. "The venom is blocking nerve signals. His heart can't receive the command to beat."
Across from me, Lyssa worked calmly on her patient. She pulled out a vial of shimmering blue liquid and injected it directly into the male's chest. He gasped, color returning to his face.
She had antivenom. Of course she did.
And I had nothing.
"Mira." Kael knelt beside me. "Tell me what to do."
I looked at my dying patient. At the crowd watching with held breath. At Lyssa's smug smile.
Then I remembered something from medical school. A lecture on traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture's effect on the nervous system. The professor had shown us pressure points that could stimulate the vagus nerve, sometimes restarting hearts during cardiac events.
It was a long shot. A desperate, probably-won't-work long shot.
But it was all I had.
"Hold his head steady," I told Kael.
I found the pressure point at the base of the patient's skull. Pressed hard with my thumbs, using a specific rhythm. Press, release. Press, release. Trying to manually stimulate the nerve pathways the venom had blocked.
Nothing happened.
Lyssa finished with her second patient. Both her males were sitting up now, breathing normally. She was winning.
"Poor little healer," she cooed. "Out of your depth?"
I ignored her. Pressed harder. Changed the rhythm. Come on, come on, COME ON.
The male's chest jerked.
Once. Twice.
Then he gasped, sucking in air like a drowning man. His heart restarted—weak, but beating.
The crowd erupted in shocked murmurs.
I nearly collapsed with relief, but I couldn't stop. He was breathing, but the venom was still in his system. Without antivenom, he'd crash again within minutes.
I needed to slow the venom's spread. In snake bites back home, we used pressure immobilization. Keep the bitten limb still, wrap it to slow lymphatic flow.
"Cloth!" I shouted. "Lots of it!"
Someone thrust fabric at me. I wrapped the patient's limbs tightly, creating makeshift pressure bandages. Then I elevated his legs, trying to keep the venom away from his heart and brain as long as possible.
It wouldn't save him. But it might buy him time.
I moved to my second patient. He was still breathing, but barely. Same gray skin, same shallow breaths.
I repeated the process—pressure bandages, elevation, constant monitoring. My hands shook with exhaustion and fear.
Lyssa stood, brushing off her knees. "I'm finished. Three patients saved. How about you, little healer?"
I glanced at my three males. One was breathing but unconscious. One was wrapped and stabilized. The third...
The third had stopped breathing while I worked on the second.
Horror crashed through me. I'd been so focused on saving one that I'd let another die.
"No, no, no." I crawled to the third patient, started the pressure point technique again.
"Time's up," Lyssa announced cheerfully. "The tribes will vote now."
"He's still alive!" I pressed frantically on the pressure point. "I can save him!"
"The challenge is over." Lyssa's voice was final. "You saved zero patients. I saved three. I win."
"They're not saved!" I pointed at my first patient, who was breathing steadily now. "He's alive! That counts!"
"He's dying slowly instead of quickly. That's not saving." She smiled at the crowd. "Any tribe who disagrees with my assessment?"
Silence. Everyone knew crossing the Blessed One meant death.
Except...
"I disagree." Kael's voice rang out. "That male is breathing because of her. That's saved."
"So does he count as half-saved?" Lyssa laughed. "You're grasping, Nightfang."
Elder Thorne stepped forward. "By the old laws, a patient is considered saved if they survive until dawn. We cannot judge the outcome yet."
Lyssa's smile thinned. "Fine. We wait until dawn. Three hours." She looked at me. "But let's make this interesting. No one touches these patients. No additional treatment. We see who survives on their own."
"That's murder!" I shot to my feet. "They need constant care!"
"Then you should have worked faster." She examined her nails casually. "Oh, and that slavery clause? It applies the moment your last patient dies. So pray yours are tougher than they look."
She walked away, her warriors following.
I knelt beside my patients, helpless. I'd bought them time with pressure bandages and nerve stimulation, but without real antivenom, they'd die before dawn.
All three of them.
And I'd become Lyssa's slave.
"There has to be something we can do," I whispered.
Kael's hand touched my shoulder. "The silver cuff. Let me claim you now. Before you lose. Before she can—"
"No." I shook my head. "If you claim me, she'll find another reason to hurt people. Another way to force my submission." I looked at my dying patients. "I need to win this. Really win. Prove I'm better than her."
"You can't win without antivenom," Soren said gently. "And she's the only one who has it."
The only one who has it.
Wait.
"She made the antivenom," I said slowly, my mind racing. "Which means the ingredients exist here. In this world."
"In the Cursed Lands," Elder Thorne confirmed. "Where monsters live. Where no one goes unless they want to die."
"How far?"
"Two hours' flight by eagle." Soren's eyes widened. "Mira, no. You can't—"
"I can fly there, gather what I need, and make my own antivenom." I stood up, determination flooding through me. "It's the only way."
"You have three hours until dawn," Kael reminded me. "Two hours there means you can't make it back in time even if everything goes perfectly."
"Then I'll have to be fast." I looked at Soren. "Will you take me?"
The golden eagle hesitated. "If we're caught leaving, Lyssa will call it cheating. She'll demand you forfeit."
"If I stay, they die anyway." I glanced at my patients. "This is the only chance."
Kael grabbed my arm. "This is suicide. The Cursed Lands are filled with creatures that make shadow serpents look friendly."
"Do you have a better idea?"
His jaw clenched. He didn't.
"Then let me try." I pulled free gently. "I didn't survive a bullet just to become a tyrant's slave. If I'm going down, I'm going down fighting."
Something shifted in Kael's eyes. Respect. Fear. Something deeper.
"If you don't make it back," he said quietly, "I'm starting that war. I don't care about the cost."
The words should have scared me. Instead, they made me feel... protected. Valued.
"I'll make it back," I promised.
Soren shifted into his eagle form—massive, golden, beautiful. I climbed onto his back, gripping his feathers.
"This is insane," he said, his voice different in beast form but still understandable.
"I know." I held on tight. "Let's go anyway."
We launched into the night sky. The village disappeared below us. Kael's figure grew smaller, but I felt his eyes on me until we vanished into the darkness.
The flight was terrifying. Wind whipped my hair. The ground was so far below. If I fell...
Don't think about that.
"There," Soren said. "The Cursed Lands."
The forest below us looked wrong. The trees were too tall, too twisted. Shadows moved between them—things that shouldn't exist.
"The shadow serpents nest near the black river," Soren called. "But there are worse things there. Things that hunt—"
His words cut off.
Something hit us from the side.
We tumbled through the air. I screamed, clutching Soren's feathers as he fought to stabilize. Below us, a massive creature with bat wings and too many teeth circled for another attack.
"Hold on!" Soren dove, trying to lose it in the trees.
We crashed through branches. I hit the ground hard, rolling. Pain exploded through my shoulder.
Soren shifted back to human form, blood streaming from a wound on his chest. "Run! Back to the river!"
The bat-creature landed behind us with a thunderous crash. It was the size of a truck, with red eyes and fangs dripping venom.
We ran.
The river appeared ahead—black water that smelled like sulfur. And coiled along the banks...
Shadow serpents. Dozens of them.
Behind us: the bat-monster.
Ahead: the deadliest snakes in the Beastworld.
We were trapped.
"What do we do?" I panted.
Soren's face was grim. "We're about to find out if you're as lucky as you are brave."
The bat-creature roared.
The serpents raised their heads, sensing prey.
And I realized, with crystal clarity, that I was about to die in a cursed forest, surrounded by monsters, with no way to save my patients or myself.
Kael was going to start a war.
And it would be my fault.
The bat-creature lunged.
Then something else burst from the trees.
Something bigger. Darker. More terrifying than anything I'd seen.
A silver-and-black tiger, massive and deadly, with amber eyes that burned like fire.
Kael.
He'd followed us.
And he was absolutely furious.