Kaelen's blood looked wrong on palace stone.
Too bright. Too real. Too honest for a place that preferred stains to be hidden under rugs and paperwork.
"Move," Jina said, voice flat.
The guards hesitated with Kaelen half on his knees, half dragged upright between spear shafts. His jaw was clenched so hard the muscles jumped, but his arm hung wrong—heavy, numb at the shoulder. The bolt still jutted from him, feathers trembling with each harsh breath.
A Diadem proxy hovered near the edge of the walkway, smile already polished back into place.
"Your Highness," he said gently, "Lord Kaelen will be restrained and treated by—"
"No," Jina cut in.
Not Command. Not magic.
Just refusal with teeth.
The proxy's smile thinned. "You refuse again."
"I'm not debating," Jina said. She stepped in close and put herself between Kaelen and the hands reaching for him. "He's my bonded consort. If he dies in your custody, the court won't call it an accident. They'll call it proof."
The proxy's eyes cooled. "Proof of what."
"Proof you don't control the room as well as you pretend," Jina said.
A beat of silence.
Then she turned to the guards. "Infirmary. Now."
They looked at each other, searching for the "correct" authority.
The Emperor wasn't here. The Council wasn't here.
But Aurelia's name still carried weight like a blade you didn't want near your throat.
The guard captain swallowed and gave a stiff nod.
Kaelen tried to jerk away from their grip anyway, still proud even while poisoned.
His knees buckled.
Jina caught him by the tunic front before he hit the ground.
The bond flared—hot pain, sharp enough to make her vision spot.
Kaelen hissed through clenched teeth. "Don't—"
"I'm not commanding you," Jina snapped under her breath. "I'm keeping you upright."
His breath stuttered, and for a heartbeat she felt it through the thread—rage edged with a sudden, ugly fear.
Not fear of death.
Fear of being handled.
Jina swallowed hard and kept moving.
The palace corridors blurred into torchlight and stone. Too many turns. Too many doors. Too many guards who pretended they weren't escorting a prisoner and a princess to a room where bodies got quiet.
When they reached the infirmary, the younger physician from earlier stepped forward like he'd been waiting.
Of course he had.
He glanced once at Kaelen's shoulder and didn't bother hiding his satisfaction.
"Poisoned," he said, voice clipped. "We will need restraints."
"Get out," Jina said.
The physician blinked. "Your Highness—"
"I said get out."
Behind Jina, Lysander appeared at the infirmary threshold like a shadow given permission to exist. His bandaged hand was stained through again, and his eyes were cold enough to freeze a man mid-breath.
The physician's gaze flicked to Lysander, recalculated, then back to Jina.
"You are not trained—"
"I'm trained to keep people alive," Jina said. "Leave."
The guards hesitated.
Jina lifted her chin. "Now."
The physician's jaw tightened. He bowed stiffly and stepped away, retreating past the curtain as if the air had turned hostile.
Good.
Jina grabbed a tray and shoved it toward the nearest guard. "Boiled water. Alcohol. Clean cloth. And a bowl of rendered fat—lard, tallow, I don't care what you call it. Now."
The guard stared. "Rendered—?"
"FAT," Jina snapped.
He flinched and ran.
Kaelen slumped onto the infirmary bed with a heavy thud, face pale beneath the anger. Sweat slicked his temples. His pupils were a touch too wide.
Neurotoxin. Or something close.
Jina took one look and felt her stomach turn.
This wasn't meant to kill fast.
It was meant to make him helpless.
Kaelen tried to sit up again, pure stubbornness. "Don't touch—"
Jina planted a hand on his chest and pushed him back down. "Hold still."
His eyes flashed. "Don't—"
"I'm not your enemy," Jina said, sharp enough to cut through the haze. "If you want to argue, do it after you can feel your arm again."
Kaelen's jaw clenched. Then his head tipped back against the pillow with a frustrated, shaky exhale.
Lysander stayed at the side of the bed, silent, watching every hand that came near her like he expected another wire to appear out of air.
"Door," Jina said.
Lysander moved without a word, stepping to the curtain and positioning himself so anyone entering would have to pass his body first.
Jina's hands didn't shake yet.
That came later.
She leaned over Kaelen and studied the bolt. The entry was clean but deep. No barbs on the shaft. Which meant the poison wasn't on the metal alone.
It was on the head.
It had already bled into tissue.
"On three," Jina said.
Kaelen bared his teeth. "Just do it."
"Fine."
She wrapped cloth around the bolt shaft to get a stable grip, braced her other hand against his shoulder, and pulled in one smooth motion.
Kaelen made a sound that was pure animal, strangled and furious.
Blood welled immediately.
Jina pressed hard with cloth, then called the Gift up.
Heal answered—warm, steady.
She didn't flood him with it. She focused on mechanics: close the torn vessels, stop the bleeding first. Seal. Stabilize.
The wound's edges knit just enough to slow the flow.
Kaelen's breathing eased by a fraction.
Then his face tightened again, eyes squeezing shut.
"Still burning," he rasped.
Jina already knew.
She shifted her Gift inward—not to heal tissue, to see.
Understand, narrow and controlled.
The poison lit up in her perception like a dark film spreading along muscle and nerve. A thin lattice—barbed and deliberate—crawling toward the joint.
A smaller cousin of the poison in her own blood.
Engineered.
Jina swallowed hard.
"Okay," she whispered. "Earth rules. You don't fight a toxin by yelling at it."
Kaelen's eyes cracked open. "What."
"Nothing," Jina said. "Stay still."
The guard returned breathless with supplies—boiled water, alcohol, clean cloth.
And a ceramic bowl of rendered fat that smelled like a kitchen, not a clinic.
Perfect.
Jina poured alcohol over her hands, then into a small dish. She tore cloth into strips.
Then she reached into the inner pocket of her robe—the one she'd been guarding like a secret—and pulled out a tiny folded scrap of fabric.
Inside were glittering specks.
Soulglass dust.
Not enough for experiments. Not enough for a cure.
But enough to try something stupid.
Lysander's gaze flicked to it. He didn't ask. He just watched, tense.
Jina sprinkled a pinch of the dust into the bowl of warm fat and stirred with a metal spatula until it looked faintly iridescent.
Kaelen stared. "What are you doing."
Jina kept her voice tight and honest. "Making a sink."
"A what."
"Something the poison will prefer," Jina said. "Something it can stick to that isn't your nerves."
Kaelen's eyes narrowed. "That's not how this world works."
Jina met his gaze. "It's how bodies work."
She spread the fat mixture around the wound in a thick ring—careful not to pack it into the open tissue. Not blocking. Creating a border.
Then she placed her hand just above the injury and let the Gift settle into a steady, coaxing warmth.
Not push. Not purge.
Guide.
The lattice shuddered under her touch, defensive.
Jina didn't force it. She kept steady pressure, the way you kept steady hands on a panicked animal until it stopped trying to bite you.
"Come on," she murmured, more to herself than him. "Follow the gradient. Follow the easy path."
The poison resisted.
Then—slowly—it shifted.
Not vanishing.
Moving.
Like ink drawn toward a sponge.
Kaelen's breath hitched. "What—"
"Don't move," Jina said.
She felt it happen through the Gift: the barbs loosening from nerve tissue and sliding outward toward the binder ring. The soulglass-flecked fat caught it, holding it in place like glue.
Kaelen's face twisted as sensation returned in ugly pulses.
Pain. Burning. Pins-and-needles.
Then a hard exhale.
"Holy—" he choked out, and stopped himself like swearing would give the palace power.
Jina's own body punished her for the effort.
Heat drained from her core like someone pulled a stopper. Her vision narrowed. The poison in her blood stirred and scraped, annoyed by the Gift's output.
Her hands started to tremble.
Not yet. Not enough for witnesses.
But she felt it.
Her ribs tightened. Breath came thin.
Lysander's voice cut in quietly. "Enough."
Jina didn't look away from Kaelen's wound. "Not yet."
Kaelen's eyes were half-lidded now, jaw clenched. "You're—"
"Shut up," Jina said, without bite. "Let me finish."
She guided the last of the toxin she could reach toward the binder ring. The lattice didn't fully leave—some of it stayed embedded deep, clinging.
But the worst of the burn eased.
Kaelen's shoulder stopped spasming.
His fingers flexed—slow, shaky—then clenched into a fist.
He could move again.
Jina let the Gift pull back.
The moment she released, her knees went weak like someone had cut her strings.
She caught herself on the bedframe.
Her breath came in hard, shallow pulls.
She tasted iron.
Kaelen stared at her. "You're shaking."
Jina forced a thin, sharp laugh. "Congratulations. You have eyes."
Lysander was already moving, a step closer, hand hovering near her elbow—asking without speaking.
Jina lifted one hand slightly. Not yet.
Not because she didn't want help.
Because she didn't want to fall.
Not in front of Kaelen. Not in front of anyone.
Kaelen's gaze dropped to the iridescent fat ring on his shoulder, then back to her face.
"That wasn't palace healing," he said, voice rough.
"No," Jina admitted.
Kaelen's eyes narrowed. "What was it."
Jina swallowed, forcing her breathing steady.
"A workaround," she said. "I didn't purge it clean. I displaced what I could and trapped it in a binder."
Kaelen's mouth curled. "And the rest."
Jina's jaw tightened. "The rest needs a proper reagent. And a safe place to test. Neither of which I have."
The words came out sharper than she intended because fear was creeping in around the edges.
Because she could feel the burn in her own veins now—her poison reacting to overuse, hooks scraping as if reminding her who was still dying.
Kaelen stared at her.
Then, unexpectedly, he didn't mock.
He didn't demand.
He said, quieter, "You did it anyway."
Jina met his gaze. "You were going to lose your arm."
Kaelen's golden eyes flickered. "I took the bolt for you."
Jina's throat tightened. "I noticed."
Silence.
Then the infirmary door banged open.
A guard captain strode in, face tight, flanked by two men in clean cloaks—black-and-gold lining flashing under torchlight.
Diadem.
The proxy's voice was calm as prayer.
"Your Highness," he said. "The Council's patience is not infinite."
Jina's stomach dropped.
The proxy's gaze slid to Kaelen's shoulder—binder ring and all—then back to her face.
"We will take Lord Kaelen for containment," he said. "And we will take you back to the Sanctum."
Jina's pulse hammered.
Her limbs still felt heavy. Her vision still wanted to tunnel.
She was running on fumes and spite.
Kaelen's body tensed, fury waking back up.
Lysander's posture sharpened at the door.
And inside Jina's chest, the splinter-word stirred again—heavy, absolute—because it would be so easy to say it and freeze the room.
Jina swallowed hard.
Not yet.
But the deadline wasn't just "Council tonight" anymore.
It was right now.
Because Diadem had come to collect.
[Deadline]