I swallowed some sick-tasting spit. “That’s what that is? I assumed it was just overstimulation, like after you drink too many energy drinks.”
“Come on, ya bleeders.” Warcry leaned over the side of his branch, feet crossed underneath it. He clapped his hands like he wanted someone to pass him a ball. “Toss us up a rope for the rest of you to climb.”
“Fine,” Kest said. She called one of her chain ladders out of the storage ring. “But we’re not staying long. Just until Hake’s decontaminated and maybe a couple hours of rest. Then we’ve got to keep going.”
One at a time, we hauled ourselves into the tree. I was the last one up. I found a thick branch with a smaller one next to it like an armrest and settled into the crook to drip-dry while Kest sent the chain ladder back into storage.
Red light flared up from Warcry’s direction. Flames raced over his whole body, and immediately, his clothes started steaming. He was drying them out.
I smirked. “I knew it worked like that.”
“Shut it, grav.”
I was too tired and nauseous to keep messing with him, so I just closed my eyes and tried to keep from throwing up. Would I fall out of the tree if I went to sleep up here? I hooked my arm over the armrest branch as a precaution.
“Everybody should have some AlgaeFrize,” Kest said from her spot a little higher and to my right. She called four bags of those neon shoestring potatoes out of the storage ring. They dropped into her lap, and she had to grab at them one-handed to keep them from falling into the water below.
“Here, Hake,” she said when she got them under control. She tossed a bag to me.
“Thanks.” I wasn’t sure I could eat without puking, but I knew I needed the Healing Restoration. Now that we weren’t fighting or moving, all the bruises and scratches and bites I hadn’t noticed during the fights with the bog ferals had started to flare up. You don’t really appreciate a healing script tattoo until you go without one for a day.
Kest lobbed a bag of AlgaeFrize up to Warcry, who saluted her with it before tearing in, then she leaned around the trunk until she could see her twin, who had settled on a branch to my left. “Rali.”
“Thank you, Kest, but I’ll pass,” he said. “It’s against my Ten restriction to profit from my own Spirit abilities.”
“I know that, goof,” she said. “I marked the ones you didn’t infuse.”
“Well, in that case, I am a little peckish.”
For a long time, there was nothing but the sound of chip bags rustling and insects buzzing while everyone else ate. I left my bag unopened. Every time I thought about food, my mouth watered like I was about to puke. I swore I could taste the bog feral’s rotten brown life points coating the inside of my mouth like rancid sewage.
“You need to eat, Hake,” Rali said in a low voice, like he was too exhausted to talk at full volume.
“You need the healing,” Kest agreed. “Humans don’t have the immo-filtering systems that Selkens do. And even we still need to be careful in unknown water. It’d be stupid for you to die of an infection from a little scratch when you’ve made it this far.”
“Even ignoring your injuries,” Rali said, “your internal alchemy has a lot of work to do to force out the soul contamination, so you’re going to need the extra energy.” He glanced down at the brightly colored chip bag in his hand. “Ideally, we’d have something a little more natural for you, something that won’t add impurities to your body while it’s fighting off the Spiritual impurities. But we’ll work with what we’ve got.”
“Okay, you sold me.” I tore open the bag and stuck a handful AlgaeFrize in my mouth, going for quantity over caution. Maybe I could get most of them down before my stomach kicked them back up.
But once the neon green snack hit my stomach, Rali’s Healing Restoration spread through my body, fixing all the torn-up tissue and revitalizing my exhausted muscles. It even took the edge off the nausea.
“I think it’s been mentioned before, but you’re a genius, Rali,” I said.
“That’s why they call me Sage Rali.”
“No one calls you that,” Kest said.
“They oughta,” Warcry said, tipping back the last of his bag into his mouth.
Rali gestured from me to Warcry. “I can’t argue with popular opinion, Kest.”
She scoffed. “You do all the time—usually just because it’s popular.”
“Yeah, but I’m inclined to believe it when it falls in my favor.”
I finished off my bag of AlgaeFrize, listening to the twins bicker and the swamp bugs make noise. With the life point sickness easing up, I could definitely fall asleep. I shut my eyes.
I had just about dozed off when my branch moved.
Rali sat down a couple feet out facing me, right arm hooked over the armrest branch.
“Let’s get to work on that soul contamination,” he said.
“Sounds good,” I lied. I yawned and sat up straighter. “What do I need to do?”
“In short, burn it out.” Rali flicked his hair out of his face with a jerk of his head. “This might be kind of counterintuitive for a Death affinity. Miasma’s kind of cold, right? But you’ve got to use it like a purifying fire to cleanse the soul contamination from your body.”
To say that Miasma was kind of cold was a massive understatement. If I didn’t keep my internal alchemy going constantly, the Death Spirit sank into my tissues, freezing and killing them off like frostbite. But I kind of doubted somebody with Warm Heart affinity could fully understand that, so I nodded to show Rali I was mostly following.
He shifted to get more comfortable on the branch. “First, look inside yourself and find
