I shut my eyes and found the little bit of Miasma I kept cycling through my body to maintain internal alchemy. When it got to the spots where I’d been stabbed, it didn’t flow right. The Spirit rivers there were all twisted and knotted up and pinned together like some kind of messed-up maze with no exit, and the contamination from the ferals had been building up there even though I’d been burning it off whenever I thought about it.
Frowning, I sent a ton of Corpse Fire flowing into that tangled maze. The cold turquoise flame cleansed the soul contamination, and the faint sickness in my stomach eased up. The pollution wasn’t totally gone, but there was less of it in the area. I’d have to figure out something else to get the rest of it out of those tangles.
For the time being, I blasted that twisted maze with Miasma. A little at a time, the tangled Spirit rivers frosted over. Frostbite settled into the nerves. They blackened and died off, and as they went, the pain disappeared with them.
I took a deep breath and stood up straight. Not even a twinge.
Warcry blinked, then stabbed a finger at my side. “What did you just do?”
I shrugged. “Fixed it.”
“No, you bleedin’ didn’t,” he snapped. “I seen more than me share of IFC fighters pull that trick to cover up sidelining injuries. They get through a fight or two—a season tops—and then they fall apart coz they trashed their body. Keep this up and you’ll never get a hundred percent feeling back in that spot.”
That didn’t actually sound like a huge deal right then. In fact, it sounded like it would’ve been great if I could just figure out a way to do the same thing for the part of my brain that kept reminding me I’d killed a guy.
Warcry launched his empty water bottle at the trash. “You need to walk yourself straight to the healer and have them repair it.”
“I’ll go after my fight,” I said. “This is just for right now.”
“Your body’s your weapon, yeah? You don’t keep it in shape, it’ll fail you when you need it.”
“I heard you already,” I said, irritation creeping into my voice. I checked the time on my HUD so I could change the subject. “The stores should be opening pretty soon. I’ve got to get a shower and sell some feral loot. I’ll see you.”
I left Warcry in the workout room and headed back upstairs, took a shower and grabbed the feral loot out of my room, then brought it down to the Pawning Post.
I’d been out a lot longer the night before, so I had a ton of odds and ends to sell, but what the chameleon-looking dude behind the counter was really interested in was that amber pendant around my neck.
“I give you two hundred even for ugly necklace,” he gurgled, licking one bulging scaly eyeball.
I shook my head, thinking of Kest. “I’ve got to keep it.”
He stuck one padded hand to the counter, then peeled it off with a sticky sound.
“You drive hard bargain. Two hundred fifty.”
“Sorry, man.” I shrugged. “I need it today.”
“Later, I drop price. I only offer much now because I so impulsive.” He twirled his finger around his head and made his eyes circle in opposite directions. “I have time to think, I realize Parasite apparatus not worth a credit anyway.”
Yeah, right.
“I’ll take my chances.” I left with the pendant and a hundred-and-twenty-six-credit deposit in my USL account from the rest of the bog feral loot.
After putting my name in for a fight, I headed over to the Smoking Dragon. I’d been a little freaked out about seeing the distiller again—I didn’t know if she would mention what happened—but she wasn’t in that early in the morning. One of her apprentices was holding down the shop, so I was able to pick up my allotted healing elixir and get the heck out of there without any uncomfortable conversations.
Negotiations
BY THE TIME I MADE it back to the fountain court, Kest and Warcry were already at a table, chowing down on breakfast.
A spike of black shot through my mood. This was probably my last morning with Kest before the Technols picked her up. I grabbed a Coffee Drank and some kind of sausage, egg, and potato-looking hash from one of the food stalls, then plastered what I hoped was a normal expression on my face and went to sit beside her.
“The big man ain’t eating today?” Warcry asked Kest.
“He said he’s going into seclusion while he’s on the Dragons’ dime,” she said, looking away from her HUD just long enough to grab a berry out of her fruit bowl, then going back to her schematics.
I looked up. “He’s not leaving with you?”
Kest shook her head. “When I asked, he said not only is he not interested in an affiliation, but he hates the Technols most of all.”
“If he went into seclusion, he must think he’s onto a breakthrough,” Warcry said between bites of sticky rice.
Kest shook her head. “It’s what he does when he’s pouting. He used to do it all the time when we were kids, but he could never stay in seclusion for long. I give him a day, two tops before he gets bored. He can’t stand having no one to talk to.”
The bite I’d just taken turned into a rock in my gut. Kest might think Rali would get over it in a day or two, but I knew from experience that this was how friends dropped you. One at a time, they started avoiding you, until you were down to no
