Page 157 of Artemysia
I’m wading into the water, gathering all the blossoms I can find.
“Throg, pick as many flowers as you can.” I collect them, cradling them in Riev’s shirt.
Throg joins me, no questions asked, though I explain my theory as we harvest all we can carry.
We race back to Artemysia, through the eastern gateway, running the entire way back to King Foss’ palace.
An antidote.
The counter to the poison, the remedy to the sickness—is poison.
The flower is immune. It has to be the key to a cure for the Syf.
It has to work.
The Syf king’s potion masters brew an elixir. It’s not as simple as mashing the flowers; the healers mix both science and their collective healing energy. They tell me that it was Syf healers who secretly passed on to humans the recipe for brewing the green antibacterial tonic we use on cuts.
It’s why both North and South Kingdom use it.
I don’t pretend to understand their knowledge of chemistry and whatever “sorcery” or magical energy they have. Either way, I insist they dose Riev with the delphinium elixir immediately.
The healers surmise that if the elixir can cure his Syf side, his heart may be able to heal. Syf are known to recover from most injuries, except for decapitation. They remain in a dormant state while they heal. Normally, when Syf are in statis, their bodies show slow signs of repair. But not Riev. This begs the question—is he dormant, or is he dead?
I refuse to give up.
The elixir is tested on rabid Syf they’ve rounded up, including children. It takes a week of doses, three times a day, but it reverses the infection.
They return to normal.
Many have trouble remembering their time as rabid Syf. Somehave complete amnesia, even forgetting their lives before they turned. But they are cured and are no longer a threat to man or Syf.
At the end of the week, I diligently pour another dosage of the potion into Riev’s mouth, avoiding his long, sharp fangs.
His heart still refuses to beat.
The macabre thought occurs to me that I will never let go, that I am feeding a corpse.
He’s not dormant—he’s dead. As morbid as it seems, his body isn’t decomposing. Syf bodies don’t rot; that’s why they are burned to ashes and scattered, returned to the forest grounds.
I will not allow them to burn him.
He rests on a bed down the hall from where Ivy, Throg, and I reside. We were given an entire wing in the Syf palace. Our quarters are bright, and the sun scatters rainbow prisms through the gemstone skylight. I haven’t figured out if the palace is magical or not, but my living space and doorways seemed to have grown larger to accommodate the Lindwyrm when it insisted on sleeping in my bedroom.
As a mythical creature revered in Syf culture, it is left to do as it pleases—even after it bites several of the guards. It reminds me of Riev.
I tell Riev all of this, even though he cannot hear me. I brush back the hair from his forehead.
He would want it to be neat.
I choke back the tightness in my throat when I hear footsteps on the gold-streaked marble behind me.
King Foss glides into the room, his silky sea-green robes and rose-gold wings rippling behind him.
We’ve talked since I returned, and he’s answered all my questions. I’d passed some sort of test in his eyes, and he offered all the information I wanted about his world.His world, not mine, because I do not knowhow to belong to this world anymore.
A human in a Syf domain. A broken human in a shattered world.
Shattered, because I do not recognize any of it anymore.
