Page 155 of Alchemised
“Sometimes—takes longer,” he said through gritted teeth, walking over and dropping into a chair. His head lolled back. “Lot of damage …”
“There was more?”
His face, tight with pain, pulled into a taut smile as he looked at her. “I have command of a new district …”
His voice trailed off. He straightened as if trying to rouse himself, blinking several times. “Previous commander—rather attached to it.” He gave a lopsided shrug. “Insulted his mother—few times. Insinuated some unfavourable things about his wife and a certain horse.” His head lolled back again. “Didn’t like that. Duelled to the death. Well—close as we can get. I won, so now I get his command posts.”
The last words were garbled. He was mostly talking inside his mouth.
He gave a barking laugh so abrupt that Helena jumped.
“He was a pyromancer, though. The arm’s nothing compared with the burns. They were—worse. Gone now. Usually I can—” He gestured at himself. “But I’m—”
Whatever he was, his voice trailed off before he could specify.
She never would have thought that pain and chronic blood loss would be the trick for making Ferron talkative, but that was far more words in succession than she’d heard from him in weeks.
His eyes went out of focus. His breathing had grown shallow, almost stopping. He was going into shock.
“Why are you here? You didn’t have to come.” She stepped tentatively closer, prepared to be shoved away again.
He blinked slowly, staring up at her. His pupils had dilated so much, the black nearly swallowed the irises.
“Marino …” He sighed, as if it were obvious. He was still talking inside his mouth, lips barely moving. “Once I’m done here, I intend to drink so much I won’t remember my own name for the next three days. I have a map—somewhere.” He patted awkwardly at himself with his remaining arm and only then seemed to realise that his clothes were ashen scraps. “Fuck …”
Helena steeled herself and stepped closer.
“Ferron,” she said gently but firmly, “I have medical experience. I’m going to check you and see if there’s anything I can do to help.”
He didn’t seem to hear her, and didn’t resist as she pressed fingers against his neck under the pretence of taking his pulse, cautiously using her resonance to find out what was wrong with him.
However unnatural he had felt the first time she’d used her resonance on him, it was a thousand times stranger this time. He was losing so much blood, he should be dead, but somewhere in his chest, a power source like a beacon was radiating out, regenerating him faster than he could die.
The lumithium talisman. That must be it. The source of the Undying’s power.
Nonetheless, his body was trying very hard to die anyway.
Helena could recognise newly regenerated tissue, and he was covered in it. Most of his torso and face had been regenerated all the way down to the bones. Several of his organs seemed new as well.
However, it was the nonstop blood loss that was the problem. The body was not made to produce blood at even a fraction of the rate he was losing it. It was stripping him of resources to pull blood out of nowhere, all so that he could dump it out on the floor. A nonstop destructive loop. His body was so preoccupied with making more blood, it couldn’t expend the resources necessary to regrow his arm and thereby end the blood loss.
Apparently somewhere in his anomalous regenerative abilities, the concept of blood clotting had been lost.
Helena drew a careful breath and spoke with as much assurance as she could manage.
“Admittedly, you’re the first immortal person that I’ve treated, but you really need to stop bleeding this much.” She pulled at the remaining tatters of his shirt. It crumbled away.
She didn’t think that staunching the blood loss would cause regeneration issues.
“Let’s get you onto the table,” she said, pulling his existent arm over her shoulder and dragging him to his feet. It was fortunate that he was all limbs, because he was a deadweight to get up and onto his back. His eyes had fluttered closed, and he was nonresponsive, his chest barely rising.
She doubted he was conscious, but she maintained the charade of being a medic just to be sure. Using the heels of both hands, she pressed down on his shoulder to conceal her resonance as she constricted the veins and arteries in his arm.
It was remarkable how quickly that alone stabilised him.
Once he was no longer bleeding to death, his arm immediately started regenerating. She watched, mesmerised, as the bone burst out, expanding, muscles wrapping around it, regenerating his biceps, the elbow, the radius, and the ulna.
She couldn’t help but release her resonance a bit more as she watched, trying to get a feel for—whatever he was. Wanting to understand how it worked. His body had already stopped feeling like it was on the verge of death.
