Discordant Note: Crescendo | TBATE

Chapter 304: Dying Spasms

Thank you to my beta reader and editor, GlassThreads!

Reynolds Leywin

The green, healing light shimmered over Alice's fingertips. The motes of energy danced down toward the bleeding wound, the energy sinking into the flesh like steam over a lake. I watched with bated breath, the scalpel clenched lightly in my hands.

The mage coughed under my wife's careful application of magic. The color started to return to his cheeks as the gash just under his armpit slowly began to close. Alice's auburn hair clung to her face, matted with sweat and hours of focused exertion, but she did not relent.

And I stood by the side, my part done as I waited in silent support of my wife. The barbed broadhead I'd helped extract—still stinking with putrid, infectious mana—sizzled ominously on the nearby metal plate, angry that it had been torn from its victim.

Time trickled like fluid down a drip infusion. In the sterile halls and bleached floors of this wing of the medical research division of Xyrus Academy, a battle no less impactful as the ones on the front lines was being waged. Thunder crashed outside the sturdy walls as rain hurled itself at the structure in a vain attempt to wear us all down.

The man groaned, glassy eyes staring out from behind seared eyebrows. He moved his mouth, trying to say something, but the exhalation seemed to sap more of his strength.

The wound finally closed. Alice exhaled a heavy sigh, using a designated cloth to wipe away the sweat on her brow. She stayed where she was, though, still staring down at her patient, fully healed.

I carefully set down the scalpel on a nearby metal tray, a slight smile tugging at the edges of my lips. "You've worked a miracle again, Alice," I said quietly, shifting closer to her. "I didn't think this man would–-"

Alice raised a hand, distancing me. She didn't turn to look at me, her lips still pursed and her brow furrowed as she stared down at the patient she had just saved.

I frowned, confused. I looked back at the mage, noting how his breathing was finally starting to even out from its earlier, tearing inhales. He was better, certainly, so why was Alice quieting me?

The answer came soon enough. The man's breathing was slowing, yes. But it continued to slow. More and more, almost at too fast a rate. I stood still, some part of me still not understanding, as the man I thought Alice had saved gradually died, his breaths leaving him.

And my wife didn't move. Even as this person—laid out on a surgical table and underneath her care—slowly succumbed to something I didn't understand, Alice just... watched, her lips pursed and her focus unrelenting.

"What's wrong with him?" I asked quietly, feeling the weight of it all suppressing my usual optimism. That poisoned arrowhead hissed in the background, as if laughing as its victim slowly died. "His wounds are cleared. The poison is gone."

Alice slowly shook her head, her expression one of quiet determination and solemnity. It was something I had grown used to these past few weeks as I helped her with her work. "We've helped a lot of people so far, Rey, but... There are some whose fight isn't all in the cells and antibodies or whatever this otherworld knowledge Arthur brought the Academy is," she said. Her eyes traced over the victim's body slowly. "We can heal their body, but they still need to fight for it.

"They can't always fight it, Rey," she said, her hands clenching on her apron. "Sometimes, the flesh is strong, but there is nothing left to fuel it."

Alice's words made me think of Arthur. It made me think of my boy, who used himself as kindling to keep us all safe in a distant castle. I could see my boy here, dying of a wound he no longer had the strength to fight.