The King: T'Challa.

Chapter 17: Limits.

The ship hummed softly as it cut through the skies towards Wakanda, but inside the infirmary the air was heavy, thick with unease. Ross lay stretched out on the medical table, his body rigid, as Emily worked over him with quiet precision.

Through the steel door, voices carried from the adjoining chamber. Even when she tried to tune them out, they pressed in like waves against her concentration.

"Our mission was to bring back Klaue," Okoye's voice cut clear, unyielding. "We failed."

"That man is a foreign intelligence operative," she continued, her tone hard, sceptical. "How do we justify bringing him into our borders?"

Nakia's reply was immediate, heated. "He took a bullet for me."

"That was his choice."

Their debate rose and fell in sharp cadences, but Emily forced herself to focus on the broken man before her. Ross's chest rose and fell shallowly; the bullet lodged in his back had torn through muscle and kissed the spine. Without her intervention, the damage would have been permanent.

She slipped the Kimoyo Bead free from the wound and clicked it back onto her bracelet, her fingers steady despite the fatigue creeping into her bones. With her left hand, she coaxed the bullet loose, drawing it out slowly, while her right hovered just above the torn flesh, a faint ripple of energy weaving through the air between skin and palm.

The smell of blood clung stubbornly to the room. She pressed on.

For nearly two hours she worked—mending the lattice of the spinal cord strand by fragile strand, coaxing tissue back together, willing muscle to knit where it had been shredded apart. By the end of it Ross would walk again, but the toll it took on her was merciless. Sweat slicked her temples, her limbs trembled from the drain.

Minor injuries she could handle without strain; this was something else entirely, the kind of wound that demanded everything she had. Still, she kept going, lips pressed into a thin line of determination. The voices outside had finally fallen away, leaving only the hum of the ship and the rasp of her own breath.

She closed her eyes, hands poised millimetres above the wound, drawing deeper into the well of her ability. But the moment she pushed herself further, the world spun violently. Her vision blurred, her breath hitched, and before she could catch herself she collapsed, hitting the cold floor with a dull thud

***

When consciousness returned, it came in fragments. Emily blinked against the sharp glare of the infirmary lights, the brilliance burning white shapes into her vision until she was forced to squeeze her eyes shut again. Only when the dancing dots had faded did she risk reopening them.

T'Challa sat across from her, composed yet watchful, his gaze steady. With the quiet precision of a physician, he lifted a small light and gently pressed his thumb above her eyelid, widening her eye as he shone the beam across her pupil. He repeated the action with the other before setting the light aside, offering her a glass of water in silence.

"How are you feeling?" he asked at last, his tone level but laced with concern.

Emily met his gaze and offered a small nod. "I'm fine."

T'Challa leaned back in the chair, arms folding across his chest, one eyebrow arched in disbelief. She rolled her eyes at him, deflecting.

"T', I'm fine. Honestly. Would I lie to you?"

"About most things? No," he said evenly, though the faintest curve tugged at his mouth. Then he raised a finger, wagging it once in quiet emphasis. "But about your health? Always."