The Midnight Thief Continues

Poisoned Blade- From Tristam's POV

      Tristam groggily woke to a pounding on his door. He stumbled out of bed, rubbing his eyes. Who would visit at this hour? His other hand found the latch and he slid it back, pushing the wooden door open a crack and gazing into the corridor. He gasped and jerked back a step as his eyes adjusted to the light, revealing his young assassin prisoner standing in the hall.

What was she doing here? How had she escaped? Why would she come to him after escaping? Revenge before she left? All of this flashed through his mind in the space of a single moment. Then, studying her, Tristam noticed the blood dripping from a wound on Kyra's forearm. She seemed to waver a bit, unsteady on her feet.

"I need a healer... poisoned blade," the girl gasped out thinly. Poisoned blade? Had she been attacked? If so, it still didn't explain how she had gotten here. Tristam slipped his right arm through the doorway and touched her chin, tilting her face to see it better, well aware that, if this was a trick, she could probably kill him where he stood. Sweat dripped down her brow. Her eyes remained unfocused and hazy as she blinked a few times, seemingly in an attempt to clear them. Tristam lightly pressed the backs of his fingers to her feverishly hot cheek, and Kyra flinched away from his touch.

"You're right," he acknowledged, startled. He hurried to step back into his room, rushing to his chest of belongings, grabbing a tunic and throwing it over his head before striding back out into the hallway. "Can you walk?" he asked her. The disoriented girl nodded, though she looked wobbly. Tristam slipped his arm around her shoulders, supporting her as he guided her to the Healer's Quarters. His mind raced, all drowsiness gone. How could she have been attacked while under lock and key in Forge's most secure prison? And, more puzzling, how did she manage to get to his rooms in this condition?

"Who was it?" he queried, seeking to gain more information on the situation.

"A Red Shield."

That didn't add up. Why would a shieldman want her dead? An assassin in disguise perhaps? Or maybe this was a lie and she'd been injured fighting her way out of the prison. The thought gave him pause. 

He was brought back to the present as Kyra stumbled and fell forward. Tristam grabbed her shoulders to keep her from smashing to the planks. She certainly wasn't faking this. He looked her in the face again. She was a greenish pale, blue veins standing out clearly from under her skin, her eyes still unfocused, her teeth clattering together. They still had two more halls to navigate.

"This isn't working," he muttered, "You need  a healer now!" He swept Kyra's slight frame into his arms as one would carry a small child. She crumpled, limp against him as he sped up to a jog. "Do you know the poison?" He raced around a corner.

"Lizard Skin," she managed to say as she bounced against his chest.

"What's the antidote?" he asked. 

She didn't respond.

"Kyra?!"

"I don't..." she began. Tristam glanced down at his bundle. She was quickly deteriorating. He wasted no time as he lay her down on a sofa in the hall and rushed to pound on Ilona's door. The petite healer pulled the door open looking alarmed.

"I need your help!" Tristam gestured urgently toward Kyra where she lay on the sofa and seemed not to be breathing. "She's been poisoned. Lizard Skin, she said. Do you have the antidote?"

Ilona's eyes were wide, but her movements were steady. "Lizard Skin, Lizard Skin. Let me think, I just might..." Ilona trailed off as an intent expression came over her face and she rushed to knock on a door across the hall, beside Kyra's sofa. "Jerome, come help me!" she shouted, then ran back to her rooms. Tristam heard some shuffling and clattering from within before she emerged again, arms full of medical supplies. "Check her pulse," she ordered the somewhat stout, tussle-haired man who had emerged at her call. Tristam pulled him to the sofa where Kyra lay, gasping desperate, thin breaths.

The man, Jerome, put a hand to Kyra's neck, pressing on the artery with two fingers. Then Ilona darted back, thrusting a flask into Jerome's hands, and barking, "Give her this!" The healer then took a damp white cloth and began rubbing out the wound on Kyra's arm vigorously.

Jerome had poured the liquid into Kyra's mouth by now. She coughed and gurgled, but managed to swallow. Then her eyes slipped shut and her head fell back, limp, as she had been before. Tristam watched worriedly as Ilona and Jerome cleaned and bandaged Kyra's arm and force fed her another liquid. 

When Tristam asked what it was, Ilona explained, "It's Acynthia juice. It'll slow the poison and give the antidote time to work."

Only when he was certain Kyra wasn't in immediate danger did Tristam leave to find Malikel and debrief him on this alarming development. 

It appeared their prisons were not so secure as they'd thought them to be.