Soul of Ice

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Astra gasped and pushed herself up before the ropes pulled her back down. She heaved, and barely turned her head before her breakfast came back up. Gods, she hated throwing up. Gods, gods, what had Helleva shown her?

"Give her some space," someone ordered.

Astra gulped down breath after breath and then moved her fingers one by one, counting them as she went before straining upward to look at them. Her fingers were a bit crooked perhaps, but definitely not broken. Not mangled. The sight of Tybalt's broken hands flashed across her memory. She cringed.

"I told you she would live," someone said snidely.

Slowly, the room came into focus. She was still in the physician's room. Her eyes darted around the room, finally spotting the man himself, along with Pascal and the four guards, huddled against the wall near the door.

"How are you doing?" the physician asked. He came closer, hands reaching out... to touch her, she realized.

"Don't touch me," she snapped, pressing herself into the chair, away from his hands. They were pale, wrinkled, and a bit stubby, nothing like the tanned, smooth hands of the Ice Queen, but all Astra could see were her hands reaching for her fingers. Her wrist. Her arm.

Snap. Crackle. Then her screams. No, Tybalt's screams. Just a dream. A nightmare. A memory from the spirit world. Just a memory. She breathed again, "Don't touch me."

She wasn't sure what she would've done if he'd touched her, but thankfully the physician drew his hands away. He asked, "How do you feel?"

Astra didn't answer. The horrible feeling of unnatural magic pulsing against her was back, and she struggled in vain against the bonds to see her arms.

"You didn't lose control this time," the physician continued, "which is a good sign that your body is no longer rejecting the zynthe. I think we'll be able to continue with a third injection soon. Perhaps in—"

A third injection, by the gods. "Why?" she rasped.

The physician paused. "What do you mean?"

"Why? What is the purpose of these experiments?" She scrutinized the stout doctor, his tiny spectacles over his large brown eyes. Then she looked at Pascal, his arms folded over his chest. The Captain of the Wraith Guard. Zynthe killed mortals; there was no exception. Unless... She asked, "Are you trying to find the perfect concentration of zynthe to use on wraiths?" Everyone knew wraiths weren't mortal. At least, not entirely. There was no agreed upon consensus on the origin of wraiths, that much had been clear when she'd idly flipped through that book on their history from the abandoned library. What could be agreed upon, however, was that the source of their power came from the Seam. The same source of the zynthe.

The physician chuckled. "I think you're a bit disoriented." He gestured toward the Captain. "Take her to her rooms."

To her surprise, Pascal didn't balk at the order. Instead, he nodded at the guards next to her. Astra didn't resist as they untied the bonds securing her before roughly pulling her up and pushing her ahead to walk.

As they moved outside the room, she brought up her arms to inspect them. Like she'd expected, the veins had darkened in color again. She pulled down her sleeves and tried to breathe. Phantom pain zipped along her limbs, like the Ice Queen was still breaking them.

It frustrated her that what little information she had gained was essentially useless or had no clear answers. The physician hadn't denied that he was trying to find the perfect zynthe concentration to use on wraiths. But if that was indeed what he was planning to use it on... why? The wraiths were weak; few inherited tangible, useful amounts of power, leaving most of the population susceptible to capture and easy to control. Why risk making the wraiths more powerful?