Indentured (Book 2 of the Dana Halliday series)

DELAYED KARMA. SHROOM TEA. EYES OF THE HEART.

Amputation hurts. It hurts a lot. I screamed. I couldn't help it. I hadn't had time to steel myself, but I doubt if I would have been able to hold it back in any case. Wys cut cleanly through the bone on the first blow, then had to slice through a bit of skin. I shrieked. My finger hit the floor—I heard the minute splat—and I felt warm blood stream down my hand and arm.

Emhallet let me slip to my knees when my legs started to buckle. He held my shoulders so I didn't just plunge and crack my head open. I looked down in horrified disbelief at my disembodied appendage, waves of hot and cold agony convulsing my body.

My little finger lay in a small pool of my blood. Sorry, buddy, I thought crazily. I need everyone else more. My finger looked almost accusing, tiny and dead with its short, rough nail. There was a scar on the top, just behind the nail; years before, I'd managed to stab myself with a scalpel while declawing a cat, a surgery I'd decided to stop performing shortly thereafter. 

Oh god, it's like the most epic delayed karma ever.

I went into a fit of dry-heaving for the second time that night, every retch tearing another cry of pain from me.

"Next time," Kez said, in an almost soothing tone, "I will take your entire hand. The Fenn would be able to help you function, I'm sure. Speaking of, take her to the Fenn, please. We need her to be able to work. It's the Week of Kolqor's Arrow, after all."

Their jangling laughter retreated into the hall, then it blessedly ceased. I heard a series of wheezing squeaks and only realized they were coming from me when I tried to speak. "Oh god. Oh god, oh god."

Emhallet knelt beside me again. He pulled a piece of blue cloth, like a handkerchief, from one of the pouches on his harness, and wrapped my hand in it. I cried out some more, then quieted.

"Can you take her to her dwelling?" Wys asked him, and the priest grunted assent. "I'll find the Fenn. Let me know if she requires more skilled attention than she can give. I could probably...well, just let me know."

"Fuck you," I rasped. "I'm not going to die from this wound."

* * *

Twenty minutes later, I was toying with the idea that death might be a nice change of pace. Don't get me wrong, I know there are much more serious and painful injuries than a li'l severed digit, but I wasn't able to muster any appreciation. Emhallet made as if to carry me, and I brushed him off, hauling myself up with the added strength of some heavy cursing.

I wavered on the way out the door, and consented to letting the Pemlo'hban steady me with a hand on my elbow as we walked back toward my cottage. Every step was an exercise in misery, although I kept myself from making more than a low groan. The sick pain of my missing finger radiated up my arm and into my chest, throbbing along with my heart. I was so lightheaded by the time we made it to my house that I almost stumbled past it.

Emhallet stopped me, and I sank to the still-warm sidewalk.

"This is yours, right?" he asked, and I mumbled something yes-like.

"You didn't behave." Fid the Gardener's voice rattled out of the shadows at the side of the cottage. "You didn't beware. Has he sold you to the monsters yet?"

"Shut up, Fid," I muttered, though I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel a stab of foreboding at his words. Behave and beware I had not.

I roused myself enough to make it inside, then collapsed beside the psychedelic sofa. I leaned my head back on the cushions and went away for a while, trying to pass out and only making it as close as a stuporous fog. My hand simply hurt too much.