Alone in the Dark

Limitations

Lyana stood at the door to her brother's room, leaning her forehead against the cool wood, eyes closed as she listened to his highly feverish yells and pleas coming from within. She could feel the sickness rolling off him in waves even through the door, as if he was expelling heat and cold in equal measure across the distance between them.

Like the merciless winter tides, each of his tremors hit her, leaving her sweating and shivering constantly because of their connection to one another. She had always been so confident in that connection, until it had failed to help her protect him from this.

Behind the door, Shiar was restrained as gently as possible to the bed and the room was darkened, as the light had begun hurting his eyes after the first day of being apart from that vile woman. For the first couple hours of the separation, he had been mostly calm, logical and himself, if a little too focused on just getting back to Emeltra.

And then, right around the time that she had been arrested, he started getting angry, yelling insults and trying to force his way out. His behaviour had accelerated in it's nonsensical fashion until he had to be pinned to the ground, then restrained to his bed as his body began to shake. Not long after that he started to get physically ill and as the hours turned to days, his mind fogged up and his body began wasting away from fever and lack of food.

She knew something was terribly wrong.

When he was sleeping, she could touch his clammy skin and would feel his body screaming in pain and starvation. Lyana could almost see the poison flowing through his veins but it was wrapped around every last bit of him, it was his blood and skin and bones like it had become a part of his very being. She didn't know what to do, nothing she tried helped, her powers useless when she needed them the most.

Lyana wanted to fall back on that thought of despair, convince herself that she wasn't built to deal with these things, that someone else had to step in and figure it out for her. She should take a step back and hope that someone else would save her brother. Give up, take the easy road of standing helplessly to the side, watching as her brother wasted away from the inside. She was helpless, she felt that in every ounce of her uncertainty, but something wouldn't let her give up.

Lyana kept forcing herself to remember how much she could do and how much she wanted to do something for her brother and those thoughts inevitably lead to her belief that maybe she was the only one who could help him. She just had to figure out how to do it.

But who was she? A younger sister of a nobleman, a woman who had studied healing haphazardly while being mainly concerned with the more traditional womanly arts. How was a lifetime learning to read poems, run a husband's household and play the piano gong to help save her brother's life. Who was she to think she could do something when there were healers, experienced men who had seen all sorts of illnesses and poisons, who were shaking their heads in uncertainty at what Shiar faced.

Everyone who had more training and experience than she did had already given up. Though they had not dared say it to her or the King, instead they murmured about letting him sweat out the fever and made token tinctures that did no good.

"You're going to make yourself sick, Lyana" Lady Wyn said softly, approaching down the hallway and placing a hand on Lyana's shoulder, frowning as she felt the shivers going through her body.

Lyana shook her head, looking to the other woman for a moment, then back to the door with a hopeless look of pain. "I'd trade places with him, if I could take it all into me, so he could be ok, I could trade places with him and then he'd be able to figure this all out, he'd be able to save me."

Wyn gave her a confused look. "Oh, Ly, you know it's not his place to figure this out, right? He's the one that needs us to help him, it's us that need to save him. You're the healer. You're exactly where you need to be."

"He's the strong one, the smart one. The one that's valuable to everything in this country. He needs to be the one standing and fighting." Lyana shook her head, looking at the door in dejection, tears starting to brim in her eyes.

"No." Wyn shook her head, her expression stubbornly firm. "Don't get me wrong, I would prefer to see him standing and healthy and I'm sure he's strong. But right now, right at this moment, the strong one is you. The smart one is you. We are all valuable as a unit, together; we are nothing scattered and alone. Stop waiting for him, or someone else to figure this out, Lyana. You're a strong, smart and capable woman. This is healing, this is you, this is what you were born to do. I have every confidence that you have it in you to bring your brother back to himself, back to all of us."

Lyana looked at the ground, shaking her head slowly as she tried to swallow those words. "I wish I thought that too, I just don't know what's needed of me."

Wyn said them with such conviction, such belief that Lyana was more than a silly, useless woman.

Wyn reached over and grabbed her hand, squeezing it gently to get her attention."Stop thinking about the big picture, and the totality of everything expected of you. Stop thinking about your limits, stop thinking about other people's failures. Take it one step at a time. He's sick, he's been poisoned. What do you need?"

She was silent for a very long time, breathing slowly, working through it in her head before she looked at the door, then to Wyn. "We need to keep his body from burning itself out or shutting down before it gets out of his system. We need to find an antidote. I need to talk to her."

Wyn offered her an easy smile, her expression strong, though it conveyed support more than any sort of happiness. "Alright. That's what your plan is right now."

"It would be helpful if I could read her, I think." Lyana said idly, finding her hands clenched into fists, and anger rising into her cheeks as she thought of the creature who had endangered her brother.

Wyn paused, before offering a shrug, "Let's try talking first, hmm?"

Lyana nodded, though they both shared a glance. Emeltra had not been cooperative thus far, and acted for all the world as if they would have no choice but to do what she wanted from them. Lyana did not doubt for a moment that the woman would let Shiar die in order to get what she wanted, whatever that was.

The thought was enough to make Lyana want to deck the woman, and she may have if Emeltra was standing there in front of her. With a bemused smile, Wyn reached down once more and squeezed Lyana's hand. It was either in solidarity or to distract her again but either way, they had work to do.