Casket of Souls

different, or you’d be as dead as they are,” the other woman growled. “This wound is deeper and bleeding badly. You’re lucky as Sakor that it wasn’t a few inches to the left, or it would have been in your guts.”
    Klia couldn’t help a shudder; gut wounds were some of the worst, and generally ended in a lingering, painful death. But perhaps the poison— It was becoming difficult to form coherent thoughts.
    The last thing she heard was Aden the drysian shouting for hot water. Coldness crept over her, but she could feel Myrhini’s hand warm and sure around hers.
    Klia came around in daylight, sick, achy, and very surprised to be alive. Myrhini was still beside her cot, watching her intently.
    “How long?” Klia tried to ask, but her throat felt swollen and her mouth tasted bitter. Her head was splitting. “Water—”
    “Aden left this for you.”
    Myrhini held Klia’s head up and helped her sip from a cup. The infusion smelled of herbs and minerals, and tasted mildly sweet. She managed a few sips, then gagged it up again.
    “You have to keep it down,” Myrhini told her calmly. “Aden did what he could with magic, but he said you need this to fight any remaining poison. It’s a good thing you bled the way you did, too. Apparently because most of the wounds were shallow, the bleeding washed out the poison, or at least the worst of it. The stab wound to your hip was the worst.”
    Klia flexed her leg and grimaced. “He didn’t have to cut anything out or off, did he?”
    Myrhini chuckled. “No. Here, have some more.”
    “Bilairy’s Balls,” Klia groaned, then doggedly accepted a few more sips. After a few moments of lying absolutely still with her eyes closed, the awful feeling in her stomach began to subside, though her head hurt so bad she was seeingflashing lights behind her eyes. “How did they get past the guards?”
    “And me?” Myrhini sighed. “They killed the guards, then opened the seam at the back of your room with some kind of acid.
    “No sound. Who was on guard?”
    “Two of Danos’s people: Saura and Melkian. I have Captain Beka and her Urghazi on guard around your tent now. Klia, I’m so sorry—”
    Klia waved aside the apology. “Not your fault. The killers knew what they were doing. What do we know about them?”
    “Just that they were soldiers, and must have been specially tasked with your assassination once they escaped from the battle yesterday. They wouldn’t have been carrying poison and acid by chance. Who was giving the orders is a mystery. The survivors of the battle must have regrouped and chosen a leader. I doubt there are enough of them to stage a major attack, but I have the perimeter under full guard.”
    “Well done. I suppose I’d better get a report off to Phoria. You’ll have to write it for me, though. I can’t see straight yet.”
    Myrhini brought Aden’s cup to her lips again. “Drink.”
    Klia drank and the pain and nausea retreated a bit more, enough for her to send Myrhini to her clothes chest for the leather bag containing the small painted wands Thero had supplied her with before she’d left Rhíminee in the spring.
    “I’ll leave you to it, then,” her friend said, and went out to the map room to compose the report.
    Klia pressed the wand to her lips, then broke it, releasing the message sphere spell infused into it. A blue point of light hovered over one broken end. “Thero, I must speak with you,” she said softly, then touched the sphere and sent it speeding off to the south. It was the nature of the simple but powerful spell to find the recipient, wherever he or she happened to be.
    A tingle of magic woke Thero. A message sphere was floating over his face; there was only one person he’d givenany message sticks to recently. Heart tripping a beat, he touched it and heard Klia’s whispered message.
    He threw a robe on over his nightshirt and went to the wardrobe, where he pushed aside the neatly hung robes and took a small marble box from a shelf at the back. It was a solid piece of stone until he spoke the command word and the seam under the lid appeared. Removing it, he took out a fine linen handkerchief spotted with dried blood—her blood. Klia had pricked her finger with a dagger and made the talisman for him in Aurënen, when he was recalled to Skala before she was. Blood magic was frowned upon at best by the Orëska, but it was part of the heritage passed down to him through Nysander. With this he could do a