Chapter 5: Evidence in the Blood

Chapter 5: Evidence in the Blood

Silas slept for perhaps an hour at a time.

Whenever he woke, he changed his mind about the physician. He would show her the supplements. Then he would hide them and say he had overtrained. At some point after midnight, he settled on giving truthful answers to whatever she could independently discover.

He kept rehearsing answers until he forgot which question he had started with.

Before dawn, he gave up on sleep and tried Boundary Ward again. The mana line stretched halfway between the two marks, thinned, and snapped. Silas spent the next several minutes on the rug with his arm over his eyes.

After that, he left the chalk alone.

At half past eight, Talia arrived with the physician.

"This is Physician Kerr," Talia said. "May she come in?"

Silas moved aside. "I said she could yesterday."

"I still have to ask," Talia replied.

Talia looked past him at the room, perhaps checking that he was still capable of standing. "I’ll be nearby if either of you needs me."

She left once Kerr entered.

The physician was a broad woman in her fifties with iron-gray hair and a heavy medical case. She set the case on the desk.

"The bed will do," Kerr said. "You can sit for the first part."

Silas lowered himself onto it while her appraisal opened.

[Guest: Aline Kerr. Human, 54.]

[Combat Rank: Rank Three — Early.]

[Soul Talent: Diagnostic Sight — B / Uncommon.]

[Temporary Talent Slot occupied — Boundary Ward. Recording unavailable.]

Silas looked at Diagnostic Sight, then at the remaining six days on Boundary Ward.

Of course.

"Shirt off," Kerr said. "Stay seated while you do it."

She asked when the fatigue had begun, whether he had suffered fever or vomiting, what he had eaten, and how often he trained. Silas answered without volunteering anything about the room or the death that had occurred in it. The body’s symptoms had existed for months. They had worsened during the previous week. He had assumed overtraining was responsible.

Kerr wrote down every answer without arguing.

She checked his temperature and pulse, then pressed a cold mana instrument against his sternum. A needle trembled across its face. Kerr moved the instrument lower and watched it again.

"Light the channel in your right arm," she said.

Silas circulated mana. The channel answered weakly and failed near his elbow.

Kerr tested the other arm before examining the flow around his Core. When she pressed beneath his ribs, pain drove the air out of him.

Kerr took her hand away. "There?"

Silas nodded, waiting for the pain to ease.

"I need to check the flow once more," she said. "Use less mana. Tell me when it starts hurting; you don’t have to finish the circulation."

"You could have mentioned that," Silas said.

"I didn’t expect that much pain at this level. We’ll use less." Kerr waited. "Ready?"

He took another breath and tried again.

The blood sample came next. Kerr filled a narrow tube from the inside of his elbow, sealed it, and wrote his academy number on the label. Then she held one hand over his abdomen. A faint pulse of mana passed through his body.

Her Talent was quiet. Silas could not see what she saw, but she repeated the scan three times.

"How long have you had the metallic taste?" she asked.

Silas looked at her. He had not mentioned it.

"I don’t know. Months, probably."

Kerr pulled the stool closer and sat facing him. "Your Core is stable. Your mana channels aren’t. There is scarring along the lower channels, and your liver, kidneys, and digestive tract have been under strain for some time."

"From training?" Silas asked.

"The damage predates this week."

"How long are we talking about?"

"Several months." Kerr picked up the mana instrument and turned its display toward him. Irregular bands crossed the reading. "The damage accumulated in layers. Whatever caused it entered your body repeatedly, with gaps between exposures."

Silas studied the bands without understanding them.

"Can you identify it?" he asked.

"Not with what remains in your body. Most of the residue has broken down, and part of it resembles ordinary waste material. The academy laboratory may find more in your blood."

"Could I have caused this myself?"

Kerr shook her head. "Overtraining can damage channels and destabilize a Core. It doesn’t produce this pattern. One contaminated meal wouldn’t produce it either."

Silas looked toward the storage alcove.

Kerr watched him look toward the alcove. "Is there something you’ve been taking regularly? Even if you don’t consider it medicine."

He rubbed his thumb over his sleeve. She had already found the damage. If he lied about what he had been taking, she might prescribe something that made it worse.

Ask about the family first.

"Mana supplements," he said. "One every morning."

"Prescribed by whom?" Kerr asked.

"They came from House Rooke."

"Do you still have them?"

"If I show you, does that mean contacting my father?" Silas asked.

"Let me see what they are first. I won’t send a letter while we’re sitting here."

Silas got up and went to the storage alcove. He moved the two boxes, dragged out the travel trunk, and opened it. Kerr stayed where she was while he removed the winter clothing and lecture notes.

The sealed case held thirty vials. He carried it to the desk, then returned for the empty vial wrapped inside the sock.

Kerr examined the house seal first. "When did the new case arrive?"

"Four days after I stopped taking them."

"And this one?" She held up the empty vial.

"From the previous supply."

He did not tell her that it had been lying beside him when he woke in this body. Kerr watched him for a moment, then placed it beside the new case.

"You’ve seen them," Silas said. "Now tell me whether House Rooke gets a letter."

"Medical findings remain confidential unless you’re a danger to other people, the academy board issues an order, or you authorize contact," Kerr said. "None of those conditions currently applies. The samples will go to our laboratory. If the reporting requirements change, I’ll tell you."

"Put the restriction on the file," Silas said. "No family contact without telling me."

Kerr wrote it down and turned the page toward him. "There. I’ll take one unopened vial and the empty one for comparison."

Silas gave them to her. Twenty-nine sealed vials remained in the case.

Kerr placed three medicine bottles on the desk. "This is a detox course. Take the first and second bottles with food, morning and evening. The third is for nausea. The treatment may make you feel worse for several days."

"Worse than this?" Silas asked.

"You may feel sicker while the treatment takes effect. That doesn’t mean the damage is increasing." Kerr separated the nausea medicine from the other bottles. "I’ll leave the instructions. Read the section on when to call us before you take the first dose."

Silas pulled the paper closer. "And how long before I can cross a room properly?"

"We’ll judge that from how you respond. I can’t promise you a date today."

"You also need proper meals and sleep," Kerr continued. "No strenuous training. I am filing a seven-day exemption from physical practicals and supervised combat."

"What about the baseline assessment?"

"It is scheduled for the morning after your exemption expires. If you haven’t improved enough, I will reassess you and decide whether to extend it. You will not make that decision yourself."

Seven days inside the room. It was more time than Silas had expected.

"Understood," he said.

Kerr went to the door and called Talia back.

The prefect entered, saw the open trunk in the alcove, and then noticed the supplement case on the desk.

"That was in your luggage," she said.

"Yes."

"You could have mentioned the supplements."

"I was answering questions about prohibited equipment," Silas said.

Talia turned to Kerr. "Do they need to be removed?"

Kerr touched the case. "The remaining twenty-nine vials are medical evidence. I need them secured here until the laboratory decides whether to collect the entire supply."

Talia set her slate aside and took a stick of blue-gray chalk from her pocket. "Where do you want it kept?"

They chose the lower shelf of the storage cabinet. Talia studied the cabinet before drawing anything. She opened and closed the door once, checked the shelf bracket, and then placed three ward marks: one on the case lid, one beneath it, and one on the inside of the cabinet door.

Silas felt each mark through Territorial Awareness.

Talia rested two fingers on the first and fed mana through it. The mana line reached the mark beneath the case, then continued to the cabinet door. Its flow changed slightly around the metal bracket. Silas had not accounted for solid obstructions in any of his own attempts.

The three lines joined. Talia opened the cabinet door partway; the line leading to its mark lengthened without breaking. She adjusted it, tried the door again, and left a faint pressure around the case.

"If the case is opened or moved, the boundary will break and record the interference," Talia said. "Opening the cabinet is fine. Touching the case isn’t."

"I won’t touch it."

Talia picked up her slate. She looked once at the trunk, but asked nothing else.

Kerr scheduled a follow-up, took the samples, and left with her. Silas locked the door behind them.

For several minutes, he remained beside the cabinet. The ward made the case clearer to his awareness than anything else in the room. He could feel where the mana gathered, where it thinned, and how the marked door completed the warning function.

He closed the cabinet and sat on the bed with the detox instructions. Kerr had underlined the doses. He read them twice, then ordered a meal so he could take the first one.

His hand shook while he measured it. After a week of refusing to swallow anything from home, he disliked the sight of another bottle more than he wanted to admit.

She examined me. She knows what she’s doing.

He left the dose beside his plate until the food arrived.