Arden Kole's Arc

Chapter 4 of 8

By morning the mark had crawled past Arden's wrist. It ran up her thumb in a dark, cold thread. When she tried to hold her scalpel, her first two fingers would not close all the way. She flexed them and felt them stiffen, slow as cooling wax. She sat in the sealed ward under the cold lights and stared at her own hand. If the mark reached her palm, she could not cut. She could not build her brother. The tissue on the table would rot before she could use it. "The debt eats the hand that owes it," a voice said. Savanna Noire stood at the ward door. Her spotted coat hung open. The black cat pressed against her red heel, its skin torn, its green eyes fixed on Arden's wrist. Arden's stomach dropped. She had trapped this woman with vines and run. Now the woman had walked into the one room Arden thought was sealed. "Take it back," Arden said fast. "Undo it. Now." "You pay first," Savanna said. "One kiss. Then your hand is yours again." She stepped closer. Her red lips parted. The cat crept along the floor. Arden's fingers throbbed. She had one plan left. Days ago she had begun a second body from the wanderer's spare tissue. A face like her own. Green eyes. Dark hair. She had stitched it while she still could bend her fingers. It lay under a sheet on the far table, warm and breathing. Arden pulled the sheet away. "Then kiss her," she said. "She's me. She'll pay." Savanna turned. The look-alike sat up, slow and blinking. The two Ardens shared one face. Savanna smiled and leaned to the copy. "Clever girl," she said. She pressed her red lips to the copy's mouth. The copy shuddered. A dark thread rose on its jaw, then spread down its throat. Savanna drank. On Arden's real hand the cold pulled back. The mark shrank, freeing her thumb, then her wrist. Her fingers loosened. She curled them into a fist and felt them obey. But Savanna did not stop. The copy slumped, gray now, the borrowed life draining out of it. Savanna straightened and wiped her mouth. Her cold eyes stayed gentle. "A body of your best tissue," she said. "Ruined. Spent to feed me." She stroked the cat. "You saved your hand. You burned your material." Arden looked at the dead copy. She had made it from the non-rotting flesh she needed for her brother. Now it was a husk. The debt was paid, but her supply was gone. Savanna walked out. The cat followed, tail high. Arden flexed her free fingers over the empty table and understood. She could cut again. She had nothing left to cut.