Scarlett Meris's Arc

Chapter 2 of 15

Scarlett ran until the hunters' voices thinned to nothing. The pup lay slack against her chest, wrapped in her cloak. Blood soaked through the wool and painted her forearm dark. She could feel the small ribs working too fast, then too slow. The petals she had packed into the wound were losing their grip. She needed a healer, and she needed one before the next mile. She cut west through the pines, toward a place most riders never saw. The healing house sat in a fold of the hills, hidden behind a curtain of vines. Its stone walls curved like a sleeping dragon's back, and pale crystals lit the eaves. Scarlett had brought two wounded dragons here before. She had never brought one this small, or this close to dying. She kicked the door twice. It opened on a young human woman with copper hair braided down one shoulder and a leather satchel slung across her chest. Brynn Vael. The only human Scarlett trusted inside these walls — a city-raised healer who had chosen the fae side without ever saying so aloud. Brynn looked at the cloak. "On the table. Now." Scarlett laid the pup down. Brynn pulled the wool back with steady hands. She did not flinch at the black-edged blood or the ragged hole in the silver hide. She pressed two fingers under the pup's jaw, counted, and reached for her satchel. "You pulled the barb already," Brynn said. "With blooddress petals. It fought me." "It would." Brynn crushed a pale root between her palms and packed it into the wound. "Petals slow bleeding. They don't clean it. Whatever coated that barb is still in him." Scarlett's stomach dropped. "Poison?" "Something like it. Older." Brynn worked without looking up. "Hold his head." Scarlett cupped the small skull. The pup's eyes cracked open, blue and unfocused. Somewhere deeper in the house, a green dragon shifted on stone — Rivilin, the old one who slept here between hunts. His tail scraped the floor once, then stilled, as if he had heard the pup breathing and decided to stay awake. Brynn wound a fresh vine tight across the ribs. She pressed her ear to the pup's chest, waited, and sat back. "He'll live," she said. "Tonight, at least. Three days before I know more." Scarlett let out a breath she had been holding since the clearing. She unclipped the belt pouch and set the barb on the table between them. It hummed against the wood. Brynn stared at the mark etched on the shaft — three lines crossed by a fourth. Her face went still in a way Scarlett had never seen. "Where did you get this." "Out of him." Brynn did not pick it up. "I've seen this mark before. On a crate. In the city." She met Scarlett's eyes. "It came off a ship flying a fae flag."