Misha collapsed onto the sofa, nerves finally giving way to exhaustion. She had barely managed to get through her bath, freeing herself of the blood and pus-covered clothing she had been wearing, but she didn’t have the energy to even dry her hair. Perhaps as some sort of consequence of her calm and detached behavior during the treatment, her head felt too stuffed to allow any thoughts in.
Mom is amazing...
Although her mother had taken a bath right alongside her, she had left to check on Misha’s father again once she was clean.
Just a few more minutes...
Misha closed her eyes, letting herself go. But as exhausted as she was, the tension of the situation wouldn’t release its grip on her. Flashbacks of the treatment returned to her in a rush.
They had let the medical bath cool to body temperature and used it to clean the surface of the wound. That much had gone well. However, once her mother had started using something like a silver spoon to scoop out bits of pus, clotted blood, and old salves, her supposedly unconscious father had begun roaring and thrashing like a wild animal.
She had expected he wouldn’t be able to do much with the way he was tied down, but the way he twisted his body had been enough to knock their hands away as they worked. Considering the placement of the wound, they couldn’t tie him down by his torso, so some men had tried to hold him in place. Nevertheless, he’d continued to struggle, defying all expectations. Here was a man who was supposed to be on death’s door.
Scolding the men as they flinched backward, her mother had ended up climbing on top of her father’s back to hold him down as she dug into the wound. Using a small knife, she had continued the bloody work of cutting out the rotten flesh. Once bright red, exposed flesh was all that remained, she and Misha had applied more medicine and wrapped him in bandages. The whole process had taken well over an hour.
The ghastly scene had prompted more than half of the waiting nobles to take their leave. As apothecaries, Misha and her mother were just thankful that no one had vomited nearby.
The same old maid from before had led them to their own bath after the treatment. Judging by her pale complexion, she must have been outside the room listening to the screams the entire time.
It had been a brutal affair, but Misha’s father had endured it. His face was still pallid, he was still unconscious, but his heart was still beating. That was the first hurdle. Depending on how the wound developed from here, they might have to repeat the bloody, painful process yet again, but for now Misha chose not to consider that a possibility.
At long last, the memories gave her a reprieve, allowing her to drift asleep.
“Misha, wake up.”
Her mother’s soft voice brought Misha back to the world of the waking. Opening her bleary eyes, she was met with the pale yet still disapproving face of her mother staring back at her.
“You went to sleep without drying your hair, didn’t you? It’s a mess.”
Oh, she’s back to normal. Relieved, Misha slowly pushed herself up. Her body felt incredibly sluggish.
“There’s some tea here. Would you like some?”
Accepting the cup and its familiar aroma, she drank a mouthful. That cleared her head enough for the memories to start coming back.
“How’s dad?”
Her mother’s face clouded over. “No change yet. His body temperature isn’t going back to normal. He’s lost too much blood. At this rate, the wound won’t close even after being cleaned, and it’s impossible to say how much of his blood is contaminated.”
Her mother’s words brought Misha close to tears. If the wound didn’t close, they’d have to do the same thing all over again. And if he didn’t regain consciousness, they could do nothing but wait for him to die anyway.
“What do we do?” Misha turned pleading eyes on her mother.
“We still have one option,” she replied, uneasy.
“What is it?!” Misha all but shouted at that small sliver of hope.
Her mother, however, shook her head. “It’s a new treatment from my old home, but there’s so much about it I don’t know; I came here while it was still being developed. It’s very difficult—and dangerous.”
“Can’t you ask uncle?”
Her mother’s homeland was far away. Though the populace of this country assumed her mother’s people had cut all ties with her, she still had some contact. The “people of the Forest” did technically have their own country, but they prized curiosity and freedom above all. If they found something that caught their interest, national borders meant nothing to them. They’d go wherever the wind took them.
Misha’s uncle was one such sort, and he had secretly visited on a number of occasions. Though he only came once every few years, he always brought tons of gifts and interesting stories, so Misha loved him.
“It’s a secret technique that was never allowed to leave our home. It won’t be that easy to get them to teach it to me.”
“What kind of treatment is it?”
Since her mother said she was partway through learning it when she left, Misha figured she must’ve had some idea.
After a long silence, her mother finally answered, “The idea is that if someone doesn’t have enough blood, you need to give them more. But people can’t absorb blood through consuming it. So they decided to try inserting it directly into their body. I told you about the large pathways for blood, right? The ones that you must avoid harming at all costs?”
Misha nodded, stunned by the sudden explanation. Blood ran through pathways inside the body, some of which were larger than others. If you cut those, the bleeding would be impossible to stop and you would die. That was something her mother taught her when they were butchering animals they had caught in the forest.
“The idea is to insert a hollow needle into one of those paths, then send blood from a healthy person through it.”
“Then if we do the same thing for dad—!”
But her mother shook her head, hesitant. “One in three people who received the treatment died. When I left, they were still trying to figure out why.”
Testing that treatment would have been no easy task. The only places with so many people dying of blood loss were battlefields, but that was hardly the right environment for such a delicate operation, and they obviously couldn’t risk the lives of those in good health. There was no point in developing a treatment to save lives if it required killing people.
“But... But...”
“Even if they’ve found the reason, I don’t have time to find my brother and discuss it with him. It’s hard enough to get a hold of him with the way he travels the world. By the time I make it home and return here, your father will be long dead.”
Misha went silent. At some point tears had started dripping down her face.
Watching her daughter silently crying, Leyas finally sighed.
A man had been out journeying the world when he became injured, unable to move. Leyas was the one who had found and helped him. It took a month for his wounds to heal. That was all the time it took for her to build up the resolve to cut her ties with her homeland and throw away her future as a master apothecary. Even though they couldn’t always be together, she had been happy. Despite her father-in-law being right about how many would view her with pity, she had found bliss.
Would my brother call me stupid? Would he get angry?
She recalled the look on her brother’s face when she told him she was leaving with the man. He’d been worried she would regret throwing away everything she had worked for until that point.
“Even if you don’t follow the family rules like an idiot, there’s got to be a better way.” He’d laughed, drawing a laugh out of her as well.
“Unfortunately, I’m not quite as straightforward as you are.” And though he was still worried all the while, he bid goodbye to her with a smile. If he were to follow the rules of their people, that would be the last time they ever met.