“Kalanthia? Kalanthia!” I cry, pushing myself to my feet and hurrying over to her. “Kalanthia, can you hear me?” She doesn’t respond to my voice. I hesitate for a moment and then dare to reach out and touch her. Please don’t lash out at me, please don’t lash out at me, I chant mentally hoping that if she’s aware enough to know that I’m nearby, that she realises who I am.

  I rest my hand on her head, worry going through me as she doesn’t even twitch. I stroke her fur, at first gently, and then more firmly. She doesn’t respond.

  Leaning forwards, I pull at her eyelid, tugging it upwards. She gives a slight rumble in protest, but the sound is concerningly weak and she does little more than twitch, not even enough to pull her eyelid out of my grasp.

  “Damn!” I swear. I try to push Flesh-Shaping into her body, but as I was expecting, it’s like trying to swim through half-set concrete – her resistance to the magic of others is impressive. Normally that’s a good thing, but in this case, it’s limiting my options.

  Pulling one of my strongest healing potions out from my Inventory, I open it and tip it into the side of her mouth. Pushing with my legs, I lift the nunda’s large and horribly heavy head – fortunately, my Strength is just enough to lift it to chest height. Hopefully that will be enough of an angle to get the healing potion down her.

  Lowering her head back to the ground, I watch her anxiously, once more lifting her eyelid. No reaction – not even a rumble of protest. Moving around her head, I press into where I should be able to feel her pulse, fumbling a little before I am able to detect it. It’s slower than it should be; worryingly weaker too. And I don’t think it’s my imagination that it’s getting increasingly weak.

  Not knowing what the poison is, I don’t dare give her any sort of antidote. The healing potion is neutral enough that it doesn’t tend to cause interference with poisons in the same way that antidotes often do, but I can’t keep pouring healing potions down her throat as the ingredients within them can become toxic in the right concentrations. With Kalanthia already weak from the poison, I can’t risk her being hurt by healing potion toxicity.

  I swear again, not daring to even look at Lathani – I can already feel how fearful she is; I don’t want to see it too. Why didn’t I bring Healer with me? I know that I didn’t think I’d need another healer when I was present, and that I thought she’d be needed more in the main part of the battle, but it seems like such an oversight now.

  I bite at my lip as I realise that with Kalanthia as unresponsive as she is and her lack of response to the healing potion, there’s only really one option – and something that is just as likely to damage our relationship as save her.

  While concentrating on the orb I’ve revealed by lifting her eyelid, my nervousness makes me vocalise something that hasn’t needed vocalisations since I reached Master in the Skill.

  “Dominate.”

  This is the second time I’ve entered this space with Kalanthia at the other end which means that I can immediately observe the differences made by her current state. Last time, it was a tidal wave which threatened to rip me away with every second that passed even when I was holding onto the integrity of this space with all the concentration I possessed. Now, it has reduced to a torrent. It’s still powerful enough to throw me out of this space if I’m not careful, but it’s the difference between wading through a strong river that’s up to my knees instead of up to my neck. The challenge is achievable.

  Nonetheless, any time spent here is time that neither I nor Kalanthia has to waste. Even as I lean into the current and start pushing my way forward, I yell out to the vague nunda-shaped blur ahead of me.

  “Kalanthia! You’ve been poisoned! You’re unresponsive and I can’t get through your resistance to my magic. You’re not responding to the healing potion I tried to give you, either, and I don’t know enough about the poison to give you anything else. If you want me to heal you, we need a Bond in place – I can’t do it without that. If you can become aware enough even for a few seconds, we can agree on a Tame Bond. Otherwise….” I trail off, not wanting to say it.

  I’ve managed to make it close enough that Kalanthia’s physical appearance is becoming clear. Even here, she looks bad – not all that dissimilar to how Bastet did when we Bonded or how Lathani did when she was dying too. And that thought makes my heart clench in my chest. It aches even more when my eyes pick up the faintest hints of fading at Kalanthia’s edges which has nothing to do with my distance from her.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Still, I’m relieved that there’s still a comprehending gleam in her eyes – she’s aware of my presence, at least. Crossing my fingers, I start repeating my words again, hoping that she’s cognisant enough to be able to understand them.

  I…hear you…Markus Wolfe, Kalanthia’s voice tells me, sounding weak and thready in a way that I’ve never heard it. Even when she was suffering from the stamina-inhibitor, she didn’t sound this bad. But I…fear it is…already…too late.

  “I refuse to accept that!” I refute her words firmly. “You’re alive – everything else just needs a bit of magic.”

  The poison…has attacked…my heart. I felt…it pain me more…with every movement…I made. It is too much…to overcome…even for…you.

  “I’ll decide that for myself, thanks,” I reply feeling almost angry that she seems to be giving up. And how the hell did the poison eat through her massive health pool anyway?! “Lathani still needs her mother; your tale is not yet done, Kalanthia! Will you accept my Bond? I promise to release it as soon as the healing is done.” Given how weak she is, I don’t think that Tame is a possibility, for all that I suspect Kalanthia would be more willing to go for that.

  For her sake, and Lathani’s, and Bastet’s, and all of those who have come to appreciate Kalanthia’s presence – including me – I hope that she is willing to take a chance, to trust me.

  For a moment, despite the fact that she seems to be on the verge of death, Kalanthia hesitates. Is a Dominate Bond with me worse than death? I know that it’s unfair of me to think about it like that – I don’t know everything, but I know that Kalanthia has suffered at the hands of other Tamers. Is it really that surprising that she might prefer a clean death over the potential of having her will suborned and her body puppeteered by someone else’s command?

  I feel Kalanthia’s decision before she speaks again – the torrent reduces to a mere trickle. I stride forwards, reaching for her forehead even as she speaks.

  I…trust…you. Those are the last words I hear before the Bond snaps into place and the space fractures around us.

  It’s the first time I’ve Bound a Tier three with Dominate without any prior Bond – the temporary Tame Bond we had in place months ago doesn’t seem to count. I feel an immense rush of power go through me but I ignore it – I have a promise to fulfil.

  Pushing my mana into Kalanthia’s body this time is as easy as moving it around my own. Kalanthia had said that the poison attacked her heart, so I go there straight away.

  What I find is horrifying. No wonder Kalanthia’s heart was hurting her; the poison is rotting it. Worse, it seems that now more than half the muscle in her heart has been compromised and it’s stopped beating, the rot is spreading through her veins to everywhere else in her body. Her lungs are already under assault, though it’s only the beginning of that at present.

  Pour a healing potion down her throat, I order my Bound, not caring who does it. In the meantime, I start gathering the tainted blood and directing it out of a cut I make in her chest – her heart is important, but if that blood makes it to her brain, that will be it for her. At least with my magic, I can keep her brain oxygenated for the time it takes me to deal with the heart-rot going on.

  The rotting isn’t easy to heal – trying to do so leads to fragments of it entering the blood system properly. It’s only because her heart isn’t beating that the fragments are not propelled through her body. I can’t heal the rot – it’s now dead flesh which can never be returned to the original. But, with Flesh-Shaping, I can control it.

  That revelation gives me my strategy. I rip the rot away from the walls of the arteries and send it out through a cut in Kalanthia’s chest which I make and hold open. When the wave of healing magic comes through from the healing potion, I grab it and set it to work healing the arteries I’m scouring clear of the rot.

  Working backwards, it feels like an age until I actually reach Kalanthia’s heart. But she’s still alive – I can feel her faintly in the Bond I created. She’s clinging onto the Bond as much as its bindings are holding onto her. Most of her organs are suffering already from lack of blood flow, but they’re still alive. Her brain, the most important organ at the moment, is starting to starve from lack of nutrients, but it’s got the oxygen it needs, so the delicate cells there are holding on. I think that her Tier three constitution has a lot to do with it too – her cells in general are far more robust than I’m used to dealing with in my more vulnerable Bound, or myself.

  Finally, I’m able to work on the heart itself. Here, it’s more complicated than just ripping away the rot as the heart has become the rot. I have to practically surgically remove more than half of the heart’s muscles, replacing them cell by cell and sending the detritus out of the cut in Kalanthia’s chest.

  And then, it’s done. I can barely believe that I’ve succeeded in pretty much replacing the heart of a massive nunda, but the proof is in front of me – magically speaking. It takes a few moments to trigger the delicate balance of minerals which cause the heart to pump, but then it’s beating once more.

  I take a moment to scrutinise every inch of Kalanthia’s body, looking for any fragments of rot that I’ve missed. Then, slowly releasing the magic which has been keeping her brain oxygenated, and doing another round of healing to deal with the damage which has been caused by lack of blood flow, I pull my awareness out of her body.

  Kalanthia is alive, I know that. But whether she’s the same being that she was before all of this, I don’t know. I almost fear finding out.

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