The Gembound: The Price of Keeping Chapter 114: Volume 4: Chapter 105 – The Contaminated

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Volume 4: Chapter 105 – The Contaminated They brought the first of Theodric’s remnants back before midday. Borin led the group through the palace gate himself. Dust streaked his armor. A thin cut ran along one cheek, already scabbed. He looked tired in the way people did when they had spent hours talking to frightened, half-mad soldiers in corners that still smelled like blood and old spellwork. The woman at his side staggered between two regulars. She had once been broad and strong, the kind of person who could carry two full grain sacks up a ladder without breaking stride. That strength sat wrong on her now. Her limbs did not quite agree with themselves. Patches of her skin glowed faintly sickly violet under the surface, like bruises lit from inside. Mara, Borin had called her. "Mara Stoneback," he said quietly as they crossed the courtyard. "Sergeant in the northern watch. Theodric took her first when he started experimenting. She volunteered. Thought she was guarding the city." Mara’s eyes darted, unfocused, until they landed on Harry’s shape. Her pupils contracted, then widened. "You killed him," she said. Her voice rasped like someone had used it too hard. "The Crown Mage. I felt it. Felt something tear loose." "It was Sam," Harry said. “But we look alike, I’m the one who ate his gem shard, though.” Mara sucked in a breath. "Good." Then her knees buckled. Harry caught her before she hit the stone, claws gentle on her shoulders. He could feel it under her skin. The same wrong note that had run through Theodric, but thinner, scattered. The shard’s influence is leaking, no longer anchored by the cracked sliver that had sat in the Crown Mage’s chest. He set her down carefully on a blanket in the shade. "Four more like her," Borin said. "Two coming in by stretcher from the river quarter. One being carried by wolves. One who walked on his own, but only barely." Cedric and Alys ushered the others into the courtyard as he spoke. A man whose right arm was half translucent, muscles phasing in and out of solidity. A woman whose shadow lagged three breaths behind her. A boy too young, face gaunt, veins in his neck glowing an unhealthy violet. A soldier whose chest rose and fell in sharp, stuttering gasps as if he could not remember how to breathe unless he concentrated. Harry looked at them and felt something inside his new patterns twist. He closed his eyes for a heartbeat. "This is what he would have been," he said quietly. Yara looked up. "What?" "If he had survived longer," Harry said. "If the shard had kept eating at him. If you had not killed him. This is what his work would have made of all of them." The Gem snorted. He lacked patience , it said. He rushed. Rushing makes ugly things that do not last. You can do better. You can make weapons that do not fall apart in your hands. For once, Yara actually repeated what the Gem said... mostly. Harry set his jaw. "One at a time," he said. They started with Mara. "Anchor," Yara said, kneeling beside her. Mara’s eyes fluttered. "Anchor?" "Something that is you," Yara said. "Something to bind the work to. Theodric gave you power without purpose. We do not do that. You pick the purpose." Mara wheezed a laugh. "You sound like Borin, arguing with the grain merchants." Borin snorted softly behind them. "Trade is binding. So is war." Mara reached for her belt. Her fingers trembled. Cedric helped, untying the leather pouch there and spilling its contents onto a folded bit of cloth. A ring of iron, unadorned, rubbed smooth. "My wedding ring," she said. "He died three winters ago. I kept it anyway." Yara picked it up. The Sapphire in her chest cooled. Grief. Commitment. Promises made and kept and broken and kept anyway. Enough , the Gem said, unexpectedly soft. There is more strength in that than in any royal circlet. Yara nodded. Harry set his hands on Mara’s shoulders. Yara laid her palm against the ring in her other hand and then pressed it to Mara’s sternum. Green-gold and violet light col