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The lieutenant was dying.
Nora could see it in the way his veins were turning black, spreading up from the gash in his side like ink in water. The wound wasn't deep. Shouldn't have been lethal. But the edges were glowing faint purple, and the smell coming off it was wrong. Sweet. Rotting.
Magic. Had to be.
"He has maybe ten minutes." She said it flat, looking up at Kael. "Less if that thing hits his heart."
Kael didn't move. He stood on the other side of the cot, arms crossed, face carved from stone. Two guards flanked the door behind him. The room was small, stone walls, single oil lamp. Smelled like blood and old smoke.
"You know what it is." Not a question. His voice was low, dangerous.
"I know an infection when I see one." Nora kept her hands visible, didn't reach for her kit yet. The mark on her wrist was still burning. Seventy-one hours, fifty-three minutes. The countdown pulsed under her skin like a second heartbeat. "I don't know what kind of magic this is. But I know how to cut it out."
"Cut it out." Kael's jaw tightened. "You're not a mage."
"No. I'm a medic." She met his eyes. "And if you want him to live, you let me work. Right now."
The lieutenant convulsed. His back arched off the cot, breath coming in short, wet gasps. The black veins crawled higher. One of them reached his collarbone.
Kael moved.
He crossed the room in two strides, grabbed the lieutenant's shoulders, and pinned him down. The man screamed. Kael didn't flinch.
"Do it," he said.
Nora grabbed her kit.
Her hands moved on autopilot. Scalpel. Forceps. Gauze. She didn't have anesthetic. Didn't have antibiotics that would work on magic. Didn't have a damn clue what she was doing.
But she'd seen wounds close when she touched them. She'd felt something move through her fingers, something warm and foreign and hers.
She was betting it could cut both ways.
"Hold him still." She didn't wait for confirmation. Just pressed the scalpel to the edge of the wound and cut.
The lieutenant screamed again. Blood welled up, dark red mixed with something purple and viscous. Nora didn't stop. She widened the incision, peeled back the skin, and there—
A thread.
Thin as a hair, glowing faint violet, burrowed into the muscle tissue like a parasite.
"What the hell is that?" One of the guards took a step forward.
"Shut up." Kael's voice cracked like a whip. His hands didn't move. The lieutenant was shaking under his grip, eyes rolled back.
Nora grabbed the forceps. Her fingers were slick with blood. She could feel her pulse in her throat, in her wrists, in the mark that wouldn't stop burning.
She clamped down on the thread.
It moved.
The thing writhed in the forceps like a living wire, and the lieutenant's scream turned into something inhuman. Nora pulled. The thread resisted, hooked into muscle, into bone. She pulled harder.
"Chen." Kael's voice was tight. "If you're going to do something, do it now."
She closed her eyes.
That warmth was still there, under her skin, in her chest. She didn't know how to call it. Didn't know if it would come.
But she thought of the soldier in the first loop, the one whose throat she'd sealed without knowing how. She thought of her hands glowing gold.
She thought, *Please.*
Heat flooded down her arm.
It poured into the forceps, into the thread, and the thing *shrieked*. Not a sound. A feeling. Like nails on glass inside her skull. The thread burned, violet flaring to white, and then it crumbled. Turned to ash in her grip.
The lieutenant went limp.
Nora dropped the forceps. Her hands were shaking. The room was too bright, too loud. She could hear Kael breathing, could hear the guards shifting, could hear her own blood rushing in her ears.
"Is he—" One of the guards started.
"Alive." Nora pressed gauze to the wound. The bleeding was slowing. The black veins were fading, retreating back toward the incision. "He's alive."
Kael let go of the lieutenant's shoulders. Slowly. His eyes stayed on Nora.
"What did you just do?"
She didn't answer. Couldn't. Her wrist was on fire. She looked down.
The mark had changed.
The countdown was still there. Seventy-one hours, forty-nine minutes. But below it, a new line had appeared. Glowing faint gold.
*Anchor Protocol: Active. Binding Integrity: 12%.*
"What the hell does that mean?" she whispered.
Kael grabbed her wrist.
His grip was iron. He pulled her hand up between them, stared at the mark like it had just insulted his bloodline.
"Where did you get this?"
"I don't know." Her voice came out too fast. "It showed up after I woke up the second time. I don't know what it is. I don't know what it does. I don't know anything."
"You're lying."
"I'm not." She yanked her wrist back. He didn't let go. "I told you. I don't belong here. I don't know your magic. I don't know your war. I'm just trying not to die."
Kael's eyes narrowed. He was close. Too close. She could feel the heat coming off him, could see the faint scar along his jaw, the way his pupils had gone sharp and cold.
"You knew where the infected were," he said quietly. "You knew how to kill the thread. You have a Fate Binding on your wrist that shouldn't exist."
"I saved your man."
"You did." His grip tightened. "And that's the only reason you're still breathing."
Behind them, the lieutenant stirred.
He sucked in a breath, harsh and rattling, and his eyes opened. Bloodshot. Unfocused. He blinked once, twice, and his gaze landed on Nora.
His lips moved.
"Nora."
The room went silent.
Nora's stomach dropped.
She'd never told him her name.
She'd never told anyone her name.
Kael's hand went to the blade at his hip.
"Explain," he said softly. "Right now."
The lieutenant's eyes rolled back. He slumped into the cot, unconscious again. Still breathing. Still alive.
But he'd said her name.
Nora looked at Kael. At the blade half-drawn from its sheath. At the guards moving closer.
She opened her mouth.
The door exploded inward.
Wood splintered. Stone cracked. A shockwave slammed through the room and Nora hit the floor, ears ringing, vision white.
When it cleared, there was a woman standing in the doorway.
Tall. Dark coat. Silver braid. A sword in one hand, glowing blue along the edge.
She looked at Kael. Then at Nora.
Then she smiled.
"Found you," she said.
And the ceiling came down.