Chapter 17

The world was fuzzy, and Veda could hardly make it out at first. All she heard was… yelling. A lot of angry shouting.

"How could you? How could you make a mistake this massive?"

"It was exactly that—a mistake. And I have apologized for it. But there is nothing I can do. We must continue."

Veda had no idea who was talking. In fact, she wasn't even sure the talking was real. It could have been a dream. Her entire state of mind felt very dream-like.

"Must continue? What do you mean by that?"

"I mean we must go on. We have an expedition to finish. We can do nothing more for her. We must leave her behind."

"Leave her behind?" someone bellowed loudly. "She will die! She will die if we leave her!"

"She is going to die regardless," someone else said calmly, in a matter-of-fact tone. "We can do nothing for her now. The nearest antivenom is hours away, and she will not survive that trek anyway. So we may as well move forward so we can discover what is wrong with the healing sands."

"I do not care what is wrong with the healing sands, you idiot! I care what happens to Veda! And I will never leave her! Never!"

Finally, Veda began to make out that voice. It was Traze… Traze was yelling.

"Traze?" Veda tried to mutter, but her voice was muted. She didn't know why she couldn't vocalize louder. What had happened? Why was she so hazy? She couldn't remember a thing, and all she could see was pitch blackness.

She forced herself to open her eyes though it felt like the most difficult thing in the world to do. But when she did, the world came to her slowly with green grasses, a blue sky, and a dark, shadowy figure walking up to her…

"Traze?" she muttered again at the figure.

But it wasn't Traze. Veda's vision began to get clearer and she saw his lawe walking up to her. He licked her face softly, nuzzled her neck, and then whined.

The whine alerted Traze to Veda's awakened state.

"Veda! You're awakening?" He seemed surprised by this.

"Wh-what is happening? What is going on?" Veda asked.

"Veda, you were bitten by the shuraa. Its venom is taking over now… I know you likely don't understand much of what is going on around you."

She really didn't, but her heart raced a bit upon remembering what had happened.

"What does the venom do?" she asked, though she was scared to know.

But perhaps it wasn't as bad as she thought. Maybe it was just the kind of venom that disoriented its victim, caused a lot of pain, and then slowly, the victim began to recover. If so, Veda could cope with that. She could stick this out.

Traze looked at her sadly. "Veda… The shuraa is the most venomous animal on our planet. If we do not get you help, I'm afraid…" He trailed off, like he didn't want to say it.

But Veda pressed nervously. "You're afraid… what?"

"You will die, Veda."

Veda began to panic though she still couldn't move her body.

"No, no, Traze… I don't want to die… I don't want to die!" she whimpered.

This couldn't be how her life ended. She had so much left to do, so much still to live for. She had not accomplished her one and only life goal—to have a family, to be wholly loved by another person. She couldn't die never having been truly loved. Her heart was breaking in two as she panicked.

"There's gotta be something!" Veda's voice got a little louder, a bit stronger. "You have no antivenom?"

"We do," Traze admitted, "and we usually pack it in our emergency kit. But… somebody forgot to."

Veda watched as Traze looked behind him to Aldohr with anger in his eyes. So… this was all Aldohr's fault.

"But… but if I'm dying, why am I getting better?" Veda asked, as she began to feel clearer in her mind. "I was unconscious before, but now I'm awake. Why? Is this a mechanism of the venom? Does it take a long time?"

"No, it is usually very quick. But I carried you to the nearest healing sands."

Veda hadn't even noticed where she was until Traze said that. She looked down to find her legs in a very shallow healing pond.

"And the healing sands… are working on me?" Veda asked hopefully.

"Only barely. They are weak. If they were going to cure you of this venom, they would have done so by now."

Veda felt herself panicking again. "Okay… okay… so, just take me to the antivenom now, then. Since I'm getting better, we can do that. Right?"

Aldohr spoke up now. "She would never last hours. As soon as we take her out of the healing sands, she will begin deteriorating. And if we have someone bring the antivenom to us, she will not last that long, either. She is at her peak healing now. Soon she will begin to fade away."

Fade away? "No, no… I can't die," Veda muttered. "I can't just fade away. I haven't done enough."

Traze yelled at Aldohr again. "You need to figure something out! You must do something! We cannot let her die!"

But even as Traze yelled at Aldohr, she knew it was hopeless. Aldohr probably wouldn't do anything, even if he could. He loathed Veda. He had made that clear many times.

And as much as Traze cared for Veda, he was powerless to help her. This was not his area of expertise. There was simply nothing he could possibly do to change this for her.

So if Veda wanted to get out of this… she was going to have to do it herself. She had no idea how… but she had to think. She had to be her own savior.

She took in a deep breath. They had no way to get to the antivenom fast enough, that much was clear. She'd have to think of a different way. She'd have to analyze what she had available to her.

"Can you… bring me the emergency kit?" she asked Traze.

"Why?" he asked.

"I just… I want to see if anything in there could help me, if I could come up with anything."

Traze nodded and quickly went to grab the pack with the medical supplies. He brought it back and opened it up for her so she could easily see everything.

At first, nothing seemed particularly useful. All the bandages and medicine in the world wouldn't help her if it wasn't antivenom. She went through the different bottles of medicine, asking Traze to explain each one. Most of them were just for pain management.

Veda shuffled the pack around slowly, as she was still weak, until she found a small threading needle.

Then it hit her.

"Traze," she said to him slowly, "do you remember the other night when I was talking to the seers about the healing sands? Do you remember what I asked them?"

Traze shook his head.

But Veda remembered clearly.

"I had asked the seers if, in light of the healing sands failing, they had tried to give people a concentrated solution of the healing sands."

Suddenly, Traze remembered. "You want to inject yourself with healing sands?" Traze asked.

"Yes. A shot directly into my bloodstream."

Veda wasn't positive this would work. Frankly, she didn't have much faith that anything would work. But she was desperate. And she would try anything.

And it made sense in her mind. If simply lying in the healing sands was enough to cure people, giving them a shot internally should be much more effective.

Traze did not seem convinced, though. "What if it harms you? What if the healing sands are not made to be injected internally? Perhaps… you could die."

Veda took his hand in hers, pulling him close. "I am dying anyway, Traze. This is my only opportunity. And either way, you need to know if the healing sands could possibly be an effective treatment. Who better to test that out on than someone who is already going to die?"

Veda didn't much like thinking about her possible impending death, but what she was saying was true. She had nothing to lose. She was ready to take this chance for herself and for the Aterans in general.

"We have nothing in that pack we could use to inject you," Aldohr piped up, clearly not moved by Veda's idea.

Veda knew he was right. The sewing needle had given her the idea by reminding her of a syringe, but she hadn't seen a syringe in the pack.

"Perhaps we could find a syringe in one of the closer towns than we could find antivenom in," Traze suggested.

"No," Aldohr continued to argue. "It is no use. We are not close enough to any town."

"Well, good thing we don't need to be," Veda spoke up confidently, a smirk on her face.

"What do you mean?" Traze asked hopefully.

"I mean… We already have what we need to inject me." She smiled. "You just have to fish that shuraa out of the pond."

She looked at Aldohr to see his reaction. She knew he disliked her, but she was not expecting to see anger on his face. Anger? Really? Was he angry that she had possibly come up with a solution that would keep her alive? He couldn't possibly hate her so much that he wanted her death. Right?

But Veda didn't have the time or energy to question it. She was too preoccupied with the fact that if they did not act now, she would lose her life.