Chương 147: 09. Lonely Isle 1

It took me considerably longer than I'd anticipated to haul Ignicia from the beach into that ruined shelter.

"Haul" is being generous. What I actually did was grit my teeth and drag a natural disaster in human form out of the sea wind through sheer, grinding determination. Her being in human form was already the greatest logistical blessing I could have asked for tonight. Even so, a Fire Dragon Princess is not what anyone would call easy to transport. It wasn't that she was particularly heavy—she hadn't reached full knight's armor up a mountainside territory—but her temperature was completely wrong.

One moment she burned like I was carrying iron fresh from the forge, and the next, that heat would vanish entirely, leaving behind a bone-deep cold that had no business existing in the same body. That kind of thermal inconsistency makes for deeply unpleasant cargo. Especially when said cargo refuses to cooperate. Not that she was actively struggling. Ignicia probably lacked the energy for deliberate resistance at this point.

The problem was that even half-unconscious, her fundamental I do not get manhandled by anyone programming remained fully operational. The moment I got her arm over my shoulder, she frowned and muttered something low and half-dreaming.

"... Insolent."

"Yes, yes, terribly insolent," I panted, hitching her up before she could slide off entirely.

"Your Highness is welcome to punish me once you can stand without assistance." She seemed to want to retort. What emerged instead was a single warm exhale against my neck, and then her forehead dropped heavily against my shoulder and stayed there. I don't know if it was exhaustion or delirium, but when her head settled there, I felt an utterly irrational flash of pride. The man carrying a dragon. The thought was so profoundly stupid it nearly made me laugh out loud.

If this wasn't a concussion talking, I didn't know what was. But it stuck anyway, crowding out everything else with one crystalline realization: Well done, Cedric. You are almost certainly the first person in recorded history to carry a Fire Dragon Princess into a derelict shack like a wounded comrade. If this ever gets out, the Rosa family genealogy is going to need an entire supplemental volume. The amusement died the instant I got her inside.

Because once I laid her down on the one piece of furniture that could still technically be called a bed, I realized her condition was deteriorating rapidly. She was burning up. Not human-burning-up. Something else entirely. I pressed the back of my hand to her forehead—scalding. Then I touched her fingertips—ice cold, the kind of wrong that makes your brain flinch. She was being torn in two directions simultaneously: upper body radiating forge-heat while her extremities bled warmth at an alarming rate.

The curse marks around her wound, which we'd fought so hard to suppress, were already beginning to darken again at the edges. The diagnostic picture assembled itself with grim clarity: this wasn't something a damp cloth and extra blankets could address. This was dragon-curse damage, blood loss, and whatever alien fire-vein system she operated on all failing in concert. Understanding the problem didn't make me qualified to solve it. I was a diplomatic envoy with questionable life choices, not a draconic physician.

But anyone who's spent enough time nearly dying on the road develops some bare-minimum emergency protocols. I rolled my cloak into a wedge and positioned it behind her so she wouldn't roll onto the wounded side, then stood to inventory what this ruin had to offer. The interior was worse than the exterior had suggested. One bed. One table with a missing corner. One chair held together by hope. A collection of rotting wooden crates whose original purpose I couldn't determine.

The roof leaked wind, the shutters had split, and the corners smelled of long abandonment. The only thing it had going for it was four walls that were still technically walls. Better than dying on the beach. Not by much. I found a chipped ceramic bowl under the table and half a metal spoon in a toppled cabinet. Clean water—none. Food—some. Proper medicine—absolutely not. The previous occupant had clearly shared my current philosophy of keeping expectations low.

I poured my single small flask of clean water into the bowl and pulled a packet of medicinal powder from my pack. I'd bought it ages ago from a roadside merchant who'd described it as effective against chills, mild fever, digestive complaints, and most other ailments that responded to just take this and stop asking questions. Whether any of that was accurate, I'd never had occasion to verify. But under present circumstances, having something was infinitely better than having nothing.

Demanding pharmacological precision while treating a cursed, crash-landed Fire Dragon Princess was giving myself far too much credit. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"Saving the patient first," I muttered, mostly as preemptive absolution for whatever I was about to do. I dissolved the powder in the bowl and set a small flame crystal on the flat stone beside it. The crystal responded to contact and began glowing red, and within minutes the water was simmering, then boiling properly. The smell that rose wasn't pleasant, but it was considerably more reassuring than the scent of curse corruption. I set the bowl aside to cool and looked back at Ignicia.

She was half-reclined on the broken bed, her long hair loose and tangled, breathing in an uneven rhythm she couldn't seem to control. The woman who had been delivering cold, precise insults on the beach an hour ago now looked like simply keeping her eyes open required deliberation. That was rare. That was dangerous. I brought the bowl to the bedside.

"Your Highness," I said quietly.

"Medicine." Her eyelashes stirred. After a moment, she managed to open her eyes partway. Those golden slit-pupils—usually sharp enough to conduct a full audit of your intentions—were unfocused with fever, taking an extra beat to process what I was holding.

"... Is it bitter?" I stopped completely. I genuinely needed a moment to process that question. The Fire Dragon Princess. Cursed. Bleeding. Fresh off a crash landing on an uncharted island. And her first coherent inquiry upon waking was not Will this work? but Is it bitter? I tried to contain it. I failed spectacularly.

"Your Highness, I have to say—you're being remarkably human right now." She frowned with what appeared to be genuine offense, but weakness overrode indignation before it could develop momentum. She turned her head aside and delivered her verdict flatly.

"Less talking."

"It's bitter," I confirmed honestly.

"But the fact that you're concerned about flavor suggests you're in slightly better condition than I feared." She probably intended to glare. The effect was negligible. I resigned myself to the task, slid my arm behind her to prop her up against me, and brought the bowl carefully to her lips. What followed was, in all honesty, an ordeal. Not because she was being deliberately difficult—she was too feverish for deliberate anything.

The problem was that she was half-delirious, her swallowing reflex was uncooperative, and I had to administer it one careful sip at a time while preventing her from turning her head and depositing the entire bowl down my sleeve. Halfway through, the bitterness hit her properly. She scrunched her face and clamped her mouth shut with the exact expression I'd seen on certain wounded recruits who insisted they were fine right up until the medicine appeared.

"Your Highness. Open."

"... No."

"You survived having a curse torn out through your inverse scale. If you let a bowl of medicine defeat you now, the historical record is going to be deeply embarrassing."

"I don't care about records."

"I care about mine." I moved the bowl forward another inch.

"If you actually die of fever in my care, those old men in the capital will probably excavate my family graves to hold the ancestors accountable." That apparently crossed some threshold of annoyance. She drank the next mouthful with the expression of someone making formal note of grievances for future settlement. By the time I set the empty bowl aside, I had a complete layer of sweat across my back and felt as though I'd been in a moderately serious fight. I sat on the edge of the bed and observed her for a moment.

Breathing still uneven, but marginally more regular. Forehead still hot, but her color had improved slightly. I told myself the medicine had accomplished something, and I mostly believed it.

"Good enough," I murmured.

"At least nothing's getting visibly worse." Ignicia didn't respond. She had slipped back into unconsciousness. I thought the worst of the night was behind us. This represented a catastrophic failure of pattern recognition on my part. Sometime around midnight, Ignicia started shivering. It began subtly—a faint tremor in her shoulders. Then it spread, traveling from her collarbone to her fingertips in slow, steady waves.

She curled into herself, her breathing growing lighter and lighter, as though the fire inside her was being systematically extinguished. I reached out and touched her forehead. The burning heat was gone. Replaced by cold. Wrong, rapid cold. Not recovery. Collapse.

"Your Highness?" I leaned closer, frowning.

"Are you cold?" Her eyes didn't open. The answer came from somewhere barely conscious.

"... Cold." Perfect. A new problem. I didn't have much to work with. One worn cloak. Some dry cloth. Whatever the previous occupant had left behind, which clearly hadn't seen sunlight in years. But doing something was better than doing nothing, so I started immediately—found the cleanest piece of cloth available and carefully wiped the cold sweat from her temples and neck, then worked through the rest of what I could reach. Letting damp fabric sit against cooling skin would only accelerate the heat loss.

Throughout the entire process, she didn't resist. Which was more alarming than if she'd cursed me. Because it meant she genuinely lacked the strength to object. When I finished, I spread the cloak and wrapped her as completely as I could manage. She instinctively drew herself tighter, and though her brow remained furrowed, her breathing evened out slightly.

"If this works..." I said, mostly to myself. It didn't work. Time passed, and her temperature kept dropping. The cloak that had seemed adequate initially was now accomplishing approximately nothing—like wrapping a stone that had decided to become ice. Her shoulders trembled with increasing frequency. Her lips had gone pale. Even the word "cold" came out quieter than before, as though she was running out of breath to form it. I pressed two fingers to her wrist and swore quietly.

"... I'm an idiot." Not because I didn't know field medicine. Because I'd spent the last hour applying human logic to dragon physiology, and it had taken me this long to recognize the fundamental error. Her temperature dropping wasn't simple exposure to cold air. It was her fire-vein system destabilizing. No amount of external fabric was going to address internal thermal collapse. I sat on the edge of the bed for exactly three seconds. Brief.

Long enough to cycle through every available option and arrive at the same conclusion each time: I had nothing left. No extra blankets. No charcoal brazier. No second coat. No stove capable of heating the room. If I were in the capital right now, Olivia would have already materialized three layers of heavy quilts, two pitchers of hot water, and a selection of remedies from sources I'd never think to ask about.

Instead, I was on an unnamed island, in a shack with structural ambitions it couldn't support, with a Fire Dragon Princess whose pride was apparently hardwired below the level of consciousness. I looked at her. I looked at myself. I accepted the inevitable.

"... Fine." I pressed my fingers to my temple and addressed the half-conscious Ignicia in a carefully measured voice:"Your Highness. For the record: this is strictly emergency medical procedure." She probably didn't hear me. Or she heard me and lacked the energy to argue. Either way, she made a small movement beneath the cloak that I chose to interpret as acknowledgment rather than protest. I stared at her for one more moment. Then I reached for my shirt.