Chapter 33 - The King's Memory
The morning after Hollowbridge reeked of ash and spores.
Elric knelt beside a young boy they found hidden in the bell tower—half-conscious, body tangled in creeping vines, eyes glazed with infection.
"Rootblight," Elric muttered. "It's spreading through breath now."
Keera backed off, shielding her face. "Is that contagious?"
"Not if I burn it out in time."
Elric unrolled his medical kit. Dried silverleaf, serpent's extract, and a small syringe filled with anti-curse serum he'd brewed weeks ago—intended for monsters, not children.
Lira hovered nearby. "You sure that won't melt his veins?"
"Only if I miss," Elric replied, drawing the dose.
He injected the serum directly into the boy's neck vein. The kid jolted—screamed. Vines pulsed red, then cracked like burned rope. Elric slammed a sealing sigil on the chest, locking the infection under the skin.
The boy breathed. Shallow, but real.
"Still think I'm just a third-rate doctor?" Elric smirked.
Lira smirked back. "You're a second-rate showoff today."
---
At the Capital's outer ward
The squad approached under the guise of traders. The capital walls loomed with new additions—living bark woven into stone, vines climbing the royal banners.
"Camouflage or corruption?" Sylas asked.
"Both," Elric muttered. "King Taran isn't just letting the Rootwalker in. He's working with it."
As they entered the gate, guards gave them one glance, then looked away. Not out of fear.But out of Obedience.
"They don't even blink," Keera whispered. "Cursed?"
"Bound," Veyra replied. "They've been pacted."
---
In the lower quarter clinic
Elric re-entered the ruined place he once interned—a tiny stone hut with shattered beds and one operating table still intact.
He began cleaning it, instinctively.
Then—screams outside.
Three villagers burst in. One man with a shattered leg. One with poison bubbling on his arm. A woman holding her own intestines in with a torn apron.
"Ambush near the market!" she gasped. "The root-kin—they're disguised now!"
Elric's mind snapped into doctor mode.
"You—boil the copper tools. You—find thread, alcohol, and clamp that artery with your fingers."
He turned to the man with the broken leg. "Lira, pop it in place. On three."
"One."
CRACK.
"Seriously?!" Lira yelped.
"Too slow if I waited for three," Elric said.
He stitched the torn stomach while humming.
"Is he... singing?" Keera asked.
"He always does surgery to music," Veyra said. "Calms him down. He freaks the patients out, though."
---
By dusk, all three patients were stable.
"Doctor," the woman whispered, tears in her eyes. "You're still... one of us."
Elric smiled faintly. "One cut at a time."
---
At the palace gates
A familiar silhouette stood waiting.
Black cloak. Gloved hands.
"Doctor Elric," the man said. "The king requests your presence. And your loyalty."
Elric glanced back at his squad.
"I'll go," he said. "But I won't go quietly."
---