"A way to steal the power of life and use it to control death," he replied, almost absently. "All fae can claim power from death, as long as they're willing to be poisoned by it, and watch death consume their body as they use that power." The healer came back into view with something that looked like a monstrous apple-corer, which even my flat-emotion self wasn't too sure she liked. "Hold still and close your eyes."

I obeyed without hesitation. There was a sense of pressure, a gross wet schluck sound, and then oh God I was feeling the breeze on the inside of my leg, holy fuck. I kept my eyes squeezed shut as the healer shoved some wet goop-feeling stuff into the big hole he'd put in my leg, and then as he put his hands on either end of my goop-filled leg tunnel. Heat flushed through my leg, on the edge of feeling like burning, and then nothing but regular leg feelings.

When I cracked my eyes open again, the healer was putting the bloody, rot-covered arrow into a plastic container with exaggerated care. I watched him for a moment, then looked at my leg, which was fine, except for being covered in blood. I caught sight of a cylinder of my still-rotting calf muscle in a ceramic bowl and gagged. If I hadn't already puked a lot, I would for sure have vomited everywhere.

Terror suddenly seized me again, whatever anti-emotion whammy the healer had given me wearing off with speed. "Dain," I said, my chest spasming. He'd had arrows in his lung, they couldn't apple-core his chest—

"We know how to deal with blood magic, your highness," he said, taping the container shut in a way that suggested that he would rather die than have it accidentally open up. "Let us work."

A pale trace of Dain's snarl slipped through the air and I was up in an instant, trying to trace it to its source. Two guards barred me when I tried to get into the room where he was. I could hear him in there, snarling and coughing wet coughs.

"I have to get in there," I said. "Let me past, I have to get in—"

They remained immovable. Apparently, I was freaking out too much and would distract the healers, which I argued vehemently against until I got barred from the entire fucking hospital. Tossed out on my pseudo-royal ass by a firm healer backed up with a phalanx of guards, which I did not enjoy one tiny bit.