“Elecia, can you fix him?” Fritz whispered.

 “I’m trying,” the woman didn’t glance up, not removing her focus from the wound.

 They were ignoring the inevitability of the crystals. Vhalla dropped to a knee, looking closely at Grahm’s hand. He groaned softly, awareness returning with Elecia’s ministrations. From her new vantage, Vhalla could see Elecia’s eyes regularly darting to stones as well. The other woman was nervous about magically interacting with someone who was tainted.

 “I have an idea.” Vhalla caught Elecia’s gaze. “But I want him to be physically stable before I try it.”

 “That sounds foreboding,” Elecia mumbled.

 Vhalla couldn’t disagree. “I’m going to take control of the crystals and destroy them, like I do with the monsters and the gates.”

 “What will that do to him?” Fritz asked.

 “I can’t say for certain.” Vhalla wasn’t going to make it out to be something it wasn’t. It was a last resort that could just as easily kill Grahm as save his life.

 “Well, if you’re going to do it, do it now.” Elecia pulled her hands away. “While I have enough strength left in me to try to put him back together when you finish tearing him apart.”

 No one expected Elecia’s sarcasm to be literal.

 Vhalla raised her hand over Grahm’s, blinking her eyes and shifting into her magic sight. Her magic was thin and struggling. Vhalla briefly wondered what would happen at the moment when she had the same amount of her own magic as she had crystal magic laced with Victor’s. But she didn’t give it thought. Her friend was before her and ailing. It wasn’t the time for doubt.

 Just like she did with the monsters, Vhalla connected herself to the crystals and willed their destruction. They exploded angrily off Grahm’s hand. Black shards littered the ground along with chunks of Grahm’s flesh.

 All the majors took a step back to avoid being splattered with tainted blood.

 The man lying on the bench cried out, roused back to awareness by the pain.

 “Hold him down!” Elecia demanded.

 Fritz was the first to respond. Sitting, he cupped Grahm’s head in both of his, stroking his cheeks with his thumbs. “Grahm, it’ll be all right.”

 Elecia hesitated only for a second before her hand thrust into the tainted flesh that had ripped open with the destruction of the crystals. Skin that was blackened and leathery turned into mush and goo in the instant the crystals had exploded. Elecia pulled her hand away, black flesh clinging to it like coagulated meat fat. She tried again in a different spot, the skin literally sliding over Grahm’s bones.

 Grahm twisted his head, trying to shake them off.

 “Hold him down!” Elecia insisted, thinking quickly. She turned to the other person in the room she trusted implicitly. “Aldrik, I’m going to need your fire.”

 The Emperor gave his affirmation without question.

 “Fritz, I need you to freeze him.”

 “What?” Fritz didn’t follow.

 “I need you to freeze him, slowly, don’t shock him. I need his heart to slow; the less aware he is of what’s happening and the slower his blood flow, the better,” Elecia spoke slowly and clearly.

 “He’s another Waterrunner and—”

 “And the taint has already passed his elbow. The damn things were like boils, and the infection is flooding the body!”

 Vhalla stared in horror, wondering if she’d damned her friend. She swallowed, trying to follow Elecia’s train of thought. Grahm was dead from the moment the taint set in. This was their only chance to save him.

 She ran over to the tavern’s bar, locating a long rag. On the way back she scooped up one of the major’s swords.

 “Wait, that’s—”

 The Empress silenced the major with a pointed glare. She didn’t really give a damn that it was his. It could’ve been the Mother’s for all Vhalla cared. The man realized it and silenced himself. Most of the majors took it as the cue to flee the room.

 “Wait, you can’t possibly mean to . . .” Fritz gaped in horror as Vhalla began to tourniquet Grahm’s upper arm.

 “This needs to go in his mouth to keep him from biting his tongue.” Vhalla twisted up the other rag, placing it between Grahm’s teeth.

 “Isn’t there—”

 “Freeze him, hold him still, and say nothing else.” Elecia’s breathing was heavy, nerves beginning to take over. She was a good cleric, but this was going to be a test for the woman. “Vhalla, push over that bench, spread his arm across it.”

 Aldrik helped Vhalla accomplish Elecia’s order. It had become the most makeshift operating table the any of them had ever seen, and it was all that stood between Grahm and certain death. Elecia drew the sword and adjusted her stance a few times, pushing the benches into just the right spots.

 “Vhalla, hold his arm. Fritz his shoulders. Aldrik be ready with the fire,” she commanded.

 Vhalla gripped Grahm’s wrist. Her fingers compressed against the rotted flesh and bones that squished and slid like pond scum on a rock. She ignored the chilling sensation and held the arm as straight as possible.

 “Can’t we rethink this?”

 “Keep him subdued, Fritznangle!”

 “But—”

 “Fritz, trust Elecia!” Vhalla pleaded with her friend.

 Fritz turned his head away as Elecia lined up her mark with the sword. Vhalla saw her plant her feet to the ground. She felt the tingle of magic through the air as the Groundbreaker made her arms as heavy as rocks in order to create as much momentum possible.

 The blade whizzed through the air, and Fritz flinched as it connected with bone. Vhalla felt the crack reverberate through Grahm’s arm. The man screamed into the rag in his mouth.

 Elecia was undeterred. She freed the blade with a small jostle, and raised it again for a second swing. Marrow oozed from the wound, blood pooling on the benches and dripping to the floor.

 It took two swings to sever Grahm’s arm from his body.

 “Aldrik, cauterize it, lightly,” Elecia instructed. “I only want to help the clotting along, I may need to remove more later once I see what the taint or infection is doing.”

 “Remove more later?” Fritz swayed weakly.

 “Hopefully when we have proper medical supplies,” Elecia murmured.

 Grahm moaned in agony as wisps of flame sealed his wound. But his pain seemed to be lessening due to Fritz’s numbing of the spot, a makeshift sedative. Vhalla prayed that, when he woke, he would barely remember what occurred.

 Elecia quickly bandaged the wound. But she didn’t release the tourniquet until the blood stopped seeping through the cloth. Fritz hadn’t let go of Grahm; he stared in dumb shock at his lover’s face.

 “I’m going to go find something for him,” Elecia announced. She swayed slightly. Vhalla knew the exhaustion was just as much mental as it was physical. “Some cleric in the rear guard must have something . . .”