The Ice Citadel's "kitchen" was an insult to the word. It was a vast, open cavern where immense portions of raw meat were stored in naturally occurring ice shelves, and cooking consisted of melting ice and using controlled bursts of elemental flame. There was no concept of sanitation—magic purified food and water, making human hygiene redundant.
Elara and Elias spent the next hour in an absurd, tense pantomime. Elara pointed to rendered animal fat, crude wood ash, and a large iron pot; Elias, bewildered, provided them. The resulting mixture—a greasy, lye-heavy paste that was her rudimentary soap—smelled vile and looked like something dredged from a swamp.
"This… is the purification you spoke of?" Elias asked, his lip curling in distaste as he eyed the gray sludge. His recovered strength made him imposing again, but his curiosity was winning against his skepticism.
"It's chemistry, Elias. It breaks down the things magic misses—oils, microbes, dirt," Elara explained, tying a piece of torn, boiled linen around her hair. "Magic heals the wound, but it doesn't clean the infection. That's why your people are relapsing."
With her makeshift supplies secured, Elias led her deeper into the Citadel to the Guardian Chamber. This was the Ice Pack's infirmary, and the sight was devastating.
It was a quiet, cold hall lined with beds made of stone and furs. Here lay the victims of the Shadow Corruption—beastmen and women whose bodies were locked in partial, pained shifts. Some lay completely still, only a faint silver sheen of ice magic protecting their hearts. Others thrashed, their faces contorted, fighting the constant, draining sickness. The air was heavy with the smell of sweat, despair, and that sickly, sweet ozone scent of corrupted magic.
Elara's breath hitched. She was used to seeing trauma, but never this slow, systemic consumption.
Elias stopped beside a young wolf woman, perhaps only eighteen or nineteen in human years, whose arm was partially locked in a thick, corrupted wolf paw. The green Shadow Taint pulsed visibly beneath the skin of her forearm, slowly spreading toward her shoulder.
"This is Lyra," Elias whispered, his voice laced with uncharacteristic helplessness. "She has been stable for two cycles, but the Alpha fears the Corruption will win by the next full moon."
Elara approached, her gaze softening from clinical detachment to genuine sympathy. She knelt and gently placed her medical bag on the cold stone floor.
"Magic bandages," Elias explained, indicating the linen infused with blue light wrapped around Lyra's arm. "They keep the wound closed, but the Corruption persists inside."
"Exactly," Elara murmured. "You're treating the symptoms, not the source. The Corruption is weakened by purity, but strengthened by contamination."
Ignoring the magical bandages, which she deemed counterproductive for her purpose, Elara began to work. She gently unwrapped the existing dressing and used a small, sterile scalpel from her kit to carefully open a blister near the edge of the tainted area—a pressure point where the elemental magic was fighting the Shadow Taint.
The beastmen around them, who had been watching in silent suspicion, let out a collective, sharp intake of breath. Using a knife on a sacred warrior was an extreme violation.
Elias instinctively reached for her arm. "Conduit, what are you doing? She is stable! You risk—"
"I risk nothing compared to leaving a contaminant inside!" Elara snapped, her focus absolute. "Hold her arm, now. Don't fight me, just stabilize the limb."
Under the sterile lighting of the Citadel, Elara used a small, clean probe to gently drain the fluid from the blister, then immediately scrubbed the area with her vile, gray soap. The contrast was immediate and shocking. The area she cleaned went from the mottled, dark green of corruption to a healthy, if pale, white. The Shadow Taint retreated visibly from the scrubbed skin, hissing softly as it hit the simple chemical barrier of the soap.
She then boiled fresh water and mixed it with a tincture of pine needles she'd had Elias gather—a simple, strong disinfectant. She used her suture thread to tie off the tiny incision, finishing with a small square of her sterile, boiled linen.
She looked up at Elias, whose arctic eyes were wide, betraying genuine astonishment. The other wolves were whispering in hushed tones.
"There. No magic," Elara said, her voice firm. "I simply removed the localized contamination, sealed the entry point, and applied a chemical barrier to prevent its spread. Magic can't heal what hasn't been cleaned first. Her body, with the help of the elemental fire, will do the rest."
Elias slowly sank back, processing the impossible. He had seen the green corruption retreat from the simplest application of human science. "The Alpha was right," he breathed. "Your purity is a cure. But it is not magic."
"It's better than magic," Elara retorted, gathering her tools. "Magic runs out, or gets corrupted. The laws of nature, Elias? They are absolute. Now, show me the next patient. We have a lot of cleaning to do."
Elara's clinical intervention had shocked the pack, but her success was undeniable. Her value was cemented not just as Kael's coveted Conduit, but as a skilled healer whose methods were alien, slow, and desperately needed.
Elara has successfully established her medical routine, gaining respect from Elias and confirming her importance to the pack. Now, the routine begins, which will inevitably lead to confrontation with Kael.