"That's nothing compared to what Arontala can inflict," she hissed, laying the blade across his neck for emphasis. "And with the power of the Obsidian King, he can torment you past the point of death, past madness, and strip your soul to shreds."
She might have said more, but the pain and the wormroot overwhelmed Tris, and darkness took him.
TRIS AWOKE IN a darkened room, utterly spent. He could still feel the wormroot in his blood, and knew that his power was out of reach. The void it left was unsettling to the point of discomfort. He remembered Carina telling him that a mage could be killed or driven mad by constant dosing with wormroot. He did not doubt it.
Tris shifted, and revised his assessment. While the torment of Theron's spell was gone, his body ached of its own accord. Where Theron cut him the deep gashes were expertly bandaged, but even Carina's healing had not completely removed their pain. He wanted to retch, and gauging from the taste in his mouth and how sore his stomach muscles felt, he ruefully gathered that he had probably already brought up anything he could, and more.
He sank back against the bed, angry at himself for his failure. I'm sure by now they've reconsidered training me, he thought. I'll be lucky if they don't just decide to kill me before Arontala does.
He heard a rap at the outer door to the sitting room, and the rustle of someone moving to answer. "You can't go in there," Carina protested. "He's not ready."
From the sound of the approaching footsteps, their visitor was undeterred. Tris forced himself to open his eyes and turn his throbbing head. Theron was approaching in the dim light. She wore her council robes, and her expression was of sincere concern.
"How long did it take for him to come around?" Theron asked Carina, who was clearly unhappy with the intrusion.
"Three candlemarks," Carina clipped. "Most of the time, I was busy keeping him from choking on his own vomit. Just how much of this 'training' do you think he can take?"
Theron looked closely at Tris. "Just three candle-marks?" she asked. "And he's only been hit with wormroot once before?"
Tris thought Carina might explode with the anger that seethed in her voice. "Three candlemarks is an eternity," she said between gritted teeth. "And compared to how much wormroot you managed to get into his system, what he had before was hardly anything."
Theron nodded. "Exactly. He's adapting. Learning to work around it. The last time-how did he react?"
