Tuesday Tales: From the Word SCARLET

Hello! How’s summer treating you? There has been some difficult weather to deal with, that’s certain. I’m off to see the Blue Jays this week. Hope the weather is seasonal. A nice 26 05 27 C would be perfect.

This week, the authors at Tuesday Tales are writing to the word prompt SCARLET. I’m continuing with my fantasy, The Bonds of Time.

Meg pocketed the syringe the nurse had intended for Sam and would dispose of it later. Astrid had arrived in time to prevent the local doctors from carrying out their invasive tests. She’d clouded their minds enough to convince them that it was a simple case of appendectomy. After planting the suggestion that she was allowed to perform surgery in this hospital and that her own OR staff would assist her, the hospital staff rushed to secure an operating room for her. The surgery would take place in an hour. Given her attention to detail, Astrid would conjure up gauze pads drenched in scarlet blood and the remnants of a burst appendix. These would give proof to the lie while the real culprit would be removed and hidden by one of her staff until it could be explored in Sanctuary.

Sam yawned, no longer able to fight off the sleeping potion.

“I’ll just close my eyes for a minute until it’s time to go,” she slurred, and then fell into a deep slumber.

After Astrid finished, the nurses would interpret Sam’s sleep as the aftereffects of the anesthetic—not that she would administer any. It wouldn’t be necessary for cleansing Sam’s body of the toxins Galen had added to her soup. How he’d been able to get so close to them without any of the fairies sensing it was another mystery, one none of them could explain in their current state.

Thanks to Astrid’s preventative medicine, a series of vaccine against all human illnesses and antidotes to known magic toxins, Sam’s body had reacted to the poison faster than he’d expected, expelling a large portion of it quickly, and she’d been whisked out of danger before her body could succumb to the venom. With her heart still beating, Bryanna, Naomi, and Elaine, erecting a magical field around her, he’d been unable to pull her spirit from her body and deliver her to Rogan, no doubt the reason the demon-wizard had destroyed their earthly bodies the way he had. Sam would be fine, but for how long? And if Rogan was prepared to act openly like this, how long before he went after the others charged with protecting her until the transformation?

Meg paced the room. It was rare for one of her age and standing within the Council to be assigned to the field, but caring for the princess was a great honor. She yawned. She might be immortal, but in this form, she was vulnerable and without sleep…

Don’t forget to check out the other Tuesday Tales.