The Tyrant's Tomb

faces. One belonged to a handsome young man with silky black hair cresting
over his wide sepia forehead.
The other face belonged to a unicorn. Its muzzle glistened with mucus.
Its startled blue eyes, wide and unblinking, fixed on me as if I might be a
tasty bag of oats. Stuck on the tip of its horn was a crank-handled rotary
cheese grater.
“GAH!” I said again.
“Calm down, dummy,” Meg said, somewhere to my left. “You’re with
friends.”
I couldn’t see her. My peripheral vision was still blurry and pink.
I pointed weakly at the unicorn. “Cheese grater.”
“Yes,” said the lovely young man. “It’s the easiest way to get a dose of
horn shavings directly into the wound. Buster doesn’t mind. Do you,
Buster?”
Buster the unicorn continued to stare at me. I wondered if he was even
alive, or just a prop unicorn they had wheeled in.
“My name’s Pranjal,” said the young man. “Head healer for the legion. I
worked on you when you first got here, but we didn’t really meet then, since,
well, you were unconscious. I’m a son of Asclepius. I guess that makes you
my grandpa.”
I moaned. “Please don’t call me Grandpa. I feel terrible enough already.
Are—are the others all right? Lavinia? Hazel?”
Meg hovered into view. Her glasses were clean, her hair was washed,
and her clothes were changed, so I must have been out for quite a while.
“We’re all fine. Lavinia got back right after we did. But you almost died.”
She sounded annoyed, as if my death would have inconvenienced her
greatly. “You should’ve told me how bad that cut was.”
“I thought…I assumed it would heal.”
Pranjal knit his eyebrows. “Yes, well, it should have. You got excellent
care, if I do say so myself. We know about ghoul infections. They’re usually
curable, if we catch them within twenty-four hours.”
“But you,” Meg said, scowling at me. “You aren’t responding to
treatment.”
“That’s not my fault!”
“It could be your godly side,” Pranjal mused. “I’ve never had a patient
who was a former immortal. That might make you resistant to demigod
healing, or more susceptible to undead scratches. I just don’t know.”