"Shut up and save your strength! Where the heck is Manohar when you need him?" Orion's body was battered from the mana abuse and the battle.
To make matters worse, the more vitality he shared with Jirni the more his consciousness faded and so did his healing spells.
"Don't worry about me." She said. "The Countess is still alive and you must keep her that way."
Orion checked the noblewoman, discovering that Jirni's knife was coated with a poison that induced in its victim a state of apparent death. Also, Jirni had stabbed Countess Metra so that the knife closed the wound like a plug.
Between her very slow heartbeat and the knife, the noblewoman was in much better shape than Jirni, needing but a tier one healing spell to be brought back to full health.
"You beautiful genius." Orion started to sob, returning to her side the moment he was done with the Countess.
"It's just as you always say. All that matters is the m-" Jirni's head turned to the side, her consciousness lost.
"Manohar!" Orion screamed as the last bits of his strength slipped away with his wife's life.
"I'm here." The god of healing appeared behind Orion's back the moment after all the Doppelgangers on the outside had been either captured or killed. "This is a mess. Without more life force your wife will die of healing and without blood, her organs will soon collapse.
"I can't give them to her myself without compromising my focus. I need a donor for both."
"Then take them from me!" Orion snarled.
"It's not so simple. Giving Jirni the blood from the wrong person would kill her and your life force is almost depleted." Manohar replied. "On top of that, I can't do it with just my hands, I need the proper tools."
"Let us help." Phloria and Friya arrived seconds later, using Invigoration on Jirni.
'Dammit. We could save Mom, but if we do it in front of so many witnesses, our life is over.' Friya said via a mind link.
'I don't care about it. I'm not letting Mom die just to protect a stupid secret.' Phloria replied while racking her brain for a solution.
"No, you are no good." Manohar tapped Friya's head and his diagnostic spell revealed that her blood type wasn't compatible with Jirni. "You are perfect!"
He grabbed Phloria, trying to undress her and receiving a powerful blow in the face in response.
"Why did you do that? I just need to take some blood from you!" He said in outrage.
"Couldn't you just say it?" Phloria had her armor shapeshift into a sleeveless training shirt.
"Oh, right. Note to self, remind to just ask the subject to roll up the sleeves the next time." Manohar took a set of tubes and needles out of his dimensional amulet that made Phloria's stomach turn into a knot.
'Shit! Unless those things are made of magical metal, they will never get through my skin. What do we do?' She asked via the mind link but Friya had no answer.
"What's going on here?" Quylla arrived just in time. "Why didn't you administer her tonics?"
"I've already done that." Manohar showed her a sack filled with a purple liquid and the IV drip that he had set in Jirni's left arm, leaving the right ready for the transfusion.
"That won't do. It's too slow." Quylla took several flasks of tonics and used water magic to have them seep under Jirni's skin and into her bloodstream at once.
"Brilliant! Amazing!" Manohar gave her a round of applause as if he was at a theatre instead of on a patient's deathbed. "Why didn't you share this spell with the Kingdom?"
"Well, I…" Quylla couldn't say that she had bartered it with Faluel in exchange for her teachings.
"It doesn't matter." Manohar touched Phloria's jugular with his right hand and Jirni's free arm with his left.
Blood moved from one vein to another as the god of healing kicked the transfusion kit in the dirt.
"Did you just reinvent my Injection spell after seeing it once?" Quylla was flabbergasted.
"Please, it was just a tier one spell. It's not that hard." Many mages would have begged to differ, but those present only cared about color flowing back into Jirni's face.
"Dad, there's something you must know." Phloria took out a communication amulet from her pocket dimension. "The creature we killed had this hidden inside its body."
"When did you find that?" Manohar asked.
"Right after you ran away, while examining the remains." Phloria replied. "Also, those I killed outside had one as well. Too bad they all lost their imprint."
"Not all of them." Manohar pointed at the battered Doppelgangers that he had imprisoned inside the hard-light cubes.
"Foolish human! We rather die than submit. Glory to the Kingdom!" The creatures used light magic on themselves to heal their wounds and regrow the lost parts.
Yet without nutrients, their accelerated metabolism killed them of starvation. The Doppelgangers evaporated, leaving behind one communication amulet each.
"Dammit, dammit, dammit! Me and my big-" Much to Manohar's surprise, one of the amulets was still covered in runes.
"Interesting." Quylla said. "It seems that if you let them grow enough, the fragments of a shapeshifter's body can replace the original after it gets destroyed."
Four small cubes of hard light floated in front of her.
Three of them contained a single strand of a different Doppelganger that died along with their respective main body whereas the fourth one was still alive.
It was the strand that Quylla had fed with a fly and later with more meat, nurturing the Doppelganger's fragment until it grew enough to withstand her experiments.
It was big enough to have a life force of its own but too small to have the means to escape.
"You learned Light Mastery to this degree by yourself?" Manohar was flabbergasted.
"Please, Professor. It's just a tier one spell. It's not that hard." Quylla replied with a smug grin.
***
Later, Orion remained at Jirni's bedside in the local hospital, waiting for her to regain consciousness.
The healing had taken a toll on her body, giving her a thin and frail look. After her condition had stabilized, Manohar had set one IV for the nutrients and another of blood before going to give the Royals a full report of his latest success.
The Countess had regained consciousness right after the poison had been cleansed from her system and the local Constable had an easy time making her talk. The Kingdom had promised to let her live in exchange for information.
Countess Metra knew that without protection Thrud would kill her so she had accepted. Between her intel and the communication amulet, the Royals would soon be able to track the position of the Mad Queen.
Meanwhile, in the hospital, Orion looked at the tubes, grateful for their existence and yet disgusted by their presence. He couldn't wait to see them out of Jirni's body. He tried countless speeches in his head, yet they all came out wrong.
'I'm still angry at her, yet she risked everything she had to save my life.. After today, I understood that I can't force Jirni to change the way she is.'
