"That's where you're wrong, Ani. River People are the Scourge."
Then with a slight nod of her head, Brogg pressed my arm to the table while holding the rest of me in his grip. Doctor Cresh picked up the knife off the floor and stepped toward me.
"Do not move," he warned. "I'm sorry, but this is going to hurt."
And he pressed the knife into my flesh.
The knife didn't go deep, but it hurt enough to raise a well of tears in my eyes. I gritted my teeth to keep from crying out--either from fear or the pain.
It sliced along my forearm, instantly drawing blood. I didn't mind the sight of blood; I wasn't squeamish in that way. I was more concerned about what the doctor would do next.
While Brogg continued pinning my arm to the table, Doctor Cresh turned behind him to pull a rag from a jar. It was wet, and he handled it with only the tips of his fingers.
"What's on that rag?" I asked, panicked now. "Don't do this!"
"Calm down," he said. "It's the same ingredients that were in the cup you drank. But they go directly into your blood, so it bypasses any thrushweed in your system. We'll also see a quicker reaction."
That should have calmed me. I had passed the test with the cup; surely I would pass this one as well. But I was more frightened than ever. There was a slight sting in my arm when he tightly wrapped the rag around the wound he had made. At least it would stop the bleeding.
"How long?" I asked. "Until you see a reaction, how long?"
"Within minutes," Cresh said. "Can you feel any difference now?"
"No," I said.
But that was a lie. Blood was already rushing through my veins, sending a deep ache inside my head. Was that because of the wound, because of the fight I'd just put up? Or was the wet rag doing something to me?
"You're beginning to sweat," Cresh said.
"It's warm in here," I said.
But he shook his head. "It's not."
I looked from the governor to Cresh to what I could see of the warden's face from this position, searching for even a bead of sweat on them. It shouldn't have mattered to me.
After all, the warmth I felt could be explained by my fear, and the fact that the warden had been so rough on me.
Or it could be the start of symptoms. What did sweat mean? The governor had said everyone should have some reaction to the test. Was this simply one of those reactions, innocent and meaningless? Because if so, I wanted to admit I was warm, to prove to the governor that this test had worked on me and that I still had no sign of the Scourge.
Or was this the Scourge beginning to show itself? Della had complained of the heat, and if she had been thirsty before, then it could not possibly compete with the thirst that parched my throat now, as if all that stood between my life and death was a single drop of water.
"Let her sit down," Doctor Cresh said to the warden. "She looks like she needs to sit."
"I don't," I said.
But I did. My legs were shaking beneath the weight of my body, as if I had suddenly turned to lead and was standing on only twigs. Brogg pulled me away from the table and pushed me onto the chair. He didn't need to. I would've fallen just fine on my own.
Doctor Cresh grabbed my face again, turning it from side to side as he had done earlier. But whatever he had been looking for then, he found now. His thumb rubbed up the side of my head along the outside of my eye.
"See that vein?" he asked the governor. "The way it's darkened? That's our sign."
"A sign of what?" I grabbed his hands, forcing him to look at me. "I feel--I felt perfectly fine. What have you done to me?"
"I only brought out symptoms that would've appeared anyway, in time. Without this test, the Scourge would've destroyed Keldan by now. Hopefully, we caught this before you could spread the disease to anyone else."
"I don't have the Scourge," I said, and the tears flowed. Because I was only saying it now as something I wished could be true. The way I felt, I knew something was terribly wrong.
The pain in my stomach hit me next, coming on like being blindsided by a rogue wave. I clutched my side and tried to swallow my scream. Was this how Della had felt? If so, then I had been wrong to stand back when she begged for my help. This was horrible.