See notes below on why this actually exists. This actually takes place after Hyrum has been tortured and rescued. Location Maggie‘s medicine hut.

  Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “He saved my life, Maggie,” I said.

  She paused—but only for a fraction of a second.

  “If there is anything you need to help him recover,” I continued, my voice steady despite the knot in my chest, “tell me. If it’s within my power, I will get it.”

  She straightened slowly and looked at me then. Really looked.

  “I have what I need,” she said. “What he needs is time.”

  The finality of it left no room to argue.

  “I see,” I said quietly. “Please send for me if that changes.”

  I stepped back, giving her space. “I’ll get out of your way.”

  She didn’t answer.

  She had already turned back to Hyrum.

  I stood up and turned to leave, but my large frame bumped a shelf. There was a dull thunk followed by a hiss from Maggie. Looking down I saw a small jar tipped on it's side. Chunks of black rocks scattered across the dirt floor.

  Crap. "Sorry, Maggie," I said as I bent down to pick up the jar with the little amount that was left in it. "I'll get you more. What is it?"

  "Purified charcoal," She snapped. "It isn't easy to make."

  The name rolled around in my mind until something clicked—not understanding, but weight. Whatever this was, it mattered.

  I looked up at her. “How is it made?”

  Maggie hesitated, eyes flicking briefly to Hyrum, then back to me. “Why do you want to know?”

  “Because,” I said carefully, “anything you guard that closely is worth learning about.”

  She studied me for a long moment, then gave a short nod. “Fine. But this isn’t some wonder cure, and I won’t have it treated like one.”

  “I won’t,” I promised.

  “It starts as ordinary charcoal,” she said. “Hardwood only. Burned slow, with little air, so it blackens instead of turning to ash.”

  “That much I understand. That's charcoal.”

  “Good. Then forget what you think you know after that,” she said sharply. “Forge charcoal is filthy. Smoke-soaked. If you give that to someone who’s been poisoned, you might as well finish them off yourself.”

  I swallowed and stayed quiet.

  “To make it fit for medicine,” she continued, “we break it apart. Not to dust—too fine and it passes straight through the body without doing its work. Just cracked, so the inside is exposed.”

  “And then?” I asked.

  “Then we wash it,” she said. “Again and again. In boiled water. Sometimes with vinegar, sometimes with salt. The water turns black. You pour it away. You keep going until it no longer stains your hands or smells of smoke.”

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  She picked up a small lump from the table and turned it between her fingers. It looked lighter than ordinary charcoal. More brittle.

  “After that, it must be dried completely,” she went on. “Any damp left inside ruins it.”

  “And then it’s ready?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “Not yet.”

  She gestured toward a squat clay pot near the wall. “We seal it in a pot. Clay and ash around the lid. No air. Then we bury it in hot coals and let it cook again. Hotter than the first burning.”

  I frowned. “Why burn it twice?”

  “That’s the part we don’t pretend to understand,” she said. “Only that if you don’t, it doesn’t work.”

  “Work how?” I pressed.

  She met my eyes. “If someone’s been poisoned—bad herbs, spoiled drink, snakebite, certain mushrooms—you give them this. Crushed fine and mixed with water or honey. It pulls the poison into itself.”

  “Pulls it?” I echoed.

  “Yes,” she said firmly. “It binds it. Keeps it from spreading further through the body.”

  “And it actually helps?” I asked.

  “It doesn’t always save them,” she said. “But I’ve seen men who should have died live long enough for the sickness to pass. I’ve seen children stop convulsing. I’ve seen it buy time.”

  Time again.

  “You never use it twice,” she added. “Once it’s done its work, it’s full. After that, it’s dangerous.”

  “What happens if it’s made wrong?” I asked.

  “Then it does nothing,” she said. “Or worse—it carries the poison deeper.”

  That chilled me more than anything else she’d said.

  I nodded slowly. “So you don’t use it for wounds.”

  Her brows drew together. “No. Never. That would be foolish.”

  “For water?” I asked, carefully.

  She gave me a sharp look. “No. And don’t start inventing new uses just because you’ve learned how something works once.”

  Fair.

  “I didn’t realize anyone here knew how to make this,” I said quietly.

  “We learned because we had to,” she replied. “Poison doesn’t care how clever you are. Only whether you’re prepared.”

  She turned back to Hyrum, already reaching for fresh cloth. “And now you know why I was angry.”

  “Yes,” I said softly. “I do. Who makes it?"

  "It is made in Alfer. I request some when I run low."

  "You call it purified charcoal. I will send a request. Again, I am sorry."

  I closed the door behind me as softly as I could.

  Why did speaking with her always feel like walking through a minefield? I was the regent to a baron. And yet one sharp-eyed woman with a basin and a strip of cloth could reduce me to a nervous boy hovering at the edge of the room.

  It didn't matter, though. If she had what I thought she had, everything would change.

  Outside, the air felt colder than it had inside her hut. My feet carried me on without much thought. My mind kept circling back to those brittle black chunks on Maggie’s floor. Something she treated like medicine and guarded like silver.

  As I walked to Jorb's, a memory long buried surfaced.

  My cousin back on Earth had been a camping fanatic, and that was saying it lightly. The only things he ever wanted for birthdays or Christmas were better boots, better packs, better knives, better everything. I actually think he was the one who convinced my parents they needed to put me into scouts. I guess I could stop hating him for that now.

  One year, he got a water filter as a present. He tore into the box like it was treasure, held the thing up like a trophy, and then launched into a speech no one asked for.

  It was one of those pump filters with a replaceable cartridge—about the length of a forearm—with a thick intake hose on one side and a clean hose on the other. He’d slapped the whole thing together on the kitchen table and started taking it apart again, pointing as he went, like he’d discovered the secrets of the universe.

  Nathan and I had stared at him like he’d lost his mind.

  He’d kept going anyway.

  All I remembered was that water went in dirty on one end and came out clean on the other—and that inside, it passed through layers. Big stuff first. Then finer and finer layers, each one catching what the last had missed. Somewhere in the middle was charcoal. He’d made a big deal about that part. Said it took out a good majority of stuff you couldn't see it what you might think is clean water.

  He’d been so proud of it, like it was the holy grail of camping..

  “I could probably filter toxic waste with this and drink what comes out,” he’d said.

  That had to be an exaggeration. But it sounded impressive to a twelve-year-old. And even now, walking back toward the blacksmith's shop with the smell of Maggie’s hut still clinging to my clothes, I could hear the certainty in his voice.

  In scouts, they taught us the simple version. You could boil water. You could let it settle. You could drip it through cloth to catch mud. And if you wanted it truly safer, you needed charcoal.

  Charcoal that had been treated. I can’t remember what they had called it but if this stuff could draw in poison from a stomach then it might be what we needed.

  I slowed near the edge of the yard, my boots crunching on gravel.

  Was what Maggie had the same thing? Or close enough?

  If it was, then I wasn’t just looking at a way to treat poison. I was looking at a way to change the health of every person in my barony.

  The question wasn’t whether it could work.

  Could I purify enough water for over a thousand people?

  And if I could… how much of that charcoal would I need?