The bone-setting table inside Smelting Ward Seven smelled of steamed mint, boiled vinegar, and willow-bark anesthetic.
Apothecary He had his knee pressed against Lin Ke’s left shoulder blade. His gnarled hands gripped the fractured ends of Lin Ke’s collar bone.
“Inhale,” He ordered.
Lin Ke inhaled.
CRACK.
With a sickening, muffled crunch, He leveraged the bone fragments back into body posture, binding the fracture with three layers of braced oak and linen soaked in bitter Bone-Knitting Slurry.
Lin Ke’s vision flashed grey, his teeth grinding together with a dry click. But his breath remained steady.
He had spent thirty-six hours on this table. Meanwhile, he cleaned the second-degree heat burns from his forearms, drained fluid from his punctured left lung, and rubbed cooling healing animal fat into thirty separate live-merge deep cuts across his ribs and thighs.
