“Please, there must be something you can do for her.”

The prince’s plea was so heartwrenching. Few of them could even look him in the eye.

“What about Eir?” Loki asked. “Could she at least heal the infection?”

“Of course I can heal a mere infection!” Eir snapped materializing from nowhere.

“It is not a mere infection,” Asena sighed. “It may have gotten into her blood stream and it is entirely possible that she is septic or worse, gangrenous. She also has frostbite on the edges of some of the wounds.” She glared at Ehren as she said this. “Over all her condition is precarious. By rights, she should be either dead or in a hospital.”

“I see,” Eir murmured. “You can feel the curse?”

She directed her question to Askel, who nodded in affirmation.

“Could you direct someone to it so they could remove it?” she asked.

“I…I’m…I don’t know,” Askel stuttered. “I’ve never done anything like that before. I…I…I didn’t even know…that I could feel the curse until now. I don’t want to endanger my sister’s life by trying something new.”

“Tell me, where do you feel her curse the most?” she demanded.

“It’s concentrated near her heart,” Askel explained. “It’s most likely in her blood because I can feel it traveling through her body, like her heart is pumping it around.”

“So we need to scrub her blood of the curse?” Eir clarified.

Askel nodded, “But we have to take it from the heart, scrub it, then allow it to be pumped through the rest of her body. I imagine it will be excruciating. She’ll need to be sedated and kept unconscious until her entire body has been scrubbed of the curse.” He glanced at Loki. “Who’s going to scrub her blood of the curse?”

“According to her, only Loki can remove it,” Eir shrugged. “I have no reason to believe that has changed, even with it mutating at an alarming rate.”

“Can you do it?” Askel asked turning to Loki.

“I’m not entirely sure,” Loki replied honestly. “I will do everything in my power to undo what I have done to her. She has suffered enough.”

“Good,” Eir clapped her hands together. “Now, shall we begin?”

Eir had set up a contraption that was supposed to pull the blood from Akira’s body to where Loki was seated before returning to her body. Askel sat next to Akira, with his hand hovering just over her heart.

“Loki, do you feel the curse?” Askel asked him.

Loki held his hand over where Askel’s was. He could sense the writhing mass of dark, twisted energy. It was terrible. The feeling made him shiver involuntarily.

“It’s almost like she’s possessed,” he noted absently.

Askel nodded.

“That’s the curse,” Askel told him. “Can you feel it move from her heart throught her blood vessels and back again?”

Loki nodded though his eyes were shut in concentration.

“Think you can pull it from the blood once it leaves her heart?”

“Even if we do that there seems to be a root that will regenerate if it is not removed,” Loki answered at length.

“Yes,” Askel replied. “But I cannot feel the root yet. I believe that once the majority of the curse is out of her body, I’ll be able to feel the root. That means that you should as well.”

“Is it even possible to remove the root?” Baldr asked. “The root could go very deep and removing it could kill her.”

“I won’t know until I’m able to feel the root,” Askel answered not looking at Baldr.