"I'd like to stay a little longer," Emery said. "I can do more good here."
Valder regarded him with mild interest. "You have contributed enough."
"Have I? I don't feel I've done much."
The king nodded toward the alchemist tents, where Ivaris's colleagues were bent over rows of stretchers, tending to the wounded and examining the infected. Their new experimental pills were being tested amid the chaos, with alchemists carefully recording every reaction and adjusting their treatments as needed.
"The recipes you brought are great contributions," Valder said. "Besides, I would rather not keep an important guest at a border like this."
The king was a man of few words, yet every sentence he spent urging Emery to leave only made him more uneasy. There was something about Valder's insistence that Emery couldn't quite understand, and he was running out of excuses to remain.
