Ainen took inventory at the sixteenth hour, and what he found made the decision for him.
Kayla was unconscious and would stay that way for hours. Emma's light was gone entirely. Almond couldn't stand without help. Jian's ribs had cracked properly at the Ashfall Basin and hadn't stopped getting worse since. Forty-three wounded, two of them critical, and a healer who couldn't heal anyone until someone healed her first.
And six days left.
"We don't have a healer," he said into the sector link. "So I'm going to be the healer."
"You're a cook," Marcus said.
"I've been telling all of you for a year that those are the same job. Nobody listens." Ainen was already moving. "I need harvesting crews on every gate. Anything that dies from now on, I want parts of it brought to the center. Organs, glands, marrow, sap, ichor, whatever it's got. Don't sort it. Just bring it."
"You want us to cook the monsters," Noah said slowly.
"I want you to kill the monsters. I'll handle the rest."
