Just another weirdo

Not enough is what you would have told him if he’d asked. One hundred gold for a life? It wasn’t nearly enough.

A shield comes flying, wheeling through the air like a blade. You fling up your arm a moment before it would have hit your face and have the pleasure of feeling your forearm break instead of your cheekbone. You grab at the break with an anguished hiss. The pain blinds you.

By the time you remember your patient, he’s dead.

You stagger up. A steady green glow emanates from under your palm, chasing the pain from your broken bone. Healing yourself has always been easier, months of trial and error on your own body creating a muscle memory you’ve never developed for others. Your gaze darts. The backline is quickly dissolving into the frontline. The enemy – whoever the fuck it is, the one wearing red capes instead of blue – is hacking at your side like lumberjacks at trees. Your white healing robes are nearly black with mud. It’s not a stretch to imagine one of the desperate combatants from either side striking you down without ever noticing the concentric circles on either side of your lapels marking you as a Healer.

At last, at last, you feel the spell around your throat loosen. A sharp ding! trills in your head. A new compulsion settles into your bones.

Retreat. Find the Lord. Now.

The relief of being free to flee is short-lived. The Lord will be furious at the results of today’s battle. Never mind that his advisors all cautioned him against directly attacking another Lord on their land. Never mind that his Knights told him that an untrained force – no matter the size – wouldn’t win against a Duke’s forces. Never mind the hundreds of reasons that Lord Neid lost. It will be your fault. For not being fast enough or cunning enough or strong enough—

The fear of the Lord is costly. This whole time you’ve managed to not falter in your duty, to plunge into chaos and rescue patient after patient, to march forward even as your legs began to shake. But now you stumble as you turn to obey your commands. Fall to one knee.

There’s a whistling, deeper and meaner than the whistling of an arrow. Something collides with the back of your head and the sound is so loud that the compulsion is shaken right out of your bones.

You fall forward into the cold mud. Your vision is bleary though from the blow or the mud, you don’t know. You don’t know a lot, actually.

Blackness consumes you.

----.The start.---

You become a Healer a quarter mile underground, deep in the mines where only the adults are allowed to go. It’s been a long time since the collapse, and the air is thick and borderline unbreathable. You would consider it fully unbreathable if you weren’t still conscious. You sit with your back against the wall, head tilted so you can gaze sightlessly at the stone above. Salvation is a quarter mile above you at most. Or, in the best case scenario, a few meters in the next tunnel over. Your lip curls. It hardly mattered. A mile of rock and a few feet of it are all the same when you don’t have the tools to dig it.

Sisi coughs again, her chest seizing so hard that her head nearly lifts from your lap. You press your cold hand against her burning forehead, shushing her as best you can through dry, cracking lips.

“Some b-birthday,” she whispers.

You can’t see her face, but your mind has gotten quite good at conjuring in the darkness. You take a moment to paint her red hair sweeping back in big, loose curls, her constellation of freckles darting across her high-bridged nose, the sweet twinkle of firelight in her grey eyes. Of course there probably isn’t really a twinkle in her eyes now or the healthy flush that you remember from last week’s horseback riding adventure. You clear your throat. “Not yet.”

Sisi swallows, the sound loud. The tunnel collapse has only left you with a cage about seven feet in any direction. When both of you are silent, you can hear your blood moving through your veins. Sisi gathers her strength and asks, “How long…?”

You don’t know how long the two of you have been trapped. Neither do you know how long until you’re rescued or how long until your birthday. The blood at your hairline is dry and flaky, no longer tacky. “Two days, probably.”

“Then soon,” Sisi says. There’s a light pressure on your left arm. Sisi has wasted the strength to touch the spot your Destiny is supposed to appear. “I’ll be the f-first to know.”

There’s no humor in her voice. She doesn’t have the energy for it. Still, a bubble of mirth fizzles up your throat. She’d begged you to let her be the first to read your Destiny, even before your parents. She said that, as your best friend, it was her right. You hadn’t promised her, even when she pointed out that you’d been the first to know she’d gotten Villager. “You always have to have your way.”

Her hand falls away from your arm and hits the ground with a dull thud. You panic until you realize you can still hear her thready breath. She’s fallen asleep. Please let it only be sleep.

You stroke her hair. Sisi is hurt worse than you. When the support gave, she grabbed your hand and forced you to run long before your brain realized what was happening. And when the rock above you groaned, she slung you forward, throwing herself on top of you as the world collapsed. Now the only thing you can do for her is cushion her head and answer when she speaks and listen for the sound of her breath in the endless quiet of the underground.

It might not be a bad idea for you to sleep too.

---Now---

Waking is boring. You have the sick taste of healing at the back of your mouth. Your head is clear. If another Healer had tended you, you’d still be foggy. Mildly concussed. The clarity tells you that once again your muscle memory has saved you. Even knocked out, your self-healing is top tier.

Your glasses are gone, but you can guess where you are. You smell underground and there’s torchlight flickering through your eyelids. You’re not wearing your glasses so you don’t bother opening your eyes yet. You won’t be able to see anything without them.

Not that you need to.

You’re in a cell. That’s also boring. The inside of Lord Neid’s cells are like a second home to you. It’s where he stores his pet Healer when his pet Witch spends too long on missions and the spells wear off. You reach out to the nail wedged between the stones above the head of your cot. With any luck, whoever retrieved you from the battlefield also retrieved your glasses. If they did, they’ll have hung them up in the usual spot—

There is no nail. There is no stone. Wood meets the pads of your fingers. The smell of underground – you haven’t mistaken that. However there is no accompanying smell of damp or mildew. Instead, there’s the scent of a wood-burning stove, laundry soap and…perfume?

You jolt upright. Your robes are gone. You’re wearing a nightgown that’s nearly as soft as the blanket that crumples into your lap. You blink quickly, squinting through the torchlight. There are bars surrounding you, but that’s where the similarity ends. Wherever you are is paneled in oak, the bed you’re lying on a four-poster rather than a cot, and there is a fire crackling in a hearth across the room from your cell. You can just make out someone sitting next to it, on a stool next to a small table.

The person shifts. There comes the sound of paper rustling and then the rounded puff of air that comes from a heavy book being closed. “You’re awake.” The woman doesn’t sound upset. In fact, she sounds pleased and a little surprised. “My doctors assured me it would be another day yet.”

She’s little more than a dark figure even when she stands and walks closer to your cell. Her clothes could be a black cape or a black dress and her head is either topped with a truly impressive amount of thick, black hair or a wide hood. There is a glimmer of silver at her throat and on her hands when she gestures to the bars. “I am sorry for the cell, Healer. It’s only until the spells wear off.”

Healer. Your hand flies to your upper arm, covering the letters instinctively. You can feel the spells at your throat circling like a snake. You don’t need to ask what will happen when Lord Neid’s spells wear off. New ones will assuredly be put on. “Where am I?”

“Behind enemy lines,” the woman says dryly. “I told Neid not to test me.”

Your head throbs. Whatever luck you might have had has run out.  “You’re the Lord.”

“Lady,” the woman corrects. She moves back to the table. There’s scraping as she drags her stool to the front of your cell. “Duchess, actually. Duchess Genevieve Axelon, though you can call me Lady Gen.”

Lord Neid attacked the Duchess? You press the heel of your hand to your eye. “Am I being charged with treason then, Duchess?” Any act against the Duchess, the King’s cousin, would surely be seen as an attack on the royal family.

“You were going to be,” Lady Gen agrees. “Until my Knight recognized those spell markings. Now we have options.” She settles on her stool and considers you. “There have been many tales about you, Healer. Your existence has given Lord Neid’s household a reputation. They say you can heal any wound, even those afflicted by demon beasts. They say you can bring people back from the dead.”

“Nobody can be brought back from the dead,” you say. “Not in their entirety.” A body is a simple thing to order around. The compulsion around your throat squeezes as if just realizing you’ve woken. You hiss, eyes falling shut and your hand moves from your arm to your throat. Come back. Find Lord Neid. NOW. The words pulse through your bones louder and louder until your teeth chatter.

“The next few days will be painful,” Lady Gen observes. You hear her from a long way off. Is she pitying you? “I’m sorry. I have no Witch to offer a counterspell. I also cannot allow you to return to Lord Neid.”

You gasp through the next wave of pain. Like the tides, it laps at you hungrily, building its momentum. “I do not want to go back.”

“Not now,” Lady Gen says. She rises in a rustling of skirts. “I’m told that that compulsion won’t kill you, but it will feel like it’s trying to. You must remember to eat and drink when you can. If you can bear with it, through it, we can talk of freedom, Healer.”

The word lands like a blow more surely aimed than the thorns beginning to poke down your spine. “F-freedom?” Suspicion worms through you. “Whose?”

“Yours,” Lady Gen says.

---The start—

Sisi doesn’t answer when you call anymore. Your legs are numb under her head, and you’d be worried about paralysis if you weren’t still able to wiggle your toes. You won’t move her. Her breathing went funny when you tried to shift her last time, like water got stuck in the back of her throat, and you don’t ever want to hear that sound again.

When the two of you first set out to explore the tunnels, there’d only been four days left before your birthday. You’ve wracked your memory repeatedly to be sure. It feels as if you’ve been buried for weeks, but that can’t be. Everyone says getting your Destiny burns and your arm is as cold as the rest of you. That means it hasn’t even been four days.

Nobody is coming. There’s the possibility that more than this tunnel was affected in the collapse. They could be digging in the wrong place or not able to reach this section of the mine. There was a reason this section was marked for the adults only. Maybe they stopped looking days ago and thought well they should have known better.

No. No, you know that last thought isn’t true. Sisi’s parents are miners. They know that miracles can happen down in the shafts and they won’t give up until they’re sure their daughter isn’t one of them. And your parents may be older and frailer, but they’re also former adventurers. You’re sure that they’ll fight until the end to find you.

It’s this thought that finally spurs you into action. You’ve always been told by the village Chief – a Miner – to never dig if you’re in a collapse. Any movement could cause more instability and cause another cave in; one you wouldn’t survive. But it’s been at least three days and there hasn’t been even a whisper of rescue. Sisi is just getting worse and worse and you have to do something. If you’re going to die down here, you want it to be in a way your parents can be proud of.

You want to fight until the very end.

You ease Sisi off your lap, carefully arrange a pile of debris under her head so her neck stays at the same angle. It can’t be comfortable, but Sisi doesn’t wake.

“I’m going to get us out of here,” you whisper to her. Your legs shake as you stand. You feel the top of the tunnel. The spot where you and Sisi were sitting is under a support that feels mostly intact. With any luck, Sisi will be protected if your digging triggers another collapse.

You shove your fingers under the first stone and yank. With a quick chatter of disapproval, it jumps. You yank again. It falls. A river of dirt and gravel drops from the ceiling to fill the space like sand in an hourglass. You scoop it behind you. Find the next rock. Yank. Gravel and dust falls. You choke on the dust. Scoop it away. Push and pull and yank.

The rhythm of digging becomes your heartbeat. Your fingers bend backwards and your nails wear down to nothing. Your arms burn. Each time the rock scrapes and the pebbles clatter, that’s victory. Every time your muscles scream and rocks bark their protest, that’s fighting. If your parents find your body with you hands worn to nubs, at least they’ll know you tried.

When a gentle green glow begins to light your way, you barely notice through the treacherous tears.

You dig.

-----. Now---

Witchcraft is a mean practice. The Witch’s compulsion hooks under your skin and spears into your bones when you least expect it. Move. Go. Find Lord Neid. When you’re able to resist, you lie in bed, scarred fingers fisted in the bed sheets and eyes fixed sightlessly on the wood paneling above you. The magic hates when you’re inactive and does its best to motivate you. The soles of your feet burn and your lungs ache for air as the spell twines around your throat. The only thing that relieves the pressure is to stand and take a faltering step in the direction you know Lord Neid to be. But that’s all you have room for. A single step.

Then the burning starts again.

When you aren’t able to resist, you find yourself scratching at the bars of your cell as if your nails are strong enough to chip metal. Your fingers break and bleed, but your healing needs only a moment to fix it. Your cell glows green as you break and repair, break and repair, break and repair under the weight of your compulsions. You know you beg in these moments. There’s always a guard posted by the fireplace and you promise them any number of healings to free you, promise them years of your servitude, promise them every bit of gold that you don’t have. If the guards answer you, you don’t know. The compulsion screams in your mind and drowns out even the sound of your own breaking bones.

Then there are the moments your leash rests. The spell retreats like a hungry tiger, circling and looking for a new angle of attack. When this happens, you try to sleep. Then, eventually, these moments occur more often. The teeth of the spell are wiggling, bleeding at the gums, starting to fall out.

In one of these peaceful times, Lady Gen comes to visit again.

“I’ve had my Rogue look into you,” Lady Gen says. She drops the Destiny as if it’s the most normal thing in the world and not one of the ten outlawed. Well, former outlawed. This King doesn't hold the same biases as his predecessor. She continues. “I’d like to confirm a few things.”

You expect her to ask questions about Lord Neid or the master you had before him. It’s not hard to find information on your past. As a Healer, you’re coveted. When the underground put you up for sale, people from all over rushed to put in a bid before the Crown had a chance to shut it down. You stand, feeling wrong to sit in front of a Lady now that you’re feeling better, and croak, “Alright.”

Lady Gen flips through some paper. “You’ve been in Lord Neid’s hands for two years?”

“Three. It took him half a year to find a Witch.” You’d refused to perform any sort of healing for the first year he had you. You fought the entire way through the ritual and, even with the Witch’s spell tattooed across your throat, you still dared to heal Lord Neid wrong the first time he asked. Your lip curls. The scar cutting across his cheek and dragging at the corner of his eye is the best gift you’ve ever given. You rock on your heels. “It took another six months to get the compulsions right.”

“You’re twenty-two years old?”

“Probably.” You’re not sure how long the Underground kept you before the auction.

“There’s a report you once regrew another captured person’s arm.”

You shake your head. “Reattached.”

You can feel her eyes on you. “There’s no record of any other Healer being able to perform the same feat.”

“I haven’t met any other Healer,” you say. “I’m sure they could if given the right incentive.”

Lady Gen is curious. “What was the right incentive for you?”

“I wanted the kid to have an arm,” you say. You pause and admit, “Her dad also helped convince me.”

Another flip of a page. “Hero Bern.”

A name you haven’t heard in a long time. For a moment the scent of underground is joined by clove and spice. The face that swims to the front of your memory is mostly patched salt-and-pepper bear and kind brown eyes. You remember the wide, calloused hand that never let go of the thin, frail one by his side.

“We called him the Big B,” you say. “Didn’t know he was a Hero until the jailbreak.”

“You were assumed dead during said jailbreak.”

You shrug. “They jumped to conclusions.”

“The castle came down on your head. And the two levels of dungeons above you.” When you don’t answer, Lady Gen sighs. “You must have felt so abandoned. Hero Bern did try to save you. He was devastated to hear you were still alive.”

You raise an eyebrow. The spell is rousing itself, sliding its scales against your jugular.

“Alive and recaptured,” Lady Gen corrects. “He failed to uphold his end of the deal.” Her voice softens. “He and his daughter paid their respects in your hometown. They begged your parents for forgiveness.”

“My hometown?” Your heart jumps. Even to Big B, you never gave your name. Never told them where you came from. You were captured on the road to the Capital after being foolish enough to display your power to the wrong, demon-wounded merchant. Your tongue feels thick and heavy. You shake your head. “No. No, I—” Don’t have a hometown. The denial is stuck in your throat.

“My Rogue was impressed by how many times you’ve been assumed dead,” Lady Gen says. Her voice softens. “Even when they assumed you dead, your parents never stopped looking for you, Elodie.”

The sound of your name is a lightning bolt. Your heart pounds. “I—They—” Your knees shake. She knows your name. That’s your name. You fall back onto your bed. Instinctively, green light fills your palm, and you clasp it over your chest. There’s nothing to heal. Your heart pounds against your ribs. “I’m—”

Lady Gen sets her notes down. “Elodie?”

Grey tugs at the corners of your vision. Hope and terror and pain claw at each other. You suck in breath after breath. A ghost whispers in your ear.

“Elodie?”

---the start---

“Elodie?”

Sisi’s thin voice shocks you. Your hands buzz as they still for the first time in hours. The aftershock of your digging feels like bees in your bones. You’re more shocked as you turn and see her for the first time in days, cast in a simmering green glow that emphasizes the sick hollows of her cheek and the blackness of the blood caked in her red hair. “Sisi!”

You fall to her side. The power that courses through you – you’re an idiot. The same power that’s healed your nailbeds into durable scars should have been used on her first. You grasp her hand and wrestle with the energy inside of you. The green shine is reluctant to leave you, but you brute force it from your chest, down your arms and under her skin. It’s not easy and the hiss that slips from both of you tells you it’s not pleasant either.

But it works.

Sisi’s breath evens and eases. Her long lashes cast deep shadows across her face. “Elodie…are you…?”

Your Destiny burns on your arm. “Healer.” You’re dehydrated and tired and hurt and scared, but you can’t help but grin. “You’re the first to know.”

“As I should be,” Sisi says. She tries to sit up and gasps. “Ow.”

“Stay still.” You make yourself go back to the hole you’ve been working on. You don’t think it’s your imagination that the air is easier to breathe or that there is a faint flow coming through the cracks in the stones. You don’t want to get her hopes up. “I’ll work on this.”

Sisi cocks her head as you grasp the first rock. “Wait. Do you hear that?”

From a very long way off, metal strikes stones.

---Now---

It is another day before the spell breaks. It’s a strange feeling when it does. You wake at dawn to the feeling of open spaces, as if you went to bed in a cave only to find yourself in the center of a glade the next morning, dew misting your face and the sweet sound of a creek singing in your ear.

You suck in a breath deeper than any before. Your ribs flare and your eyes open at the force of your exhalation. Free. You’re free.

Well. The walls of your cell press closer as you rub sleep from the corners of your eyes and sit up. You massage the bridge of your nose, wishing for your glasses. You are freer than before.

Now, with your mind clear and your body light, it’s time to find out what the Lady will do with your name and past in her hands.

From the day you were first captured on the road to see Sisi’s graduation, you’ve never told anyone your name. You’ve never wanted your family to be used against you. When your parents pulled you from the mine and learned your Destiny, they did your best to prepare you for what the world would want from you. They had told you to rely on them, to trust them to protect you, but you’d never wanted to put them in that position. Your elderly parents, beaten by years as adventurers, were not as strong as they pretended. The threats they hinted at during your lessons were too big. Too bloodthirsty. You’d been determined to bear your Destiny alone.

The door to the dungeon creaks open. You know the sound well by now, used to your rotation of guards and doctors. You get out of bed, smoothing the bed sheets the best you can. The stairs are winding and tedious. You have a moment to prepare yourself for whatever new leash is put around your neck.

You reach out for the water glass on the small meal table. You drink greedily and pause when you go to set the glass back. There’s a glimmer of gold on the table. Your glasses. Your scarred fingers would know the feel of them in complete darkness. A bubble of relief pops in your throat. At last you’ll be able to see clearly. Lady Gen’s voice may sound kind, but her face will reveal the truth.

You put them on and turn to face the rapidly approaching footsteps. You raise an eyebrow and fold your arms, tracking them through the stone wall as they approach the door to your dungeon room. Lady Gen isn’t alone today. Perhaps she’s bringing an advisor or Knight with her. Maybe she’s found her own Witch to tie you to her servitude. You aren’t opposed to serving the woman who saved you from Lord Neid. You prepare your stipulations. You definitely need to get paid this time, for one, and she shouldn’t touch your family—

The door flies open and pale, freckled face with a riot of red curls flies in. Grey eyes like the ocean glimmer. The young woman stops and covers her mouth with both hands. “Oh! Oh, Elodie.”

“Sisi,” you gasp. You stumble to the bars of your cell and somehow she is right there and her fingers are entwined with yours, palm to palm. The heat of her skin tells you this is real. You blink very quickly. It takes you several tries to speak without sobbing. “I missed your graduation.”

“Yeah,” she agrees. Sisi isn’t so reserved. Tears slip down her cheeks and her laugh is choked by tears. “You kind of owe me one.”

Behind her an older woman and a man come in. Their hair is grey (what they have left of it) and the woman has your wide nose and thin mouth. The man has your blindness, hidden behind thick glasses.

You look over Sisi’s shoulder at them, unable to let her go, feeling the barrier of your cell all the more keenly as a natural compulsion settles into your bones, begging you to run to them. Your breathing stutters. “You looked for me.”

Your dad’s chin trembles. “Every day.”

“We knew you wouldn’t give up,” your mother says. She pushes up next to Sisi, drags your father with her so that all three are pressed against the bars of your cell. “So neither did we.”

And you’re fifteen again, the gaps in the stone growing wider and wider to reveal your village on the other side, covered in dust and sweat. Hands grab at your arms, your shoulders, your back, pulling you into an embrace that feels like home. Your mother is telling you how proud she is, your father is shaking with the force of his tears, and Sisi is pressing kisses to your cheeks and to your forehead and thanking you for being alive.

An aggrieved sigh comes from behind your family. “If you’d waited, I could have unlocked the cell first.” Lady Gen slips efficiently past your mother to twist the key in the lock. “You make me feel like Neid, hugging through the bars like that.”

Arms and hands release you, step back, throw the door open. And then your family is all around you, burying you between their bodies in a way that should feel suffocating but instead feels even better than waking up without a compulsion around your neck.

You gawk at Lady Gen. Look to the open cell doors. Then back to Lady Gen, standing alone and unprotected in the dungeon. “You’re…releasing me?”

“The spell is gone,” Lady Gen says. She moves to her usual spot by the fireplace, settling onto the stool. She tilts her head and her thick, black hair falls like a waterfall over her shoulder. She’s more stunning that you could have guessed and, now that you can see her clearly, you’re mesmerized. She’s like a painting come to life. “You’re free. Like I said, now is the time to discuss your options.”

Sisi whispers in your ear. “When the pretty Lady offers you a job, take it, okay?”

“I offer quite the compensation package,” Lady Gen agrees. She gestures to the four of you. “Family relocation, for example.”

You are starting to like the sound of options.

------.

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