The older of the two women hoisted a woven basket—half—filled with various herbs and mushrooms—higher onto her arm and wiped the sweat off her forehead. Squinting, she peered into the thicket of greenery, the snapping bracken and pounding hooves growing louder by the second.
“Come here,” Eva urged, pulling her daughter into a shallow hollow behind a rotting log spotted with white fungus. They crouched low, baskets discarded near their feet. Reaching into a leather boot, her mother withdrew a short knife, the dappled sunlight glinting off the blade. She crouched on the balls of her feet, poised to strike if needed. The music of chittering birds and chirping insects silenced as the thundering hooves grew closer.
A high—pitched whinny cut through the air as the mare crashed into view in a bloody frenzy. The horse’s spotted white coat was hard to see through thick, dripping blood. Eva appeared at the horse’s side, catching its free reins in one hand while the other stroked its muzzle. “Hurry,” she commanded, moving to the horse’s flank. The man draped across its back was limp and lifeless. They struggled under his weight, sliding him with an ungraceful thud to the ground, their hands staining a tacky red from his blood—dampened clothes. He didn’t make a noise as he landed, and Raylyn’s heart raced as her mother checked for signs of life, her ear pressed to his chest. “Alive! Get the baskets. Quickly, now! He doesn’t have much time.”
Raylyn rushed, grabbing the baskets, and returned to her mother’s side. Eva, still crouched on the forest floor, searched his body, her hands running the length of his torso. His silken shirt clung to him—saturated with blood—and she pulled at it. The fabric resisted, caught on a long laceration running the length of his torso. Fresh blood gushed.
Scanning her options, Raylyn grabbed the cloth liner from her mother’s basket. She shook off the herbs and pressed it to the wound, both hands applying pressure to slow the bleeding. Her training kicked in. If the bleeding could not be stopped, he would die. Even so, if his intestines are lacerated as well, he will die regardless … just more slowly. Her mother’s voice interrupted her thoughts.
“Where is the yarrow?” she asked, her voice urgent as she rummaged through the scattered pile of herbs.
“Here, in my basket.” Raylyn nodded toward it, not daring to remove her hands from the wound. Already, blood soaked through the cloth, dripping onto her hands.
Her mother grabbed the cluster of small white flowers and shoved it in her mouth, chewed intensely, then spit the wad back into her hands. On cue, Raylyn removed her hands. Eva applied the paste to the wound bed, holding her hands slightly above the wound. Closing her eyes, she chanted, “Heal and make whole. Goddess, help the bleeding slow. Heal and make whole. Needless be this woe.” Golden light shone from her palms, illuminating the man’s torso and the severity of the injury; it cut across his body from the right rib to the left hip. She repeated this process three times until paste lined the entire length of the laceration.
The golden light faded as Eva removed her hands. She knelt back, her face pale and exhausted. The man’s bleeding had slowed incrementally but still streamed down his stomach and dripped onto the forest floor. The earth gulped it almost greedily, and the surrounding soil dampened to a rich, dark brown.
“We cannot save him.” Eva’s voice shook and her tunic was drenched with sweat. She remained on the ground next to the dying man, whose only sign of life was his faintly rising chest.
“No…” Raylyn began, gravitating toward him as if magnetized. “There must be more that can be done!” Desperation overwhelmed her, coursing through her veins as inexplicable as the Goddess herself. Leaning forward, she pressed her fingers to his flesh, replacing the position her mother had just vacated.
“You are not strong enough. This is beyond us.” She grasped Raylyn’s shoulder, shaking her head. “It is our first and most important rule, Raylyn.”
“He will not die today,” she snapped, shrugging her mother off. Heat coursed through her body as her own palms radiated. Though a practiced apprentice, she had never felt such a primal need to heal someone engulf her. She needed to save this man as much as she needed air to breathe.
The golden light tied her to him, and they were no longer two separate people, but one. Through that connection, she poured herself into him, willing him to survive.
As suddenly as her desperation to save him began, it rapidly ended and was replaced by an icy realization: her energy was draining. Mother’s right. Of course I’m not strong enough, she thought, the crushing weight of panic tightening her chest. With hands still glowing, her head slumped, and her knees buckled. Her body crumpled atop his, the golden light at her palms flickering as they dimmed. An echo of desperation again filled her mind and—not thinking, not knowing how she did it—she reached out with her mind and pulled.
The power which flowed into her started as a trickle, breathing life into her limbs and strengthening her muscles. Pulling herself up, she drank it in like a starving man would a goblet of wine. Soon, waves of energy and euphoria crashed over her, and the light from her palms—dimming just moments ago—blasted with a blinding
force, filling the thicket with a brightness greater than the sun. Fire coursed through her veins, and she channeled it, directing it to the man in front of her. She stitched his torn intestines and knitted the muscles and skin as instinctively as breathing. Once he was whole, she closed the channels with difficulty, like shutting a door against the winds of a hurricane. Her heart pounded with exhilaration as she pulled her hands off the man’s abdomen, the only remnants of his injury his drying blood.
Hundreds of soft thuds filled the air, and she whipped her head up, disoriented. The noises soon stopped, the source of the sound clear. Swallowing back bile, she stood, examining the countless bodies of dead birds scattered on the ground. The vegetation, touched by the beginnings of autumn, was now completely dead, leaves curled and dried. She spun, eyes wide with horror. Even the pine trees, always so vibrant, were brown with death. Movement caught her eye as the stranger stirred, his lids fluttering. “He lives? Mother, he lives!”
Eva’s eyes were wide with horror. She spoke, her voice barely louder than a whisper. “What have you done?”
“I—I don’t know. But he lives!” Raylyn kneeled forward to study the unconscious man. His face was no longer ashen, and his chest rose steadily with deep, even breaths. She fingered the collar of his bloodied, silken shirt. Though it was hard to distinguish through the gore, the stitching bore a repeating pattern of eagles and crowns. “He’s part of the Court,” she said, gesturing at the pattern. Only those of royalty and prominent members of their employ wore the emblem of the king. Intoxicating triumph rose in her once again, the dead wildlife all but forgotten.
Her mother did not move to examine this new revelation. She remained on the forest floor, a sheen of cold sweat covering her face and drenching her tunic. Trembling, her pallor mirrored that of the stranger’s just moments ago. Eva steadied herself before speaking, “Go back to the village. Find your father and instruct him to assemble the council. Have him send four men and two stretchers
here. You will wait for me at home.” She paused for breath before continuing, “You will not leave the house until I have returned. We have much to discuss. Do you understand?”
Raylyn, taken aback, considered these instructions. She knew the energy her mother exerted had been great, but to be unable to walk the trail back to the village? Never had she seen her in such a state despite years of practiced healing beneath her. This is worse than when the Draundy baby had croup, Raylyn thought. The child’s lips had been blue, and yet her mother was able to expel the illness from his lungs, hardly breaking a sweat. An extra serving of mince pie was all she needed for her revival that night.
And the village council? Raylyn reasoned it was to discuss the presumed royal who was laying before her. Her father had been part of council longer than her sixteen years of life. The only times they met formally were when harvest yields were low, or a crime was committed.
Instead of obeying, Raylyn went to her mother’s side. Crouching, she brushed the sweaty hair from her mother’s forehead. “Momma, are you okay? What can I do?” She kept her hand on her mother’s skin and concentrated, preparing to channel again. Before the warmth of the golden light could shine through her palm, her mother batted her hand down as if swatting a fly, cringing.
“I will be fine. Do as I instructed.” An unspoken accusation in her eyes kept Raylyn from arguing further.
Concern for her mother cast a shadow over her earlier excitement. Her soul now thrummed with an unknown energy and she felt more alive than ever. She didn’t experience the same fatigue her mother did. But why? One moment, she felt her life slipping away… But something had changed in her mind, like a brick wall crumbling, opening an area never discovered. She took one last glimpse at the stranger and his soiled finery before hiking through the dead foliage, her crunching footsteps the only sound in the unnaturally silent forest.
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