Page 34

KLEOS

I was familiar with the general air of chaos around the animal sanctuary.

I might have chosen another career path, but I was an innate healer—I volunteered in the emergency rooms of the hospital in the vale when they called for assistance, and was often voluntold as a helper in the Guard’s infirmary.

I could immediately tell from the energy behind the desk that the staff wouldn’t have time for us right now. Something urgent was commandeering their attention.

Lucian strode straight to the front desk, and given who he was, a woman in a white fitted cloak detached herself from the group of whispering healers to greet him. Valiant effort aside, her expression remained concerned.

“Mr. Regis. We were expecting you. I understand you have an enquiry?”

“Yes—” I could tell he was about to launch into his request, so I placed my hand on his forearm.

It was unfair that the fabric of his iridescent coat felt just as soft as it looked, like a crow’s feathers. Hopefully no bird had been plucked to get the effect.

His head snapped straight to me, an eyebrow cocked in some sort of a challenge. He seemed to tell me, well, do you believe you’ll get better results than I will?

I rolled my eyes. Not everything was about him. “I’m sorry,” I told the healer. “You look busy? We can absolutely wait.”

The petite stout lady, with a severe bun holding back brown curls and bright green eyes, blinked several times, glancing from me to Lucian. I didn’t think she’d ever heard of a Regis waiting for anything.

Well, this one would have to learn.

“I—” She cleared her throat. “We have a bit of a situation. A night fox’s hurt—something took a bite out of it.

We have to make a decision. We don’t like putting down anything if we can help it, but it’s suffering,” she blurted, speaking to herself more than us.

“If you don’t mind—just a moment. I’m discussing it with the senior staff. ”

Here goes nothing. “Could I take a look?” I bit my lower lip. “At the fox. I’m a healer.”

She didn’t know me from Adam, and the woman clearly had authority here.

She must have studied for a decade to get to her role.

I expected her to chastise me for my cheek.

Even hospital healers, traditionally trained through hard work and dedication, hated the way I could just show up and do what no amount of studying could teach them.

Instead of launching into a lecture, or questioning my qualifications, the woman asked, “A core healer?”

I nodded.

She sighed deeply. “Sometimes, I have doubts, and then the gods provide just when we desperately need something. See? This is Apollo’s work, mark my word. This way, if you would.”

She quickly lead us through the staff entrance, calling a few, “Out of my way!” as she ran. Her legs were so short I could walk at a normal pace to keep up.

We soon were all but pushed into a room with a sterile operating table.

The whole thing felt familiar to me. The fox was still, its pelt, dark as night and as shiny as Lucian’s coat, was matted with thick blood just as gold as his frozen, wide-open pupils.

They must have had to immobelized him with a potion like the one Lucian used on me for the rune work.

It was safer than completely putting a creature under anesthesia, when they were so hurt.

His golden blood marred the operating table underneath.

He was hooked up to an IV, but I could tell in one glance the blood they used to replenish his wouldn’t help much—it was from a regular fox, not a magical creature.

It was likely the best they could do. It wasn’t good enough.

Feeling just how close the poor thing was to the edge, I wasn’t polite. There would be time for answers later.

One hand up, I sent a jolt of power propelling the instruments in the healers’ hands, slowly approaching the creature’s body, to the floor.

“Lucian,” I demanded, my hands sinking into the dark fur.

I was glad I didn’t need to spell out what I wanted from him; he put his hand on the creature’s head and red strands of mist gathered in his palm, offering the dying beast the same thing he gave me on Friday. A little bit of life.

Its pupils widened. My own hands were surrounded in golden strands as I found the torn organs, the broken bones, the gnawed muscles .

I screamed as phantom echoes of the pain seemed to tear my own flesh.

Most of the time, I could shield myself from the effect of other people’s pain as I healed, but it took effort, and all my attention was focused on mending the damaged body underneath my hands.

By the gods, it was a miracle the poor thing had survived this long.

I understood why they’d been talking about putting him down.

You will live. You will live. I demand it. I command it.

Runes flew at the edge of my vision, and I chanted them to myself as I worked.

“ Algiz, Eihwaz, Jera, Uruz.” Protection, strength, peace, courage.

It was a risk, given the state of the beast, but I pushed it.

“ Thurisaz .” The rune of Thor, one of the strongest, and capable of destruction unlike any other.

But it also meant power, and the poor thing needed it right now.

To my shock, as I worked, I noticed the very same rune marked on my left arm, close to my elbow, glow a brighter red. I’d always seen them, but the physical representation was certainly new.

“By all the gods. How?” the healer demanded frantically.

I was still chanting to myself, and pushing as much of my power as I could into the fox without risking making the poor thing explode, so I didn’t bother to answer, but I understood her confusion.

Regular healing magic could stop bleeding, and speed up the natural healing process. It could pause the progress of curses, regrow teeth, mend ankles and ribs in a matter of hours rather than weeks.

It couldn’t regrow flesh fast enough for the eyes to see it. There were two other innate healers in Highvale, both powerful in their own rights. Neither could have made the tissues stretch and fill and knit themselves whole as the seconds passed.

The fox was out of danger now, the skin already regrowing, but there was no point stopping halfway, so I kept going until there wasn’t a bit of fur out of place. I liked a job well done.

Once it was over, my fingers were disgusting, soaked by the golden blood, and shaking a little with the echo of all the pain I’d let in. I moved to the sink and scrubbed my hands, feeling way too many eyes on me. It was unsettling.

“I don’t know how,” I told them. “You might as well ask that guy how he can suck the life out of people. It’s just what I do.”

It was hard to accept for a lot of people—that there was no shortcut they could take to do what someone with an innate ability was able to do.

“Also, my healing sessions are a shock to the system. His joints and bones might have reset in a different way than how they used to be before. With humanoids, they stay under observation and need rehab after I help,” I warned the speechless doctor.

Lucian handed me a handkerchief to dry my hands. “Do you need to sit? Drink? Take a moment.”

I shrugged. “I’m fine.”

The woman who brought us here cleared her throat. “We have an owl with a broken wing and a hound who’s not letting us close enough to see what’s wrong, but he walks funny.”

I nodded. “We can have a chat about the reason for our visit while I work. If it’s not an emergency, my attention doesn’t need to stay as focused.”

I paused by the fox on my way out and patted his head. As did Lucian.

The stares were uncomfortable as we left.

""So why aren't you working as a healer?" Lucian asked quietly while we followed the portly lady, now taking her time.

She stopped every member of staff on the way to let them know the fox was safe. It was clear the entire building had been on high alert about the situation. It was refreshing to see people care so much.

"Not every music prodigy wants to dedicate their lives to it. Some just play for fun." It wasn’t the first time I’d answered that question. “Just because I was born with the skill doesn't mean it's what I want to do every day of my life.”

"I'm particularly well placed to understand this. I was also born with an ability I don't make much use of."

Somehow that surprised me. I felt like Lucian was the kind of person who always used a hundred percent of his abilities. "Oh? What's that?"

"Raising the dead. Very messy. A veritable hell on footwear. And it doesn't pay as much as you'd think."

"I'm going to pretend you're joking to avoid all the nightmares."

I knew he could suck the life out of people, but actual necromancy ?

I’d heard that the Regis patriarch was capable of it, but I figured it was one of the many scary stories people repeated about Cassius to make him sound more terrifying.

As though, “he killed seven hundred people in one night” didn’t do the trick.

As our guide was distracted, chatting with another healer, I lowered my voice and confessed, “I don’t like working around regular healers, doctors, trained people.

They either worship me to an extent that makes it creepy, or they hate me.

” I couldn’t imagine submitting myself to their judgement every day.

“I volunteer, though. Occasionally. It kills me that I could help people, save people, and don’t, sometimes. ”

I’d never openly said as much to anyone, not even Silver. She understood me, but I hadn’t spelled it out. What was it about Lucian that made me spill my guts after one glance into his gray eyes?

“You know, I flew commercial, once.” He made it sound like it was a journey into the unknown.

I opted not to tell him I flew commercial every time I took a plane—generally in economy, unless I was traveling with my parents.

That hadn’t happened since I was a kid. “The security staff said something interesting. You should put your seat belt on before helping anyone else. That stayed with me. Of course, if the plane had crashed, I ought to have prioritized landing it safely over anyone’s mortal security contraption. ”

I grinned back at him.

“The spirit of the advice is sound, though. You can only help others if you’re well.”

He understood. He didn’t think I was selfish to not spend twenty-four seven locked inside a hospital room.

“Thank you.”

Lucian didn’t ask what I was thanking him for.

“This way, if you please!”

We followed the woman into the aviary.