AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Their journey through the home only further proved how massive it was. They took another left and wandered what felt like the entire length of the house before Valen finally stopped and rapped a knuckle against a door. A slender woman answered after a minute of long silence. Her eyes were red-rimmed with sleep and she pulled a robe tighter around herself. There was no polite greeting as she peered at the men outside her door. She waited.
“Sorry for the call at this late hour.” Valen shifted under the scrutiny of her gaze. “We have a few guests who need tending, if you might.” She opened the door wider. Remis assumed this was meant as an invitation inside. Valen turned back to the three and exhaled with a smile. “Thank you once again for your assistance on our city's border. Once you’ve been treated, head back out the way you came and a carriage will be waiting to take you to the inn. Tell them that the warlord sent you. I’m confident that Ellie here will treat you well enough.”
The three nodded, committing the name to memory, and allowing their host room to walk around them. With hurried steps, he left them to the woman who had still yet to speak. Remis offered her his most charming smile, the one that had rarely failed him when it came to women. She didn’t smile back.
Her room, they found as they stepped inside, was full of shelves stocked with tonics, herbs, and other assortments of dark-colored glass bottles. Everything was arranged in neat rows without so much as a speck of dust. Remis gave pause when he scanned the room and saw larger glass jars clustered together, all of them hosting an arrangement of horrifying contents. Eyes of many different colors with nerves still attached floated in clear liquid next to what appeared to be intestines or another pinkish organ that was wound in circles to the very top of the container. Clusters of ribbon-tied hair and small piles of what might have been nail clippings were next. He stopped letting his gaze wander when he noticed what looked like pickled fingers.
“Are you a bloody witch?” Percy asked, the frustration on his face replaced with horror and disgust.
Witch. The word had risen in the back of his mind only for him to shrug it off, but Percy had said it out loud. Given it substance.
The oddities she hosted in this room certainly gave the impression that she was more than an ordinary physician. The Empire’s stance on witches hadn’t changed much since most of them were either killed or forced into hiding during the decade that Grandith Augustine, the father of our current emperor, had hunted them down. Witches were powerful, if not the most powerful beings, within our country's borders. They were rumored to have talents that went against all understanding. Witches who could control animals, riffle through someone’s mind, or even boil a man's blood within his veins. Such vengeful creatures that it was said one had put a curse on Grandith himself and that is where his hatred rose from. Either way, Augustine did not take kindly to witches anymore.
The only bit of magic that wasn’t thought to be corrupt was that of the lesser mages. Entirely elementally based and easily drawn forth from the earth. Any man could accomplish it if they dared to try. Though some men, like Remis, were naturally more attuned to nature and the world’s magic than others, the possibility remained an option for all.
Despite his interest in magestry, he still felt weary at the thought of being so close to a witch. The curse on his hand was warm, nearly hot, and pulsed in time with his beating heart. He squinted at the woman who only frowned at Percy as she pointed him to the seat next to a metal table.
“You can’t just go about accusing people of being witches,” Merritt whispered in a hiss.
Percy’s voice was low but not quiet enough to prevent Ellie from hearing them. “Have you ever met a physician that had eyeballs in a jar before? Or one that collected hair?”
The cloth Remis held to his shoulder was drenched with blood now. He wasn’t sure it was doing much of anything, but he was grateful for the seat when the room felt as if it was a moment away from spinning.
Ellie cradled her supplies, cloth and bandages, and a small jar of salve. She set it upon the table and turned her angry eyes toward Percy. “Do not speak of what you know nothing about. If you want to be helpful, there is a jar of burn cream in the corner behind you for your friend.” Then she turned back to Remis. “I wake in the dead of night for you pathetic lot and this is the thanks I get.” She sighed. “Let’s see what we’re dealing with.”
The whites of Percy’s eyes shone as they widened but he took a tentative step toward the shelf the physician was speaking of. Several jars clinked as he shuffled them about examining the bottles.
Remis carefully pulled the wadded, blood-soaked cloth away from his body. Bits of the fabric clung to his shoulder and pulled at the ragged flesh around the wound. He closed his eyes, breathing through the throbbing pain. It helped to concentrate on a different pain, the more worrisome pain. He forced his thoughts to focus only on the gathering of heat in his palm. He closed his hand into a fist and dug his nails into the fabric wrapped around it that was now crimson-soaked from holding the other bandage.
Ellie’s nimble fingers poked and prodded, needling his discomfort before she began wiping away the blood. He groaned when she pulled at the skin and groaned some more when he felt the needle go in and then back out again. Colors danced behind his eyelids as he squeezed his eyes shut tighter. He didn’t want to see the needle or the blood.
“A warning might have been nice,” he said through clenched teeth.
“A warning wouldn’t have changed anything. It would still hurt.” There was no empathy in Ellie’s voice. His injury was just another problem she needed to solve before moving on. After a few moments, she pulled the thread tight, closing the jagged flesh. “What happened?”
He cracked an eye open, watching her quietly as she picked up some sort of salve. “Dragonis attack. Saved by my friends.” Remis gave a slight nod toward the pair as Percy worked to cover Merritt’s burns in the ointment. “The warlord said that the city doesn’t have a patrol currently.”
“He said no one wants to work,” Merritt added. “In Warlord Erskine’s territory, people fight over a chance at the job.”
Ellie arched a brow, pausing her work. “The patrol is striking. Warlord Vigor drastically lowered the pay about six months ago. It’s hardly enough to make a living from, much less be enough to risk your life for.”
Instantly, Remis thought of the gold and all the other fine materials the warlord surrounded himself with. It didn’t appear as if the man was hurting for coin.
“Why lower their pay? It’s a respectable job, a necessary one even,” Merritt asked.
The woman’s sigh filled the room. Remis swore he saw one of the jarred fingers twitch. “Greed, I suppose. It doesn’t affect him or his family much. They're having their own flame cannons added to their home this next week. Vigor only laughed at the strike saying it’s only hurting them.” Remis winced as she applied the salve with brutal efficiency. Its sickly medicinal scent stung his nose as she continued. “He isn’t wrong. No one protects the borders and the dragonis pick off the peasants who live on the outskirts, the very people who would want the job. It doesn’t affect him at all but it affects them greatly. I’m actually quite impressed they’ve continued the strike for this long, but I doubt it will last. Eventually, they’ll be desperate enough to save their homes and their families.”
Greed Remis was familiar with. It was a disease that started as innocently as ambition. If a person wasn’t careful, that desire for success could be corrupted. They’d get what they’d always wanted only to realize it wasn’t enough. There would always be more and more after that. Greed could not be satisfied and it ruined all that it touched.
She placed the lid on the salve and then held it out to Remis. He took it with his marked hand, and she glanced down at the wrap. “Keep this, reapply twice a day. You’ll likely have a terrible scar. Beast tore through muscle too. Give it a few days rest and then you’ll need to stretch and rotate your shoulder daily to keep it from getting stiff. Would you like me to look at your hand, as well?”
He forced his breathing to remain calm. In and out, in and out, controlled, even when his unease rose. “No, it’s not a new wound, already almost healed, but thank you.”
She shrugged and turned to Merritt. “I suggest wearing thick gloves if you’re meant to do anything with your hands, but when you’re not, leave them exposed to the open air. Don’t burst any of the blisters purposefully but if it happens on its own, use a small scoop of the salve I’m sending with your friend and wrap it up for the day.”
Already the agony in his shoulder was giving way to a much simpler and easier to handle tenderness. His skin tingled slightly before his shoulder started a descent into blissful numbness. If anything though, the pain from the dragonis had only been passed on to the pain in his hand. The huntress mark was fully ablaze now and he fought the need to cradle his hand against himself.
“Could you hold this?" Remis passed the salve off to Percy. He tried opening and closing his hand but the movement only made it worse. A fire burning through his flesh.
