Chapter Seven
W hile assessing the prone child, I try to focus on the woman’s words, most of which are too shrill and incoherent to catch at all. The young girl can't be older than eight and is unconscious. After a quick assessment, I don’t see any blood or obvious injuries. Her dark skin has an ashy pallor, which is worrisome, and her tiny hands are cold to the touch.
“What happened before she fell unconscious?” I turn back to the woman, cradling her hand. The contact has a calming effect on her. She looks down at the girl and takes a deep breath, as if realizing her words are the key to saving the small child.
“My Ness—” Tears slide down her cheeks. She blinks them away and tries again. “Nessie, my daughter, was out playing this morning while I was preparing the bread for the day.”
Thaliya, sensing a serious problem, has found her way to the mother’s side. She pulls her in close while the woman’s body wracks with sobs she desperately tries to stifle. “The soldiers came. On one of their raids for food. Usually, they don’t bother those of us in Merula, but I’ve heard tell of them bothering the homes of those who can’t stand up to them. I hated to do it, but I had just told Ness of the raids and to be wary. She’s still so young, happy, and full of hope—” Her ramblings, the parts I can make out, paint a picture of brutality I can't even fathom. “There must’ve been at least six of them. With my little Nessie standing her ground, not seeing the danger of turning them away—the child is truly afraid of nothing.” She turns into Thaliya, stating the last part as an important aside.
“The king’s soldiers?” I ask. Thaliya reprimands me with narrowed eyes at the incredulous tone in my voice. But I can’t help it. I can't believe the king’s guards would harm a child. The bruises covering the child tell a different story, though. The woman glances at me and then back to Thaliya.
Thaliya soothes her by gently rubbing her arm. “What happened between Nessie and the soldiers?” she asks, bringing the woman back to the issue at hand.
“Words were said. Nessie, ever headstrong, even in the face of grown men, wouldn’t let them pass through the gate. She knew they were after our pantry and she wasn’t going to let them take all we’ve stocked up for the winter ahead, knowing they’d take more than their share. They surrounded her. The ring of the first slap, followed by Ness falling to the ground had me running, no longer frozen in place watching this horror unfold. I ran at them with my tea towels flapping in my hands.” She gives a small, hysterical laugh. “I guess they didn’t want an audience. I think I spooked them, but not before one of them delivered a swift kick to her stomach. They turned as one and walked off.”
My mind races with this information, but I try to focus on the parts that will help the child. If the kick hit just so, she could be bleeding from the inside. If this happened this morning, she could’ve been bleeding for hours before the mother brought her here. I look up and meet Thaliya’s gaze and her face hardens into the same facade I’ve seen before. She sees it, too. There’s little we can do for the child now, but we’ll try anything to save her.
Another healer guides the mother, now besotted with tears, away so Thaliya and I can work. We both kneel beside the child’s bedside and the buzz of the ward falls away until it's just me, Thaliya, and the child.
“There’s not much we can do for her now.” She clasps the child’s hand and shakes her head, a barely perceivable tremble to the strong woman’s features.
“We have to try. There has to be something we can do.” My hands rest over the girl’s abdomen. “I know there’s something we can do.”
Something changes in the way she looks at me, assessing or weighing how invested I am.
“Yes,” she says simply.
“Yes?” Confused, I look around the room and then back at the child, thinking someone will come to save her, someone I haven’t yet discerned.
“Okay, we will do this. You will do this.” She gets up to pull the curtains around this bed and returns, placing herself across from me. She places her hands on top of mine, still resting on the child’s stomach. “Remember, Roe, know yourself, know your path.” She repeats the phrase I have grown up with. One she would start each lesson with no matter how small. Even after all these years, I use this as my mantra to recenter myself amid all the chaos. The panicking mother behind me fades into the quiet buzz and my breathing slows with the phrase repeating in my mind, know yourself, know your path .
I ready myself for her instruction, but nothing comes. I look up from where our hands rest together with question. But I only find she’s looking at me expectantly as if I should know what to do.
Time is running out, I can feel the young girl’s heartbeat slowing, and her lips are tinged blue around the edges. I don’t understand what Thaliya is trying to show me, but there’s a tightness growing in my chest and it's getting difficult to ignore.
Her pursed lips and furrowed brow tell me she’s waiting for something. I wish she’d clue me in on what it is so I can move forward. This girl’s life is in our hands and she’s waiting. “What are you waiting for?” I blurt out, trying for a whisper, but the anxiety I feel ratchets it up to more of a whine.
“What are you waiting for, Rowandine? Use what you know. Use what you can feel,” she says, still patiently awaiting me to figure out her puzzle. She waits a beat longer and evidently takes pity on me. “Close your eyes. Use what you feel to help her.”
“I feel as if I should get someone else to help,” I say; the frustration rising alongside the panic. Thaliya bats at my hand in reprimand but does not lose focus on the girl.
“Close your eyes. Envision where the bleeding is. Feel how to fix it.” She pats my hands again and nods me forward.
I stare at her a moment, replaying her words to make sure I hear her correctly. Deciding she did in fact just say heal this child through feeling, I give a slight shake of my head, unsure of what she’s asking me to do. But I close my eyes, trying to figure out how to focus on what I feel.
“Can you feel it?” she prods.
“Yes, yes of course I feel it.” At first, I just feel the child’s skin beneath my fingertips, cool to the touch. I don’t want to let Thaliya down, though.
But then, I try to visualize what’s going on within the child. It feels wrong, like there’s too much blood in a place it shouldn’t be. I can feel her pain and how her little body is fighting to hold on. I grab onto that fighting feeling and wrap it within my desire to heal her .
A warmth begins to grow in my palms. At first, I think I’ve made it worse and she’s bleeding out before us, but no. When I crack my eyes open, there’s no blood, just Thaliya’s hands on top of my own and a pale white-green light glowing underneath. Startled, I jolt back. But Thaliya holds tight so our connection doesn’t break. She murmurs comforting, inaudible sounds and encourages me to continue.
I close my eyes once more, falling back into whatever we’ve created. With my eyes closed, I use the warmth from the light and try to point it toward the broken and bleeding parts of the child. The light doesn’t need more than a small nudge before it knows its path and where to go. In my mind’s eye, I can see it mending its way through the child. The way the warmth fills all the cracks and patches and broken spots is too much to comprehend. But the bleeding dissipates and I can even feel her skin start to warm and her breathing even out.
I’m afraid to open my eyes, but Thaliya’s hands fall away from my own and she whispers,
“There, there.” Tears slip from my closed eyelids because I think she’s comforting me for an impossible job with an impossible outcome. But the child’s body shifts and when I look to see what’s happening, she’s trying to twist out of my arms and off the bed, searching for her mother.
Something between a sob and a laugh escapes me as I sit on my heels and watch as Thaliya reaches back and removes the curtains. Instantly, the mother swoops in and swallows her daughter with hugs and kisses.
Thaliya’s movements catch my eye. She’s busying herself to give the family some space, so I follow suit. As soon as we’re out of earshot of anyone else, the question bursts from my lips. “What just happened?”
“You felt it.” I notice then that she’s practically vibrating with pride. “ You’re ready.”
“Ready? For what? Wait, Thaliya—”
She moves quickly to the back of the ward where her office is. She motions me into an old chair beside the fire and sits opposite of me in its match. I try once more now that the bustle of the ward has fallen away and only the gentle crackle of the fire before us fills the room. “What just happened?”
She smooths her apron across her dress, busying her hands while she finds the right words. She takes too long, so I begin. “There was a light. A light coming out of my hands.” I stare down at the offending appendage, but there’s no trace of the glow—the magic—from moments ago. “Thaliya, we fixed the girl. With light.” This can’t mean that I—there’s no way. My father is the one responsible for ending magic’s hold on the human race.
“Yes.” She smiles. I can see pride and exhaustion in the way her eyes crinkle at the edges. She leans in closer with her elbows on her knees. The firelight dances behind her, bathing the room in comforting warmth.
“But that would mean.” I lean in closer and my voice drops low, even though we’re completely alone. I swallow hard before managing to get the words out. “That there’s magic here.”
“There’s always been magic here. Merula was home to the Fae first, after all.”
“No.” I bolt upright as if stung. That can’t be. There hasn’t been magic in Merula since Father overtook the Fae. He freed the humans from their inferiority in the shadows of the Fae and other magical races before they used their magic to destroy us and wipe humankind off the continent. I shake my head. “No. ”
Thaliya’s lips thin with unease, but she pushes forward. “And you’re a part of that magic.”
Thrown off by her truths, I look at my hands once again where the pale green light emanated from, but now, they just look the way my hands have always looked—a little callused from my work in the gardens and earth and the two parallel lines of fresh scars, but nothing special.
“You felt it, just now. You felt the power of the earth's magic coursing through your body. So powerful, you were able to heal that little girl, an impossible task.” Her voice is gentle and slow as if she’s explaining something to a child.
“That can’t—I can’t—” I look up, but she’s nodding as I try to work this out.
“You have something special within you, so special. So special you don’t even know how much you can—”
I think about my poultices, and how they work quicker than any other healer’s. Even the ones who have continued on with their studies way beyond where I’ll ever be. I think about the way if I lay my hands on someone who’s wounded or ill, I can always make quick assessments about what should be done.
And what about my gardens? And how any person who came by the cottage always remarked on how exceptional they were. Even Avicii was beyond surprised at my garden. I’ll never forget how he looked at me the first time he came home. His response was so excessive, and not with the excitement I felt at the time. I should’ve known right then—both about Avicii and the magic.
“Can you do this, too?” Raising my hands and spinning them back and forth, trying and failing to completely grasp what this is and unable to hear more about myself at the moment.
Her nodding stops and she leans back in her chair. “Yes. The others here don’t know I do. Maybe they sense it, but they’re unaware they have a Fae with earth magic in their midst.” She motions toward me. “Two, in fact.”
I blink and go completely still. If what she says is true, then I am not an Aeronwick, I’m entirely something else.