Chapter 12 #2
It took a second for her question to register. I was too caught up in how terrible Rummy looked. “Yes—yes,” I stuttered. “In the forest. An animal jumped out of the woods, and before we could stop it, she was impaled by one of the horns.”
The woman muttered beneath her breath, her words sounding foreign.
I glanced up, making brief eye contact with Xavier before we both zeroed in on Rummy and the woman again.
She placed a hand on either side of Rummy’s face, humming to herself. Her eyes fluttered closed, and she tilted her head up to the sky. The humming grew louder by the second, and in the silence of the inn, the vibrations overtook the room.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
In my periphery, Matthias shot a daggered look my way. I ignored him.
The woman stopped, frozen. The room went eerily silent, with only our breaths echoing off the thin walls. Finally, she opened her eyes and said, “There is a darkness in the girl. The darkness comes and comes, and she cannot fight it.”
A shiver erupted down my spine. “What does that mean? Can you heal her?”
Her attention moved from Rummy’s face to the wound on her abdomen. She lifted the bloody bandages, then scooped her bag up and rummaged through the contents. “I can heal the wound, yes, but…”
My stomach sank. “But what?”
“But I cannot help the girl beyond that. I am only a healer of the physical world.”
“What are you talking about?” Xavier took a small step forward. “You’re saying she’s sick or something?”
The woman clicked her tongue and shook her head as she applied a salve to Rummy’s wound. “In a way, yes. And it will get worse.”
Was she serious? “Are you going to tell us what that means? How to stop it? Or are you just going to keep speaking in vague terms?”
Ignoring me, she held her hands over Rummy’s torso, keeping them hovering an inch above her. I’d seen Wolf heal using his magic before. It was rare, and he hadn’t perfected his abilities yet, but he had the same gift.
When a white, luminescent light radiated in the small space between Rummy’s torso and the woman’s hands, the three of us froze, watching in awe.
The woman remained focused on her task. If she was a true healer, she likely did tasks like these multiple times a day. This was probably as easy as breathing.
But to us, it was a damn miracle.
Right away, the large, infected wound on Rummy’s torso began to close.
Of their own accord, my feet moved, bringing me closer. The red, irritated skin healed, the wound shrinking until there was nothing left but a red scar.
Only then did the light stop. Only then did the woman move her hands.
“I told you,” she said. “I can heal the physical body, but the magic within her is a disease of its own. You must help her with that.”
Dread washed over me. “Help her how? What kind of magic does she possess? She’s never wielded before.”
The woman stood and faced me with a stern expression. She did not seem to care in the slightest that I was an angel or that I was at least two feet taller than her. The blood coating my clothing didn’t faze her. Neither did the massive sword strapped to my hip.
Her eyes were fierce. Determined. Steady.
“Darkness becomes the chain that binds, love discovers the thread that unwinds. The girl will know what it means.”
My blood froze in my veins as she spoke the same damn words that had been forced into my brain in the Whispering Caves.
Without another word, she snatched her bag from the bed and started for the door.
“Wait! We haven’t paid you!”
With her hand on the knob, she looked back. Her focus slipped to Rummy for half a second, then back to me. “Fight the darkness. I’ll take no payment for what that girl must go through. It’s hardly a healing journey.”
And then she was gone.
The three of us stood in the silence for what felt like a damn hour. We listened to the woman’s footsteps grow fainter, fainter, fainter, until they disappeared completely.
“That was fucking freaky,” Xavier muttered when the room was silent. “Are we supposed to believe that Rummy is possessed with some sort of weird darkness?”
Unease swirled in my gut. “I have no idea.”
The unrest dissipated, though, when I got a good look at Rummy’s mended wound, and I blew out a relieved breath when I used my senses to listen for her heartbeat. Her pulse had already grown steadier, her breathing deeper, like her body could finally relax after fighting for so long.
“Is the woman insane?” I asked Matthias. “Does she always spew nonsense like that?”
When he didn’t answer right away, I turned to him. His eyes were locked on Rummy, but they became distant. Dark. His brows were drawn together and his hand was pulled up by his face.
It looked as though he was locked in a memory.
“Matthias?”
He snapped out of the trance, shaking his head. “What?”
“I asked if that woman is always spewing that sort of nonsense. Do you have any idea what she was talking about?”
Head lowered, he focused on the floor. “She’s an old woman. She’s seen a lot of things. I wouldn’t expect to make sense of half the shit she says. But she healed Rummy, didn’t she?”
Shrugging, I surveyed the woman on the bed. It was incredible, how much better she looked. “I guess she did, yeah.”
“Then that’s all that matters. She should be good as new by the morning.” With that, he spun on his heel and stepped out into the hall.
“Where are you going?” Xavier asked.
“I’m going to find food, then I’m taking my ass to sleep. I suggest you do the same.”
The door shut loudly behind him.
With a sigh, I ran my dirty hands down my face. “It’s been a long fucking day. I can’t even begin to decipher what just happened.”
Xavier stepped closer. “He’s right. She’s healed. That’s all that matters for now. If this mystical darkness we know nothing about overtakes her, we’ll deal with it then, okay?”
I nodded. “You’ve never heard her say anything about her magic, right? I mean, she doesn’t wield?”
Xavier shrugged. “If she does, I’ve heard nothing about it. As far as I know, she hates magic just as much as she hates all of us.”
“Right. That’s what I thought.”
Xavier left soon after to find food, but I stayed behind, unable to leave Rummy until I knew for certain she would be okay.
Her hand was still so damn cold, but color was slowly seeping back into her skin. “Come on, Rum,” I mumbled. “You can’t die on me just yet. We’ve got years of fighting left in us.”
She turned her head one way, then the other, as if in response to my comment.
I stiffened, waiting for her to wake up and give me hell.
But her eyes remained shut. Then she mumbled incoherently, her words barely audible.
“Rummy?” I moved closer, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Rummy, it’s me.”
“Jes,” she croaked. “Don’t let it take over, Jes. Don’t let the darkness drown me.”