19. Tressa
“How are you finding your accommodations?”
Tressa looked up from where she was washing a bloody rag to find the Guardian standing in the doorway to her private washroom, watching Tressa with a glint of triumph in her yellowed eyes. The Guardian was small, shorter than Tressa, but the power the Guardian held seemed to radiate from her in warm waves, like Tressa was standing too close to the sun.
“It’s lovely.”
“Good. Everything here was remodeled to your sister’s liking.”
The Guardian had been friends with her father, Darius Abebe. They had grown up in the House of Dark together before Darius married Tressa’s mother, becoming King of Life, and the Guardian had won her own Choosing.
As far as battle magick went, the House of Life had none, and was the weakest House. It was a tradition long before the Abebes that the Guardians would send soldiers to protect the House of Life borders.
According to the Guardian’s Law, when families challenged other families for the Kingship of their House, no other Houses or magick types could compete in the Arena of Rights. Fire Magick holders would fight against other Fire Magick holders.
House of Life was different. Families of different magick types, related by marriage, could fight for them. It was not uncommon to see a family of dark holders fight against a family of Fire or Ice to secure the House of Life seat. The only requirement for House of Life in the Arena was that a holder of Life Magick must sit on the throne and the Council of Houses.
Darius Abebe and his brothers had fought for Tressa’s mother, securing her spot on the House of Life throne, and the Guardian had been their biggest ally. She had tied her name to the Abebe house, and swore her support, so that if any families thought about fighting the remaining Abebes in the Arena of Rights in Valitlinn, they would fight the Guardian herself. There were always whispers about ambitious families here and there, but no family had dared to challenge them for nearly a hundred years.
When Tressa’s father had died, everything changed. The protection was no longer that of a friend—it now came with a price. The Abebes were to offer one member of the family to be always in the Guardian’s service. Roo, Tressa’s younger sister had happily taken up the mantle since the position had been stationed in Valitlinn, a city far larger and more cultured than Lulevar, the House of Life capital city.
Tressa had been volunteering for their sister House, House of Death, helping them with their border skirmishes when the news of Roo’s death came. She was now required to fill her sister”s position of the Guardian’s Healer. It had been passed to Tressa since she was the only surviving Abebe besides her mother, the Queen.
Tressa looked around the room, trying to ignore the grief sitting in her soul like a heavy rock. “It’s lovely, Guardian. Roo always had exquisite taste.”
Something like sorrow flittered in the Guardian’s eyes. “She did, if not a bit expensive. But more importantly, she was an excellent healer. Her work was precise. Something I expect from her sister as well.”
The Guardian eyed Tressa, the implication sitting heavy in the air between them. Do your job, or my men and my protection will disappear.
Her mother had not yet taken another husband after her father. If the Abebes were to be challenged and called to fight in the Arena of Rights, it would only be her and her mother to fight. Even with Tressa’s other abilities, they would not survive. Tressa swallowed. “I understand, Guardian.”
“Whose blood is that?”
Tressa looked down at the bowl. “One of the Contestar’s. Claira. She had a broken nose.”
“That will hopefully be one of the most minor injuries you treat here, if we hope to cull the Contestars quickly.” The Guardian smiled, a cold dead thing that sent chills up Tressa’s spine, before the Guardian turned and left the Hall.
Tressa stood, watching the Guardian, before focusing back down on her hands. The bowl was decorated with gold leaves on the edges and had a ridged interior, specially designed by Master Healers to help scrub linens and fabrics clean.
The bowl wasn’t the only thing decorated with gold in the Healer’s Hall.
The Healer’s Hall had been built perfectly to her sister’s specifications and tastes. It was the most beautiful, cleanest, and the most technologically advanced Healer’s Hall that Tressa had ever seen. Every inch of the room reminded her of her sister.
Roo had been the Guardian’s master healer for over a hundred years before she had been Marked as a Contestar. When Roo had been randomly selected to die so that the Hunter would have a strong enough connection to find the missing Contestar, the Guardian reached out to Tressa and demanded that she take her sister’s place.
The Contestars would go through unimaginable trials during the Choosing. It would test their bodies and minds to the very limit; the Hall was more than adequately equipped to handle almost any survivable ailment.
Places where Tressa could heal the sick and wounded were usually havens—her place of refuge and purpose. This place only served as a constant reminder of the sacrifice that had been forced upon her, upon her sister.
Tressa continued to scrub and clean until low voices entered the Hall, and Tressa’s head perked up.
She abandoned the bloodied rags in the bowl and turned to wash her hands completely clean. When Tressa finally emerged from the bathroom, she almost tripped and had to hold onto the door frame for support.
The long lost Contestar was striding down the center aisle of the beds, her attention focused slightly behind her on the purple haired woman who was always with her.
The Contestar had the confident walk of someone who was completely familiar with the way her body moved. Her posture was straight, but not stiff, unlike Tressa’s own posture, and not like some of the other nobles Tressa knew.
Everything about the Contestar screamed predatory grace, and something about it set Tressa’s very soul on edge, her instincts urging her to get away.
Tressa didn’t have to give the Contestar any instruction as she sat on one of the beds and peeled her training leather top up and over her head, to better reveal the burned flesh that ran up and down her arms.
The Contestar had obviously been in a healer”s rooms before, knew what to do, what would be asked of her.
Why would she be so familiar with the process?
Tressa stared, fingers shaking almost violently at her sides as she fought the urge to reach out and grab the nearest scalpel.
Treat her like a patient. Treat her like a patient. Just until the Selection, treat her like a patient,Tressa intoned silently to herself.
The Contestar finally looked up and over her shoulder at Tressa, catching her stare. Tressa wasn’t completely ready, but she steeled her spine and forced herself to walk toward the Contestar anyway.
It wasn’t as hard for Tressa to treat the Contestar like a patient as she thought it would be.
Almost as soon as Tressa crossed from the shadow of the bathroom’s doorway and into the Hall, the smell of the Contestar’s burned flesh filled her nose. She moved to view the wound; genuine horror filled her throat.
“What happened?” Tressa choked out, crouching down by the bed, and inspecting the burned flesh. It was red, bloody in spots, and blistering everywhere up and down the Contestar’s arms. The skin around her biceps were blackened in the shape of . . . a handprint. A burned, crispy handprint.
Bile rose in Tressa’s throat.
When the Contestar didn’t immediately answer, Tressa looked up and found her two clear blue eyes watching her carefully, monitoring every single movement Tressa made.
The Contestar tilted her head. “Training accident.”
The Contestar’s low, clear voice sent goosebumps down Tressa’s spine. There wasn’t any kind of agonized inflection or waver in her voice from the pain when injuries like this would send most seasoned soldiers to their knees.
Who was this woman? Could she not feel pain? Had she been tortured and broken?
“Doesn’t it . . . does it hurt?” Tressa stuttered. Her eyebrows furrowed together, and she shifted her weight from one foot to the other in uncertainty.
There was a heavy pause, and Tressa looked up to find the Contestar’s companion similarly watching Tressa, analyzing her critically.
The silence was awkward, and Tressa’s palms suddenly felt sweaty.
“Yes, as you can imagine, Little Healer, it hurts quite a great deal. So, unless you have more questions for me . . .” The Contestar waved her fingers, gesturing to the burn, and Tressa snapped into action.
“Yes, yes,” she muttered, wiping the back of her hand over her brow bone, then focusing on the burn. She started in on the blackened flesh, peeling it away with tweezers and using her magick on the wound until it was blistered and a deep angry red, before moving to the other burns up and down the Contestar’s arms.
When she could feel herself straining, she stopped. She’d closed all the skin, but the two handprints wrapped around the Contestar’s biceps were still clearly visible.
Tressa had avoided looking into the Contestar’s eyes as she worked, even though she could feel the Contestar’s gaze on her, heavy and searching the whole time.
Tressa collapsed at the end of the bed, wiping the sweat away from her forehead again, and forcing herself to look up to meet the Contestar’s eyes. “That’s all I can offer you today, and maybe tomorrow, too. More healers will arrive throughout the week, but for now . . .”
“No, thank you. That was more than enough.” The Contestar finally took her eyes off Tressa and reached for the top of her leather armor laying on the bed between them. She should give her a numbing cream, she should offer to cover the wounds, so they didn”t ache as much, or get infected, but a dark, secret part of Tressa wanted it to ache. She wanted the Contestar to be in pain.
“Wait!” Tressa blurted, surprising them both. “Let me get some bandages so the blisters don’t pop.”
She hurried to the storeroom without waiting for an answer, quickly grabbing a salve and some linen strips. Tressa hustled back and sat opposite the Contestar, who offered one of her arms to Tressa, palm up, arm slightly out.
Tressa gently applied the salve, and just as she started with the bandage the Contestar finally spoke. “Should I know who you are, Healer?”
Tressa’s fingers fumbled for just a moment before they were steady again. “No.”
The Contestar was quiet until Tressa moved to her other arm. “Well then, who am I to you? I saw you that night on the balcony. Your glare would have killed me if it could have.”
Tressa was quiet, silently gathering her courage as she applied the salve and finished wrapping the linen around the Contestar’s arm. She piled her supplies in her arms and stood up on unsteady legs to look down into the Contestar’s clear blue eyes.
“They call you Long Lost Contestar.” The words felt like sand in her mouth. “The Contestar they had to sacrifice my sister to find.”
“What do you mean?”
“My sister was Marked for the Choosing, too. When you never appeared, they pulled names out of a bowl, my sister was picked, and they sacrificed her so that the magick you held was strong enough for the Hunter to find you.”
The Contestar’s friend huffed, either in laughter or surprise, Tressa didn’t know, because Tressa ignored her, keeping her eyes locked down on the face and the clear blue eyes that remained unmoving and empty. Tressa stared at the Contestar—despite her instincts telling her that this woman was very dangerous—and tried to convey her loathing and hatred before finally turning on her heel and walking away.