Page 9 of A Healer's Wrath

His eyes fluttered open, but they roamed past my face, unseeing through a haze of pain and delirium. He passed out as quickly as he’d woken.

“Hurry up!” I shouted, my own panic rising.

“I’m coming,” I heard from down the hall.

As I looked closer at the wound, I realized this was far more complex than any injury I’d treated. If something like this came in the door, Rist might let me observe, but I would not be allowed to so much as assist with treatment. Siena, in her freshly minted Blues, might not have been allowed to touch such a patient.

My mind raced.

I had no idea where to begin.

If I pulled the wood out, he could bleed out.

But I couldn’t just leave a spike inside a man. He’d die just as easily from that.

I probed the skin around the entry, and blood raced to the surface and coated my fingers. My teacher was dying in front of my eyes, and I had no clue how to save him.

In that moment of terror, two things happened.

First, the Constable returned and dumped the bag of bottles, cloths, and equipment to the floor beside me with a loud thud. I barely heard it over my own thundering heartbeat and the raging storm outside.

Then, an uncontrollable heat rose within me. It felt like the sun rising above the Spires, a dim glow at first that grew into a blazing heat that warmed all it touched.

Light blossomed in my palms.

The Constable staggered back and yelled something.

The Light was blinding—and beautiful. It begged to . . . to be released.

Without a thought, I did the last thing any physiker should do: I gripped the wood with one hand, pulled it free from Rist’s chest, and tossed it aside. Blood exploded from the gaping wound. What stones lay untouched were drenched. My smock turned from white to red in an instant. I tasted bitter copper on my tongue.

Rist’s face lost all color, as though the blood spurting out had stolen his very life.

The glow from my other palm flared, and Light surged into the wound, a river undammed and raging toward the sea. Rist’s body lurched, his chest arched high, and he moaned so loudly I was sure the whole city heard his cry.

I gaped.

Was I helping or killing him?

I couldn’t tell—but the Light didn’t care. It thundered out of me, untamed, uncontrolled.

Everywhere blood marred skin, the Light flowed.

Master Rist began to glow.

Time froze, yet somehow crept forward. I hovered over Rist’s limp form, magic coursing out of my spirit into his. I had no idea how to use whatever power flowed through me, so I squeezed my eyes shut and uttered a prayer to the Spirits for guidance.

As if in celestial reply, an image formed in my mind, a vision of the inside of a man’s chest. Desperate, I imagined my hands moving from one injury to the next. I cleaned, mended, sewed, and drained, over and over in my mind’s eye, until the cavity appeared as perfect and whole as was illustrated in Rist’s books. Then I drew the skin across the chest and sewed it closed with threads of glistening Light.

My eyes opened wide, and I gasped as the wound on Rist’s forehead sealed, leaving no trace of any injury save the blood staining his skin. When the glow faded, the gash in Rist’s chest was replaced by a pink line of newly formed skin.

I had no idea how long the Light had consumed me. It had felt like only moments—and lifetimes, as well.

I looked up to find the Constable slumped against the far wall, his eyes wide and mouth agape. Finn sat beside him, his expression the same. Siena stood opposite, arms crossed, glaring down, her face an unreadable mask.

Exhaustion overtook every other sensation.

I slumped to the floor, and unconsciousness took me.