No One's Chosen (62 page)

"The healer is in the High District?"

"Teas's father said he had heard of her. She is good
and discreet. Apparently she treated Teas a number of times as a
child. Or he says anyway."

Óraithe had never heard of this healer woman. Not
once did Teas mention meeting her or going for treatments or any
such thing. The news of it was curious to her. And certainly a High
District healer was paid fees that were far too high for the owner
of a scrivening shop. She had heard of men losing an arm to rot
rather than pay the coin for a healer. The thought of coin reminded
her of their pouch of gold.

"How much did she take for the service?"

The pouch was at Scaa's side and she patted it
lightly. The coin purse was a deal flatter than it had been
earlier. "Ten gold."

Óraithe winced. "How much is left?"

"Five silvers and a pair of coppers." Scaa did not
seem bothered overmuch by the news.

It was still more money than she suspected either of
them had ever had to hand. The thought of ten gold wasn't even a
thing Óraithe could properly conceive of. They had paid it to a
woman for a service. It would have been near an entire season in a
room above an alehouse. Or food for the best part of a year.

They arrived at the Palisade and worked through the
bars in one of the few western bits that was not well blocked off.
In the High District, Scaa led again, picking up the pace. Óraithe
could not very well argue about it. They would likely be hanged
simply for being in the High District with the goings on of
late.

The healer's shop was not far. It was a white
building with a maroon sign above the door. On it was painted a
black heart. Scaa moved to the door confidently and knocked. It was
Bonn who answered. He stepped aside and let the two in. The room
was as nice as the office of the Spéirbaile warehouse had been.
Plush chairs with rich, deeply colored woods. Most of the
decoration was maroon in color with the occasional piece of black
trim.

Bonn walked toward a door on the back left corner of
the room. He opened it and stepped inside without waiting for Scaa
or Óraithe to join. Scaa went after and Óraithe followed behind.
The room was well lit with white on nearly every surface. Teas was
laid on a long, white table, unconscious. Óraithe rushed to her
side. She grabbed the girl's hand. It was still warm and her breast
still rose and sunk rhythmically.

The healer came from a large cabinet carrying a bowl
of water and clean linen sheets. She laid the water on the table
next to Teas and wet the sheet. She wrung it, folded it, and put it
on the girl's head.

"This will be hard on her." The healer's voice was
quiet but confident. "It is best if you hold her still."

Scaa moved to Óraithe's side to help and the healer
turned, grabbing an empty bowl the same as the one that held the
water. She moved a hand over the water and an orb of it floated up
from the rest. She moved the shifting ball of the liquid over
Teas's belly and brought her hand down sharply. The water fell with
great speed but pushed through Teas's skin and into her body. The
girl's body tensed and jerked as the healer started slowly moving
her hands across the skin of the battered elf. Teas's breathing
sped up and her upper body twisted in pain. Scaa forced her
shoulders down.

She covered the lower half of Teas's body slowly and
thoroughly and when the healer's hands arrived back where they had
begun, she yanked them upward. A putrid smelling ooze seeped from
Teas's body, black-brown and thick. It slowly pulled itself into
the air. Óraithe did all she could not to gag. When the liquid was
all pulled from the unconscious girl, the healer brought it over
the empty bowl and laid it in gently. It spread out like so much
mucus and she lifted the bowl, looking to Bonn. The boy took it and
left to dispose of the stuff.

The upper half of Teas's body went much the same,
though it seemed to pain the girl much more deeply. When the black
liquid was pulled from her body finally, Teas shuddered violently
for nearly a full minute. Bonn had long since returned with the
bowl and again it was filled. The clean water was gone, now and the
healer stepped back, exhausted.

She panted heavily, adjusting the sleeves on her
robe. "There is more I can do, but I will require rest. The raiders
polluted her blood more terribly than I had imagined." She walked
around the table and toward a wash basin. "She will wake soon and I
expect she will be in some pain. The tendons in her ankles have
been pulled beyond their shape. It is a wonder they are not torn.
The same for her arms, from wrist to shoulder."

The healer finished washing and shook the excess
water from her hands. She began to see to things around the white
room. "It would be most valuable to have you at her side. There is
comfort in the face of a loved one." She pointed to Scaa. "You.
There is a room with beds. Carry her. The boy will show you."

Scaa did as she was bid and Bonn showed her the way.
Óraithe was left alone with the healer for a moment. She could not
decide whether she ought to ask the woman about Teas's visits when
she was a child. The woman looked at Óraithe and smiled when Scaa
was gone.

"You are Óraithe, are you not? Teas used to speak of
you."

She walked over to the short elf and inspected her
thoroughly by tugging at her and prodding. Óraithe was not sure
what she ought to do in such a situation so she stood still and
waited for the prodding to end. When the healer had finished, she
put a hand on Óraithe's cheek.

"You are healthy. That is good. And often not the
case for Low District girls." The healer turned and went to a table
near the door Scaa had gone through.

"Teas came to you when she was a child? Why?"

"Her father feared she had inherited her mother's
constitution. The man nearly ruined himself seeing to it. He truly
made me wish I could afford to refuse payment." She sighed. "The
High District is not kind to outsiders. There is no property to
own. And the cost to let a space is as much as the tenant can bear
in most cases. Word spread long ago that I treated lowborn elves
and my costs doubled. Not just for the roof. For medicines, herbs,
salves."

"You could bring your shop to the Low District."

"Many of the lowborn of Fásachbaile do not trust
healers. Or any users of the magics the Sisters have given us. They
prefer alchemists and folk medicine."

It was true, what the healer said. There were few
healers in the Low District and they saw precious little business.
And she had seen many an elf walk into Cosain's with a gaping wound
asking for balms to numb the pain. They worked well enough, but
left ugly scars and many did not guard against rot and
festering.

Scaa's head appeared in the doorway behind the
healer. "She is awake."

Óraithe shot to her feet and ran to the other room.
There were four beds in a row. They looked stiff and each bore a
thin maroon blanket. Teas lay in the first of the beds and followed
Óraithe with her eyes when she entered the room. The short elf
rushed to the bedside and knelt, grabbing Teas's hand. She kissed
it over and over.

Teas smiled and looked down at Óraithe. "Stop
fretting, I will live. There is still pain, but I feel much fitter
now." Her voice was hoarse and quiet, barely a whisper, but still
as kind as it had ever been.

Óraithe put her head to the back of Teas's hand
trying to hide happy tears. "I came as fast as I could."

"I know. I never once doubted." Teas did not move her
arms, she likely could not. But she wiggled her fingers. She looked
around the room. "And Bonn! My wonderful boy. You helped as well, I
know it."

Bonn beamed a smile and rocked back and forth on his
feet at her words. Scaa grabbed him at the arm and dragged him
through the door, closing it behind.

When the pair had gone, Óraithe looked at Teas with
serious eyes. "Teas, tell me truly. How are you?"

Teas wrinkled her nose, considering the question. "I
am… in pain. Very much pain. And I am scared, still. Desperately
scared."

"I will not let you come to harm. Never again."
Óraithe spit the words as quickly and passionately as her lips
would allow.

"You misunderstand." Teas coughed a throaty, wet
cough. When she settled, she looked at Óraithe. "I am not scared of
the pain. I am scared for you. When they hung me there, with the
others…" She paused for too long, looking across the room at
nothing. "I saw it clearly. This is too far off a thing for us to
reach."

Óraithe narrowed her eyes. "What are you saying?"

The girl squeezed Óraithe's fingers with all her
strength. "Please… you must stop all of this."

Óraithe stood and backed away. She shook her head
wordlessly and walked to the foot of the bed. "You… I understand.
What you have been through… you need sleep." She looked at Teas's
face. It was such a kind, pitying face. Óraithe's eyes went to the
floor. "Yes. This is no sort of talk for tonight. You should
rest."

The girl only smiled at her as Óraithe fled the room.
Scaa was not in the white room so she moved to the main entryway
and found her there. Óraithe sat heavily into one of the plush
chairs and sighed. Bonn looked at Scaa with hopeful eyes and she
nodded. He skittered off to sit at Teas's side and Scaa turned her
attention to Óraithe.

"A shorter talk than I expected." Her voice was flat
and sounded somewhat harsh.

"She…" Óraithe looked over to Scaa and then to the
floor in front of the chair. "She asked me to stop…
everything."

Scaa shrugged. "She is weak." Óraithe looked back to
Scaa and waited for her to explain. "I do not mean to talk ill of
her. She is your strength as Bonn is mine. The price they are able
to pay is much lower than our own."

"What am I meant to do?"

Scaa laughed. "Meant to do? As if any of us have
expectations of you?"

Óraithe put on a sour look and sighed. It was true
enough. She could do as she liked. Teas would love her, even from a
distance. "What about you?"

"If Bonn were to ask me to stop? Well, I have an
easier time of answering. I gave my word that I would follow you.
If he has taken in nothing else, he knows the value of a
promise."

The short elf clicked her tongue in playful
disapproval.

Scaa allowed herself a tiny smile before she
continued. "It is a matter of what cost you are willing to pay."
She shrugged again and rolled her head back on the couch.

That was the size of it, Óraithe knew. She tried to
convince herself that it would be temporary in the worst case. Teas
would not be so cruel as to turn Óraithe away if she returned to
hand over freedom from the highborn. It was the danger, Óraithe
told herself. The fear of seeing her hurt as she had seen Teas
hurt. In truth, they wanted for the same thing. Her view of safety
only spread out wider than Teas was willing to see. Teas had seen
the fear as Cosain had. Safe inside of the warm blanket of good
enough. The sick taste of bile rose at the back of Óraithe's throat
when she remembered. It was how she had been for so much of her
life. Playing at the edge of genuine danger. She had changed,
Óraithe insisted to herself.

She looked over at Scaa. The boyish child, she
thought watching Scaa click her teeth together and stare at the
ceiling. But she had been right.

Óraithe had kept her strength outside of herself for
as long as she had known Teas. And that was no place for it.

Daingean had always been a town renowned for its
ability to produce quality steel. It sat in the rolling hills south
of the Cnoclean high road, closer to the Bastion city than the
mining communities by a few miles. Though she had called the woman
that stood before her now a Regent, the title was more ceremonial
than anything.

They had come to know one another some time after
Rianaire had taken her place as Treorai. Méid had brought her an
ornate breastplate to Cnoclean during a visit. Rianaire had
insisted upon having her along to dinner and was delighted by the
woman. She was large, well-muscled, and timid as a mouse. A
blacksmith in everything but character, she had joked. At the time,
Daingean had no keep and no Regent and lay well away from the
cities of Cnoclean and Spéirbaile. It was also too far north to
call a part of Theasín's holdings. So it was decided, as Rianaire
so often did, that she would be Regent of Daingean and its
attendant lands.

The city had grown considerably since Rianaire had
last had a chance to pay it a proper visit, nearly two full years
prior. Méid kept herself in the same house she had always called
her own and it had not seen any improvement since her rise to a
Regency. Rianaire was heartened by the progress. The woman she had
chosen on a whim had turned the city into a haven for steel working
sorts.

"We've become something of a destination for metal
craft," Méid said, standing in the street outside her house. She
had stopped them there when she saw Rianaire passing by on her way
to an inn. "Many of the Cnoclean companies keep the bulk of their
stores here even."

Rianaire had asked her how things had been over the
past two years and Méid had been good enough to answer without
questioning her clothing or mentioning the fact that she was meant
to be dead, or that at least that was what had been said.

When Méid finished giving a truncated history of the
town's prosper in the past few years, she put on an uncomfortable
face as though the questions were going to burn through her.

"I am not dead," Rianaire said without being
prompted. She turned to her handmaid. "Síocháin may be. It is often
hard to tell with her clothes on." She poked the stoic elf
playfully.