Toren Daen
Reports from Darrin and Jared regarding their meeting were similarly depressing. The group they'd approached, nicknamed the Aensgar Exiles, had gone from a team of five to three after being overwhelmed by undead. They'd taken refuge in an array of cubicles, walling themselves off from the outside zone. When Darrin had mentioned that others on his team were going to speak with the Twinfrosts, he'd run into an unexpected complication.
According to their leader, they'd been attacked by one of the Twinfrost's members. It had taken significant promises and reassurances to even convince the Exiles to come to the bargaining table.
But in the end, they didn't have a choice. From what Darrin had said, they seemed even worse off than the Twinfrosts. Sleep deprived, starving, and wallowing in their own filth. If they wanted a way out, they didn't have a choice but to accept our offer.
"Do you think it was one of the twins who attacked them?" I asked Sevren, who was walking with me toward the rooftop entrance to the Twinfrost team's hideout. As promised, we returned later in the day to deliver a few bags of rice and bandages.
Sevren was quiet for a moment. "Why do you think they were attacked at all?" he asked in reply. "Considering the story they told, of their mad escape from the hordes of undead, they could have easily misunderstood assisting fire. And the Exiles were reluctant to talk about the attack at all. Only making the claim."
I looked at the steel rooftop access door. That was true: according to Darrin, the Exiles had been deeply rattled by the assault of the undead. When Darrin tried to push them on why they thought they'd been attacked, they gave vague allusions to the hordes, and a flash in the dark…
"Fair enough," I said with a sigh.
"Though," Sevren said, narrowing his eyes, "If they do tell the truth, it would not surprise me if the twins were responsible. Highblood upbringing tends to leave coddled, entitled brats instead of men."
I looked at the Denoir heir, surprised by the venom in his voice. When he noticed my interest, he quickly smoothed out the irritation on his features.
"It wouldn't surprise me either," I said quietly, turning back to the door. I thought of Lawris Joan and his entitled attitude and willingness to subject me to his father's drugs. It was easy to connect the dots of attitude from father to son. "I've had my fair share of experiences with people like them."
Sevren regarded me silently. After a moment, we both flared our mana signatures, mirroring what we had done earlier that day.
Alun opened the door a second later. I watched him visibly shudder as the sky greeted him, the strong-willed ascender retreating beneath the surface in the face of the world. When he spotted us, though, his eyes seemed to gain a bit of their former glow.
He gave the outside another cursory inspection. "You have food?" he said quietly.
Sevren nodded. "We do."
"Come on, then," he said, leaving the door open. We followed slowly.
The office hadn't changed much in the few hours we'd been gone. The same atmosphere of doom pervaded everything. The only light was from the dim, overhead bulb.
This time, however, the twins were pacing about on the far edge of the room. Their mirrored short cuts made them easy to see, their silver-streaked black hair standing out in the dark room. When one noticed us, the other swiftly turned. They had thinly veiled contempt written on their faces.
I didn't know which was Bered and which was Numar. And if I was lucky, I wouldn't have to learn.
"Finally!" one of them said, moving forward. "We've waited for hours! "
Sevren's face scrunched up for a moment. "We came as promised," he said, ignoring the twin. "We have rice, bandages, and some spare soap and clothes so you all can get into something clean. Now, we just–"
"Only rice?" one of the boys said, his face morphing. "Is that all you'll give us? We need more than that!"
Alun turned a glare at the twins, which served to make them coil like snakes rearing their heads. "We'll be out soon enough if things go well, and you can eat anything you want."
The boy's words stoked something inside of me. I thought of the people of East Fiachra, struggling to feed themselves every day. I remembered Greahd's celebrations and meetings, fostering a burgeoning sense of community in the hope-stripped people.
And then what had happened because of the Doctrination. I had to force down my irritation.
Instead, I used something else to distract myself. I looked at the bandaged wounds of all present, feeling myself diagnosing them subconsciously.
"I can help you change bandages and dress your wounds properly," I offered, cutting through the rising tension. My eyes traced to the shield Jana's stump of a hand, a clearly hasty and poor job done treating the wound. "I worked as a surgeon's assistant for several years. I've got practice with this kind of thing."
Alun hesitated for barely a moment. "Yes, please. Anything you can do."
I nodded as Sevren began to retrieve the food from his dimension ring, approaching the one-handed shield. She stood off to the side, watching the proceedings with an empty kind of expression on her sharp features.
"Hey," I greeted, pulling a roll of bandages from my dimension ring. "Mind if I help you in redressing that?" I said, gesturing to what remained of her left hand.
Jana gave me a complicated look. "I would appreciate that," she said quietly. "Can't wrap bandages with only one hand," she added cynically. She was sitting in a stiff-backed chair, looking away.
I felt my inviting smile fall. "Got it." I knelt next to the chair, holding my hand out. Haltingly, the shield obliged my silent request.
My suspicions were confirmed as I slowly removed her bandage. The black, crusty linens had been soaked through with blood and pus. The smell of festering infection hit my nose like a wave when it was finally uncovered, revealing a gruesome wound that was struggling to heal.
The woman had clearly lost the appendage several weeks ago. She was lucky she was a mage: her infection would be far more deadly if not for the mana that constantly circulated from her core. I looked at it with a scrutinizing gaze.
I could see the peeking heads of the radius and ulna under the intense swelling, the bone exposed to open air. I felt a pang of pity as I pulled the bandages off, the woman wincing from the crackling noise the bandages made as they peeled away.
"How bad is it?" Jana asked, looking anywhere but at the wound.
"It could be a lot worse," I said honestly. Whatever had severed her hand had done it in a relatively clean manner, and I noticed trace burns from a hasty cauterization. The ulnar and radial arteries had been burned shut, preventing too much blood loss. "The infection, especially. You've got a strong constitution."
I turned to Alun, who was talking with Sevren quietly. "Do you have a faucet here for warm water?" I asked.
Alun paused, then pointed toward one end of the office. Sure enough, there was a spigot there. "Hold on," I said to Jana, speedwalking to the faucet. I withdrew a small, metal pot from my dimension rune–we weren't sure if the Twinfrosts had a means of actually cooking the rice, so I'd brought this along just in case–and filled it to the brim with water. I returned a second later.
"I'm going to bring this water to a boil and use it to soak these bandages," I said to Jana, who was characteristically stiff. Talk of her wound seemed to disquiet her, so I tried to keep it brief. "But before I rebandage your hand, I'm going to need to clean it out. And that is going to hurt. "
The woman finally looked down at me. I remembered the long days in Trelza's employ. The man was a master healer, far better than I ever would be. But where I lacked in skill, I made up for it with compassion. Patients didn't need a robotic, stoic man looking over them as they came to terms with their wounds. They needed a companion, not a target of hate like Trelza seemed to think.
I squeezed the woman's other hand sympathetically.
"I'm an ascender," she said with a raised chin. "I'm no stranger to pain."
I smiled softly. "Okay, then."
I let the pot of water hover beside me, held aloft by an application of my telekinesis. Underneath was a steady, licking flame, also conjured by me. As I waited for the water to come to a boil, I talked with Jana about this and that, preparing my 'tools.' That seemed to ease her constant anxiety, something I was privately grateful for.
After a few minutes, the water finally started to bubble. I let off my flame, allowing the water to cool slightly.
I dipped a washcloth into the scalding water, my telekinetic shroud allowing me to ignore the heat. Afterward, I used a bare application of fire mana to pull the heat from the cloth until it was warm instead of scalding. "I'm going to gently clean the area," I said, holding the woman's wrist and the cloth in another. "If you need me to stop, let me know."
Jana nodded. At her approval, I began to gently dab at the wound, scraping away dead and dying tissue and excess grime. As I worked, I talked, trying to give the woman something to focus on other than the pain.
In a few minutes that must have felt like hours to the poor shield, I scoured away the dirt and crusted blood around the wound. She endured it remarkably well, her eyes kept forward with a firm clench to her jaw.
"Okay," I said when I was finished. I let the cloth be taken away by my telekinetic emblem, floating behind me. "I'm going to wrap your hand now."
Another nod.
I reached into the pot by my side, retrieving the bandages. By now, the water had cooled down far more. I squeezed the linens out, then began to slowly wrap the woman's hand.
This was a suboptimal solution. I didn't pack my usual repertoire of wound care supplies, like vinegar and other cleansing solutions, because of my considerable healing factor. I also hadn't planned on ever ascending with someone, so I didn't account for helping another person.
But these bandages should've been soaked in a cleansing solution instead of just boiled water. Furthermore, I didn't have any alcohol to wash her wound.
I could only hope that her mana would continue to fight off the infection as well as it had so far.
I let out a breath as I finally tied off the bandage. "Okay, Jana. It's done."
She looked at her hand for a brief moment, then at me. "Thank you, Lord Daen."
I smiled slightly. "Don't worry about it," I said, standing. "You'll need to change those several times a day, letting the bandages soak in boiled water before wrapping them. When you remove them, it'll take some of the dead and dying flesh with it, so it's important you do it regularly. And Toren is fine. Lord Daen sounds too formal."
After a few more words, I moved to Alun next. He was frowning deeply at something Sevren had just said.
"Hey, Alun," I said. "Do you need me to help with your forearm?" I continued, referencing his wound.
The mage shook his head. "No need. I've wrapped my own wounds for longer than I can remember."
Seeing as my assistance wasn't required, I set down some of the bandages on a nearby table. "Okay. The water I'm using was boiled a few minutes ago. Once I'm done with the twins, I'll bring it back to you."
Alun gave me a complicated look but didn't stop me from leaving.
I then moved off toward the twins, who were standing in a corner. They watched me approach with narrowed eyes, their chins upturned. I could see the wrappings they had underneath their tattered armor.
This was going to be far more painful for me than it would be for them.
"So, which one of you is Bered, and which is Numar?" I asked, trying to break the ice.
"That's Bered of Highblood Frost to you," the one with a mace on his hip said. "We aren't so in your debt that you can drop our titles."
More painful for me indeed. I rolled my eyes. "Look, do you need my help with your bandages or are you going to keep looking down on me?"
My utter disregard for his posturing seemed to throw Bered for a loop. From the pinched expression that soon crossed his face, I guessed he was talking mentally with his brother. My eyes flicked to who I now knew was Numar.
"You should have come to us first," he said. "When highbloods are wounded on the battlefield, they're treated foremost," Numar added, trying to sound logical.
"This isn't a battlefield," I said calmly, restraining my irritation. And highbloods on battlefields are usually commanding officers, not arrogant brats, I thought to myself. "It's the Relictombs. You need to learn to take responsibility for yourselves."
"Vritra's horns. So you're going to be just like old Alun, then?" Bered said. "Taking their side? Instead of the Highblood?"
I felt a sneer tug at the corner of my lips. I set the rest of the bandages down in front of them slowly. "I treated the most wounded first," I said. I might not have sworn the Hippocratic Oath, but I understood priorities. "Feel free to dress your own wounds. With that mental link of yours, I'm sure it'll be far easier for you two to work together than it will be for me."
Bered went red in the face, but managed to try and hide some of it. "You can't just leave us to do this," he said, a hint of irritation in his tone. "We've never been taught!"
"Repetition is the mother of learning," I said, turning away. "Life won't always hand you the answers. Figure it out yourself."
I sauntered back to Alun and Sevren, the pot of water hovering behind me. I set it on the table next to him, ignoring the boys' palpable irritation. "I told this to Jana, but make sure to have her change her bandages several times a day."
Alun nodded, tiredly. I could still feel the twins' eyes boring into my back. "How did they get so far into the Relictombs being so entitled? " I found myself asking suddenly. "I can't imagine them being effective at all with those attitudes."
Sevren's eyes flashed. "Highblood heirs rarely face the reality of their station."
Alun's shoulder slumped. "They aren't heirs," he said, looking at his forearm.
My brows furrowed. "Then why?"
"They're Highlord Uriel Frost's bastards," Alun said with a sigh, sparing a glance at the boys behind me. He spoke it as if it were a hoarded secret. "They only got his attention after they manifested unique runes that connected their cores. It was unprecedented. Suddenly, they went from the bottom of the pack to the top of the ranks. Their egos didn't take it well," he acknowledged.
"I don't care if they're bastards," Sevren said dismissively. "Just don't let them fuck this up. "
"They won't," Alun promised, though I wasn't sure if he was being honest.
I gave Jana one last encouraging smile before we left. Soon, we'd gather together and make a plan to get out of this horrid reflection of my previous life.
I could only hope nothing went wrong.