Luma fell back to sleep, unable to bare the emotions terrorizing him.
He was awoken by the flapping of his tent's entrance.
"You should be completely healed by now," a tired voice called to him, as the crimson light from the stone behind him dimmed.
He pulled the sheets over his face. He was physically well, but he did not have the mental to talk to anyone right now.
"The whisperers have ordered that you be restrained before you're discharged," the voice continued, its tone hurried. A sharp crackle followed right after, and the red dye of the crim stone filled the room with greater intensity.
Discharged? Their not going to place me in isolation? Luma wondered, lifting the sheets from his face.
A woman was staring down at him, white paint lined over her face in tribal patterns. A crimson stone was embedded in her wrinkled forehead, and she wore the red cloaks of the healers.
Luma looked down at her hands, and found she was carrying a dirt brown tunic, decorated with seven power stones, their circuitry a dark rainbow of colors.
He had only ever heard about the restriction tunics in passing— a device created to prevent the most violent of the tribes from using their power stones.
"Why?" he asked, looking from the tunic up to the elderly woman. "I don't even have a power stone."
The woman shrugged. "These are the orders of the whisperers," she said. "Perhaps they mean to ease the worries of the others."
Luma scoffed at that. Ease their worries? These people had watched him grow up, they knew him, why would him trying to kill an outsider change anything?
However, he complied. The woman fitted the tunic around him, both his arms wrapped tightly inside it and a breathable cloth placed over his mouth.
The woman reached into her pocket and pulled out a small container of grey sludge. She dipped her finger into it and began drawing runes all over the tunic.
"How long have I been asleep?" he asked, the cloth over his mouth muffling his words.
The woman flicked a look at him, before going back to her work. "One week," she replied. "But with the injuries you suffered, thank the sun you woke up at all."
One week? That means the second trial will happen soon, he thought. Their probably going to be more guarded. I should play submissive in the next one, and try again in the final trial.
"If not for the head whisperer you would've been buried a sack of broken bones," the elderly woman added.
Luma stepped back, staring at the woman with a puzzled frown. "The headwhisperer healed me?"
The woman glared up at him, then at a drop of sludge that had fallen on her tunic. "Yes," she snapped, before dragging him back. "We aren't miracle workers. You think we have the power to fix what a deathstalker has broken?" she asked, drawing the runes more agressively than she'd had before.
"But why? Why would the headwhisperer—"
"And we aren't mindreaders either," she interrupted.
"Only the sun knows what that one is thinking," she added.
Luma went silent, trying to wrap his head around what was going on. Why would they sabotage me, and then heal me after what I did?
He was still as puzzled by the time the woman was finished
"Close your eyes," she said, before closing hers.
Curiosity kept his eyes open as the woman began humming.
It was a low, ghastly hum, sending chills down his spine. The woman's eyes opened slighlty, but only the whites showed. The crim stone at the centre of the tent began flickering, and the stone embedded in her forehead glowed with firey intensity.
For a moment, Luma was sent back to his visions. The crimson sun.
The light cast by the woman's stone played with the shadows behind her, shifting and slithering into odd shapes, and for a split second he could've sworn he saw the black masked figure, standing there, watching them.
The woman began running her wrinkled fingers over the stones on his tunic, each one lighting up as she passed over them.
Her mouth opened in twisted pain, and her head rocked back and forth in violent convulsions.
Luma tried to move to her aid, however he found that he was frozen in place, not even a muscle twitching to his command.
The stones on his tunic began vibrating, and a strange weight tugged at him, muddying his thoughts, slowing his breathing. It was as if he'd instantly fallen ill.
The woman opened her eyes, her breathing laboured and ragged. "I'm too old for this," she whispered, clutching at her chest.
Her tired eyes wandered up at Luma, and their eyes met, her face went pale. "You— you kept your eyes open?" she whispered hesitantly.
She hurried to the desk at the corner of the room, where odd medical contraptions had been laid out.
"What? What's going on?" he asked, finding that he could now move.
"You idiot, I told you to close your eyes!" she grunted in response, fighting with the contraptions on the desk as she fumbled to get one to work. "It's your fault your blind," she said, right as one lit up.
"Blind?"
The woman paused, and turned to look back at him. She titled her head, her eyes narrowed in thought.
"You can see me?"
Luma shrugged at that. "So you aren't mindreaders, but invisiblity is fair game?"
The woman scowled.
Just then, another woman wearing a red cloak rushed into tent. "I heard you shouting, is he being viole—" the woman stopped once her eyes met Luma's.
"Violent? This child has years ahead of him before he can put a scratch on me," the elderly woman grunted in reply.
"You," she said, nodding at Luma. "You may go."
"A watcher has been assigned, he'll be waiting outside," she added, before gesturing for the other woman to come closer.
Luma stared at them for a moment. What was that about? he wondered.
"I said you may leave," the elderly woman scoffed.
Luma gave them one more glance, before leaving.
"Meya, what's wrong?" the other woman asked once they were alone.
"Tell the chieftain I have to speak with him," the elderly woman replied hurriedly.
"He's in a meeting with the—"
"Just tell him it's urgent," she snapped. "There's something wrong with that one."