Chapter 6: The Price of a Miracle

The silence that descended upon the infirmary was a tangible thing, thick and heavy as a shroud. It was broken only by the sputtering crackle of the torches flanking the cot and the soft, miraculously steady breathing of Elara. Outside, the world seemed to hold its breath. The usual boisterous noise of the Iron Banners' camp had been replaced by a low, awestruck murmur, a sound of disbelief rippling through the gathered crowd.

Leo felt a wave of profound exhaustion wash over him, so deep and sudden it felt like plunging into icy water. The hyper-focused adrenaline from the makeshift surgery vanished, leaving behind an empty, aching void where his strength had been. His hands, which had been so steady just moments before, began to tremble, not from fear, but from the backlash of sheer mental and physical depletion. He had been running on fumes for what felt like days, and the tank was now utterly empty.

Kaelen was the first to move, breaking the spell. He approached Elara's cot with a warrior's stiff gait, but the hand he placed on her forehead was surprisingly gentle, a stark contrast to his calloused, scarred fingers. "Her fever... it's lessened," he said, his voice rough with an emotion Leo couldn't decipher. He turned to Leo, his slate-gray eyes, usually so cold and assessing, now filled with something far more complex. It wasn't just respect. It was the unnerving, weighty awe one reserves for things they cannot comprehend. "The gods have truly blessed you, outworlder."

Leo leaned against a tent pole for support, the rough wood digging into his back. "It wasn't gods," he said, his voice raspy, tasting of blood and metal. "It was boiled water, a clean cut, and an understanding of how to stop an infection before it starts." He swayed on his feet, the world tilting at a nauseating angle.

Kaelen’s arm shot out, catching him, his grip as firm and unyielding as iron. "You need rest. And food. You're as pale as she is."

Before Leo could form a protest, the old healer, the sour-faced woman named Gretta, pushed her way through the onlookers at the tent flap. She moved with a sense of grim purpose, her scowl etched deep into her wrinkled face. She marched past Leo without a word, her attention solely on Elara. She began her own examination, her movements practiced and efficient. Her sharp, knowing eyes scanned every one of Leo’s clumsy stitches. She sniffed the air around the wound, then leaned in close, her ear hovering over Elara’s chest, listening to the rhythm of her breathing.

Finally, she straightened up and turned to the crowd, her voice carrying the weight of a final judgment. "The rot is cut out," she declared, each word dropping like a stone into the quiet tent. Her tone was grudging, laced with disbelief, but undeniably clear. "The bleeding has stopped. The fever is broken. The girl will live."

A collective, audible gasp went through the onlookers. A few people crossed themselves with symbols Leo didn't recognize. A gut wound from a Gravehound was a guaranteed funeral, a slow, agonizing slide into death. They had all seen it happen before. They had just witnessed a resurrection.

Gretta turned her sharp, assessing gaze back to Leo, her eyes boring into him. "You have a dangerous gift, boy. To deny the rot its claim... that is not a skill learned in any mortal school. I have tended to the wounds of this guild for twenty years, and I have never seen its like."

"He calls it 'medicine'," Kaelen supplied again, his voice firm and protective.

"Call it a dragon's fart for all I care," Gretta sniffed, though the hard edge of her contempt had vanished, replaced by a wary, calculating curiosity. "The result is the same." She pointed a bony finger at the man on the adjacent cot, the one with the arrow festering in his thigh. "And what of him, then? Can your 'medicine' cut the fire from his blood? He was brought in two days ago. The poison on the goblin's arrow was slow, but it has done its work. He burns from the inside."

Leo’s gaze was drawn to the man. The Echo, which had been a quiet background hum, flared up with renewed, vicious intensity. He saw the man's pale, sweaty face, his lips cracked and dry, his eyes glassy with delirium. Instantly, the infirmary tent dissolved. He was back in the real world, standing over a woman trapped in a burning car, her skin flushed with fever from smoke inhalation, her breathing a shallow, rattling gasp. He had failed to extricate her in time.

He's going to die. You know the signs. Septic shock. Multiple organ failure. It's too late. Just like on the bridge. Just like with her.

"I..." Leo started, his throat closing up. The confidence he’d felt moments ago shattered under the cold touch of the Echo. He was a fraud. Elara was luck. This man needed massive doses of intravenous antibiotics, fluids, constant monitoring—a whole arsenal of technology and pharmacology that simply did not exist here. He couldn't save him. He would fail. The crowd would see him fail.

Seeing the sudden, stark panic in his eyes, the way his color drained, Kaelen moved without hesitation, stepping between Leo and Gretta, blocking her view. "He has done enough for one night," Kaelen’s voice was a low growl. "He saved one of our own from a certain grave. That is more than any of us can claim. Let him be." He put a firm hand on Leo's shoulder and guided him out of the oppressive, suffocating atmosphere of the infirmary.

The crowd parted for them as if he were a king or a leper. Their stares followed him, a hundred different emotions swirling within them: awe, fear, envy, and a desperate, hungry hope. Every single person in this camp, from the greenest rookie to the most grizzled veteran, lived with the daily, intimate risk of a wound that would kill or cripple them. They were looking at Leo and seeing a shield against their own mortality, an answer to the prayers they whispered before every hunt. They saw a man who could offer them something no amount of gold or steel ever could: a future.

Kaelen led him to the main bonfire, away from the prying eyes, and pushed a wooden bowl of thick, gamey stew and a waterskin into his hands. "Eat," he ordered, his tone leaving no room for argument. "You'll be no good to anyone if you collapse."

Leo sat heavily on a log, his mind reeling. The stew tasted bland, ashes in his mouth, but he forced it down, the warmth spreading through his exhausted limbs. He watched the faces around the fire, the way they tried to pretend they weren't watching him. A burly, one-eyed man with a crude prosthetic hook for a hand would catch his eye and give a slow, respectful nod. A young woman with a long, puckered scar bisecting her face watched him with an unnerving, calculating intensity.

He was no longer invisible. He was the most interesting thing to happen to this camp in years. He was an asset to be protected, a resource to be coveted, a mystery to be solved. And as his gaze swept over the dozens of scarred, hardened, broken adventurers, he realized a chilling truth.

They all had wounds. Old injuries that never healed right. A knight with a permanent limp. A ranger whose drawing arm trembled uncontrollably. A mage with a hacking cough that never went away. Each one was a potential patient. Each one was a walking, breathing trigger for the Echo.

He had saved one person, and in doing so, he had invited the suffering of the entire camp to a feast inside his head. The price of his first miracle was the dawning, terrifying realization that he would be expected to perform them again, and again, and again.

And he knew, with a certainty that chilled him to the bone, that sooner or later, his luck, his skill, and his sanity would run out. One of them was going to be the trigger that finally, irrevocably, broke him.