Price of Breath

“…another village abandoned near the Silver Ring. The gates are bleeding again. Our warriors are dropping like flies, tearing themselves apart—”

“They always tear themselves apart. If it wasn’t for the new hero, we would all be goners by now….”

“I know, right? Isn’t he dreamy?”

It had been a few hours since that healer left. And though I wasn’t proud of it, I was snooping. Not exactly snooping, more like… strategically overhearing. Don’t judge. A man’s gotta entertain himself somehow when his veins are still singing from being turned into plant-fertilizer.

Another set of voices overlapped from somewhere down the hall.

“…The Church is already calling him the hero of Prophecy. I heard they’re planning on throwing him a feast when he gets back.”

“Really? Do you think the hero has a date? If not, I would like to offer up my services…”

“Oh, please. We all know what ser-vices you offer. Besides, from what I hear, the Princess herself has her eye on him. Unless you want to end up hanging from the walls, you’d best leave him alone.”

Their laughter drifted away, swallowed by the winding halls.

From those scraps of gossip, I pieced together the obvious: Keiji had stepped up while was out cold, which was great, a weight off my shoulder. He might even be stronger now, wouldn’t really need me much. Good for him. Really. That was great. Fantastic.

So why did it feel like someone was twisting a knife under my ribs?

No mention of Lira. Nothing about Verra. Not even Dorran. And absolutely nothing about me. Not that I wanted attention—hell, the less people remembered me, the better—but come on. Not even a single “that weird gravedigger helped too”? This place….suuuucked.

I was sinking deeper into the pity-pool when a soft chime rang, sharp enough to cut through my thoughts. Moments later, the room filled. Pairs of healers in long grey robes shuffled in, their cuffs stitched with thread-of-silver sigils. Then another one approached in red robes,, wearing a sigil of her order: a white feather threaded in gold.

I’ve spoken about the Mages’ order before but I never realized how complex it was until the research with Keiji. Apparently, each Mage belongs to an Order which are under an Archmage. And the white feather in gold sigil was the mark of Kryxx’s Order.

In any case, the Red Mage didn’t waste time on pleasantries. She flicked her wrist, muttered something under her breath.

Instantly, the cube-plant around me shivered. The air released a sigh of fruit-scented mist and vines peeled back, leaf by leaf, until I was standing on top of a parchment of leaves. A cold wind blew past me and I looked down, realizing that all this time I was on a tree, a white one.

Taking a deep breath, the Mage extended her hand, palm facing downward, and whispered the incantation.

“Aura folia, descendere lentum." (A-rah foh-lee-ah, deh-shen-deh-reh len-tum)

A soft green glow came from her fingetips, swirling around her like a cocoon down to the leaf we were standing on. Gravity lost its job after that. it felt less like falling and more like being carried on a benevolent breeze.

Floating on the leaf, I couldn’t help but stare. The Silver Ring was ripe with a dangerous beauty. Magna bled into the air thick as incense—sweet, metallic, intoxicating. Like sugar on my tongue, no, it was more like biting into a coin dipped in honey.

My veins itched and my skin tingled.

No wonder only mages lived here. If I had to live in this bubbly air, I would surely choke to death on the sweetness alone. And yet, the people here walked as if it were nothing. Children sprinted on air currents, tossing lightning back and forth like toys. A bridge separated between two towers as if fire had grown tired of burning and decided to play architect instead.

We drifted lower, now separated from the tree entirely. A bird flew past me almost in slow motion and I may just be imagining it, but even it was shocked by this. I’d like to hear the talks it had with its bird friends that day.

Anyway, the Guild’s roof split open below to receive us and we landed softly, the magna fading with the scent of autumn. But I wasn't done. While the others got off, I was nudged forward still on the leaf like a polite but insistent butler. I didn’t mind getting a break from walking for a while, as long as I didn’t crash into a wall. The door swung open, written in cursive on top as Ward wing.

Inside, can you believe it was more beautiful than the outside? The Guild’s ward stretched far and wide like a greenhouse, rows of cocoons lined, each glowing faintly. Inside these translucent pods were patients floated inside like trapped moths, their wounds healing. Healers drifted between them, wearing robes with different colours and sigils.

I later learned that the colours of robes weren’t just for looking good. They determined your role in the Guild: Grey-robes were apprentices such as the bonebinder healers. Green, were the coaxing plants to bloom medicine straight into veins type healers.

As I floated by, one boy’s severed arm was reformed before my eyes by a grey apprentice, the stump reforming bones with a crack. Across the hall, a woman coughed blue smoke into a crystal vial while three blue Mages whispered incantations, siphoning it from her lungs. The blues specialized in excess Magna removal, which would sometime happen to individuals who couldn’t flow Magna in their bodies. Then the mages passed us by riding fire like broomsticks, the crystal vial floating in behind them.

At the Guild’s heart stood a massive white tree, roots splitting the marble, the trunk going high through another hole on the roof. Villagers clustered around it, some were hooked by their arms like I was and some were drinking its glowing sap. This old lady whose neck had been slashed, smeared the sap over it and the wound simply vanished.

I almost laughed. Out in Bronze, we buried ladies like her every day. But here? Here, they got magic band-aids straight from the roots. The red mage gestured and the leaf shoved me politely down a hall. The walls pulsed with light, alive in a way walls shouldn’t be. Finally, I was set on a simple cot—no soft moss this time.

The apprentices left, leaving only the Red mage.

“Patient Thirty-Three has been admitted for sixty-one days of Magna stabilization and restoration, muscular and vascular repair. Total cost: sixteen hundred coins. How does he wish to pay?

I blinked at her. “Sixteen hundred what?”

“Coin.”

“You do realize grave-diggers don’t exactly swim in gold, right?”

She tilted her head, a shadow of pity—or was it annoyance?—crossing her face. “If he cannot pay, then he serves. Like all the rest.”

I knew we were required to pay some coin for healing services, partly to deter villagers from swarming the Guild for every little injury and also to prevent burnout on the healers. But come on, these prices were ridiculous. I'd heard the whispers of those who couldnt pay. They became thralls—I dont want to say slaves—but they were bound to the Guild until their debts were paid. This ranged from mopping the wards to assignments in dungeon raids.

And it's not like I had any choice in the matter. Because Magna overflowed so freely here, the Guild and Silver Ring in general wielded unusual autonomy from even the Church, meaning what they say goes here. Even Lucien has to negotiate with the Guild for access to information, medicines and stuff like that. I thought about negotiating but without my Mourner’s pack here, I had nothing to offer them and my only talent left was burying people which directly conflicts their goal of healing.

I was screwed.

And the guards posted outside the door made it clear I wasn’t leaving anytime soon.