Chapter 27: Deception

Her heart sank when she saw him stumble.

Sir Themur had raised his black sword to parry an attack from an approaching… well, she didn’t know what they were. These weren’t undead, not corpses puppeteered by a Carrion Shepherd. Whatever the name for them was, they were living beings who had lost everything that made them alive.

They were coming from all directions now, and Sir Themur had held his sword to intercept one charging at Relaila, a makeshift metal spear aimed at her belly. But just as the Knight Eternal moved to strike, another creature—a mountain of flesh, mindless and massive—slammed into him. His shield absorbed most of the impact, but the force knocked him off his feet, sending him stumbling.

Sir Themur’s sword missed its target. The grotesque creature’s spear did not.

Dina heard Relaila cry out, a scream filled with infinite terror and pain. Turning around, she saw her friend lying on the ground, blood oozing from a deep, jagged wound in her abdomen. Above her stood one of the almost-men, stinking of sweat, ready to strike again with his long spear. But before he could, the Knight Eternal regained his balance and severed the head of Relaila’s mindless attacker.

Dina rushed forward, despite Relaila’s insistence that she stay back. All around them, large droplets of blood and severed limbs flew through the air as Sir Themur, invigorated by Mardocar and driven by his fear of losing his friends, intensified his defense of them.

“Stay with me,” she told the injured Blood Sister as she investigated the damage done by the spear. It didn’t look good.

Relaila grunted, trying to draw breath through clenched jaws. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Good. That’s the right attitude. Keep that up, and with the help of the gods, we might just get through this.

She had to give it to the woman. She was tough. Despite lying there with a large gash in her midsection, she kept launching fire at their attackers. Then again, her dark magic was granted by the gods. It was effortless, and all it took to wield it was the will to kill and destroy. And if Dina knew Relaila, killing and destroying was exactly what the Blood Sister lived for.

Overhead, the frantic battle began to slowly subside. The interval between Sir Themur’s sword swings grew longer and longer, not because he was getting tired, but because their attackers were finally dwindling in number.

Somehow, hope surged. They’d get through this, Dina and Sir Themur.

But Relaila… She wasn’t so sure about Relaila.

“You’ve been hurt like this before?” Dina asked her once the chaos of battle had subsided. Just to the side of her spear wound, she noticed a large, fresh scar on Relaila’s otherwise smooth abdomen.

Sir Themur hovered above them. “She had an accident back in Orenleaf,” he said, cutting off Relaila before she had a chance to respond. “We took care of it. Nothing to worry about. But we had to see a Flow Walker, so the healing took some time. It’s just a scar.”

Dina nodded. While the very best Flow Walkers could almost match the skills of a Dark Flame, none could hope to surpass them. And most didn’t have the precision required to come anywhere close to the healing powers Patera granted her.

“Right. An accident,” Relaila grunted, but the words turned into a cough, and she began sputtering blood from her mouth.

It’s now or never. She doesn’t have many minutes left.

She closed her eyes and began to pray.

Patera, god of healing, guide my hand and let your servant Relaila live.

At the back of her mind, she could hear the laughter of her patron god.

“Sweetie, you know the deal,” Patera replied. Her voice seared through Dina’s skull with all the gentleness of a sledgehammer. “Payment for you, a life for me.”

Dina sat up, stunned by the rejection. There were no animals here she could sacrifice.

But she’s a Blood Sister. We live to do your bidding. She’s needed for the mission you sent us on.

Patera’s dismissive laughter seemed to echo in her mind like the cry of a crow.

“Haven’t you noticed yet, little one? There are three of you.”

Suddenly, Dina felt like someone had dumped an entire bathtub of ice water over her head. All her anger at the gods of the world, and all the doubts, the annoyances, the little inconsistencies she had previously pretended not to see, they all came flooding back. There was only one way to understand her patron’s words. As long as they succeeded with the mission, it made no difference to the gods whether they all survived.

She had always known Patera cared nothing for the race of man. She had just imagined she was the sole exception, that her god would have her back because Dina served her loyally and faithfully.

But she wasn’t special. She was nothing more than a hostage who had fallen in love with her captor. And now, she accepted what, deep down, she had always known, that the love she felt for Patera was never returned. The god’s refusal to show compassion even toward her most dedicated servants had told Dina all she needed to know.

With that realization came weariness. Weariness and resignation. It didn’t matter that she could now see their relationship for what it truly was—it still was what it was. She had no power to change it. Dina had sold her soul to the god of healing and torture, and once sold, it could never be reclaimed. Their bond was eternal, and nothing she did could ever undo it.

But that didn’t mean she had to give Patera one finger’s breadth more than their contract stipulated.

While it was true that she was bound to take payment and provide a sacrifice to the god for every healing she performed in Patera’s name, nothing said she actually had to perform those healings by calling on her patron. And if she didn’t use Patera’s dark magic, well… Even though the contract was still there, if she didn’t invoke it, none of the stipulations in it applied.

If the Flow Walkers could heal without praying to the gods, then so could she. After all, there was nothing exclusive about the Deepwell. Anyone who knew how to use it could.

Dina had never tried before, but she was familiar with the basics. As a healer, she had studied many other schools of medicine, learning what useful nuggets she could adapt for her own practice. Some disciplines she had rejected—homeopathy because it didn’t work, Deepwell magic because of the effort involved. Others, like alchemical potions, she had incorporated into her craft.

Now, for Relaila’s sake, it was time for her to put that knowledge into practice.

Closing her eyes, she imagined the fabric of the Deepwell, the way she’d heard it described. She tried to concentrate on it, visualizing the field that carried magic of a sort entirely different from that which the gods of the world provided.

Actually using the Deepwell, once she managed to connect to it, shouldn’t be a problem, Dina felt. She had studied the human body for over a decade. She knew its mysteries and how it worked. If she could only access the magic, she believed using it would be fairly easy. It was the part where she had to get hold of it in the first place that was hard. This was something she had never done before.

For a moment, she thought she had it, but then it was gone again.

Calm down, Dina. Focus.

The healing didn’t have to be perfect. She didn’t have anything to prove here. All she had to do was keep Relaila alive just long enough to get her to safety. After that, they could find another Flow Walker for her, a real one, or just wait and let nature do the job. For now, it was enough to stop the bleeding.

She felt her pulse slowing down, her breathing getting deeper. Slowly, Dina relaxed.

Suddenly, without quite knowing how, it was there. She could feel magic flowing into her from the Deepwell. It surged through her body, and transformed by her mind, filling her friend with health and life.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, she began to feel the tissues in Relaila’s body begin to respond to her guidance, starting to grow and knit together. The sensation wasn’t even remotely like using Patera’s dark magic. With the gods, healing was as simple as reciting an incantation. It just worked, without any further effort on her part. Here, she had to direct every detail of the process with her mind, feel what was broken and torn, devise a plan to repair it, and guide her magic to carry it out.

When it was over, she just lay there with her arms around her friend, emotionally exhausted, tears streaming down her face.

* * *

The nearest town large enough to have a resident Flow Walker was Dawnlight, half a horizon away from the ruins of Omanavar. Sir Themur had carried Relaila back to their horses, and together they had helped her mount hers. The two of them had ridden back to civilization as quickly as the Blood Sister’s poor condition allowed, leading the third horse behind them.

Now, Dina and Sir Themur sat at a small table in the corner of the Drunken Cat. After making sure Relaila was comfortable in her room, they had ordered food for three and brought one serving to their injured friend. They had stayed with her while she ate, ensuring she could keep the food down, knowing she needed the energy to heal properly. Once the Blood Sister had finished her meal, they left her to sleep and returned to the common room to finally eat their own.

“I don’t like how close we got to failing back there,” Sir Themur said. “If the gods hadn’t been with us, we’d be dead by now.”

But are the gods truly with us?

The silent question echoed through Dina’s mind.

Out loud, she mumbled some kind of agreement. She wasn’t exactly sure what she said, only that it sounded like something appropriate.

“Relaila needs rest to recover,” she told him, changing the subject before the conversation turned uncomfortable. “How long can we afford to wait?”

Sir Themur slowly removed the iron gauntlets from his hands, then clasped his scarred fingers together. Dina could see a small stream of foul-smelling pus leaking from a mark on his palm, where something appeared to move beneath his gray skin. As a healer, she had always been fascinated by the restorative powers the Knights Eternal were imbued with, but now, seeing the source of those powers for what they truly were, she felt only revulsion.

“We’ll wait as long as it takes,” he said. “How long does she need?”

“Once we get hold of a Flow Walker, one or two days, I think. The innkeeper has sent word that we’re in need of one. If all goes well, she’ll come by tomorrow morning.”

Sir Themur looked pleased. “Good. That’s not a problem. The targets are still on foot. They won’t get far.”

Dina felt relieved. For a moment, she had feared Sir Themur would suggest they go out and find an animal to sacrifice, allowing her to fully heal Relaila using Patera’s dark magic in minutes. But after her god’s betrayal, she wanted nothing more to do with that.

Surely he must have considered that option, she thought, wondering why he hadn’t suggested it. Perhaps it was as simple as trusting that she knew her job. She hoped that was the case. The alternative—that he had seen through her deception and was just stringing her along—was so much worse.

The Knight Eternal lowered the ventail of his helmet to eat his stewed corn and sausages, the former undercooked, the latter more burned than grilled. Through the opening, she could see his lips as he ate, gray and fibrous, devoid of blood and life.

“You did really well back there,” he said when he had finished. “I failed to protect her, but you came through for her.”

“Thanks,” she replied, not quite sure how to respond to the unexpected praise. From the beginning, she had seen him as the silent, harsh type who did what needed to be done without regard for how it affected those around him. But here he was, thanking her, and genuinely seeming to care about Relaila’s well-being.

Perhaps the gods weren’t the only ones she was seeing in a new light today.

“I’m glad you managed to convince Patera to help us,” he continued. “It’s not like we had an emergency sacrifice ready.”

Dina chuckled nervously at the joke, if that’s what it was. Either the Knight Eternal was starting to open up to her, or it was a veiled hint that he knew what she’d done.

“It wasn’t easy, but she came through for us in the end,” she lied, not daring to tell him the truth. “Without an offering, she only took us halfway there, but it was enough.”

Blaspheming in front of a man who had sold his soul to the god of strength and genocide by admitting she’d bypassed the gods and healed Relaila using Deepwell magic instead didn’t strike her as a particularly good idea.

Truth be told, she was scared out of her wits. It wasn’t just fear of how he or Relaila might react if they found out what she had done. No, what truly terrified her was what the gods of the world might do to her. She half expected to drop dead at any moment, struck down by Patera for going against her.

It had been one thing to defy Mardocar when he tried to manipulate her into going to Terynia. That had just been a matter of dragging her feet. Reluctant as she had been, she had still obeyed the will of the gods—just a tiny bit slower than she might have, if she’d truly wanted to. And besides, that had been Mardocar. This was Patera, her own patron god.

When she healed Relaila against Patera’s will, she had acted on instinct, not even considering the danger of divine retribution. But now, in the calm after the storm, she was beginning to worry that she had painted a divine target on her own back.

But what’s done is done. And I’m proud of what I did, even if the gods aren’t.

Author's Note

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