Healing

The day after the Witch Hunters invaded the castle, Kyn and I sat in the alchemy laboratory. I pretended to leaf through notes although I had not made any progress in comprehending them. My real goal for hanging around was to keep an eye on Kyn, who still hadn’t recovered from the stress of the encounter.

He sat on the stool by his station, pretending to mix ingredients, but even to my untrained eye he was just bluffing. He had poured the contents of one glass into another and back again three times in a row now without noticing.

“Kyn, are you sure you’re all right?” I asked for the umpteenth time.

He jumped. “I’m sorry, master!” he said sounding as terrified as if I had threatened him with a sword.

“There’s nothing to apologize for,” I told him. “Just know that if you want to talk about anything, I’m here.”

He nodded unenthusiastically, eyes downcast. I let it drop there. Some variation of this conversation had repeated multiple times in the last 48 hours, and experience told me it was fruitless to keep pushing. At the same time, I could tell it was not good for him to bottle it up like this. If we were in my world, I’d suggest taking him to a therapist; heck, I could probably use one with how freaky the Witch Hunters were.

Did this world have therapists? From what I had seen,it matched a standard European medieval setting with a few alchemical additions, and I was pretty sure psychology as a field didn’t really start until Freud. Since professional help was out of the question, I wanted to step into the role by at least being someone he could talk to. But he was reluctant, and I had little experience with this sort of emotional thing. He may have looked like my cousin from my world, but his personality was quite different.

Someone knocked on the door. “Come in,” I called out automatically.

Princess Arnya stepped in, directing a concerned expression to me. She gave a short curtsy. “Alchemist, young Kyn,” she said. “I had some free time, so I thought I’d step in, if that’s all right.” She looked at Kyn who didn’t meet her gaze. “I worried you might be…stressed after yesterday’s encounter.”

Kyn shook his head curtly, face taught with obvious stress. “It’s fine.”

“It is not fine,” the princess said emphatically. “The Witch Hunters have no authority here. The king has ruled that alchemy and sorcery may be practiced in his kingdom so long as it is controlled. They have no legal right to persecute you, certainly not in the castle.”

She was only concerned about legal rights? I said “also they have no moral right. That is, this wrong. Very obviously.”

“Obviously,” Kyn echoed robotically.

“So…cheer up?” I told him, trying to make it a command. Arnya shot me a blank look. Ok, so I know fixing trauma doesn’t work like that, but what was I supposed to say? I really don’t know how to handle this kind of thing.

As if to give the proper answer, Arnya gently wrapped her arms around Kyn like she was comforting a child. He tensed slightly but didn’t pull back. “Just breathe,” she whispered. “If you need to cry, that’s all right too.”

“But…but… a strong man doesn’t cry.” Kyn said, holding back tears.

Still stoking his hair like an older sister, Arnya said “how old are you, Kyn?”

“I’m eleven and a half,” he sniveled.

“So you wouldn’t have heard this story. It happened before you were born.” She took a deep breath. “My father, the king’s son, was half-elf. That made him a powerful sorcerer and an enemy to the Witch Hunters.”

Kyn widened his eyes in surprise.

“It’s an open secret. You can still see the elf blood in me.” She gestured to her green hair. “He was always split between the two worlds: the land of humans and of elves. He knew his mother was with the elves, but his father was here and expected him to be a candidate for king.” Her voice has taken on a singsong cadence, like what I’d expect a bard to use. “He was the greatest man I ever knew. Strong, brave, wise, loving…” I now heard a tremble in her voice too. She took a deep breath before continuing. “On the day he left…well, our whole family was supposed to depart for the elven land. But at the last minute, I turned back. I wasn’t brave enough to leave the human realm forever. My father didn’t want to leave me behind, but he had used sorcery to swear sworn oaths that could not be broken. So on that day, my actions forced him and my mother to leave me behind. As he left, he told me to be brave and to take care of the kingdom. Then my mother told me to turn around and…and not look back as they left.”

“Did you?” Kyn asked.

“I did. And do you know what I saw? I saw my father, my brave and strong father, bawling more tears than I had ever seen from one person in my life.” She was now openly crying, and I even felt a stinging in my eyes. “So, young Kyn, you know what this means?”

“That it is all right for a man to cry?”

“No. It means there are times when it is right for a man to cry.”

Finally, Kyn let the tears flow freely. “I’m just, I’m just so scared!” he wailed. “The Witch Hunters killed my mother and father for being alchemists, and they took away my little sister, and then cousin Rei said it would all be ok if I became his apprentice and we moved to the castle, but now they’re in the castle and…!” His tears made the rest of the sentence incomprehensible.

Arnya continued to hold him, rocking slightly. On instinct, I approached and wrapped my arms around both of them, offering what little comfort I could.

As we sat there in silence except for Kyn’s sniffling, I silently decided. I would learn alchemy. Not because this was a fun adventure, not to keep up the disguise, not even necessarily to go home. Arnya had spoken of alchemists using their craft to fight, and I was determined to do so to protect this young boy from any more tragedy.