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Perhaps it’s just luck that the one destined to run in to Tarnished today is a healer.
Maybe it’s fate.
It’s definitely not just luck that has given Cress many chances to hone her skills in healing. It seems there are always broken bones and desperate fevers spreading through Beqanna like wildfire. She doesn’t understand why—but then again, in her six years of life, who has there been to teach her of cruelty and darkness? She knows nothing of these things. Oh, she knows that all of these injuries that she has helped to heal have nothing to do with coincidence, but she doesn’t know who (or what) is inflicting them. There could be many “who’s” or just one. She doesn’t understand why.
She’s in the Meadow, which isn’t surprising, grazing peacefully. A moment ago a beautiful doe had darted through the clearing she is in, clearly not expecting it to be occupied. The deer had occupied Cress’s attention for only a moment and then she was gone, but the young mare’s curiosity has been piqued. She knows there are herds of deer in the Meadow—she has grazed with them often enough; they accept her because she is quiet and calm. But a lone doe? Where has her herd gone?
After another moment of quiet contemplation she follows the doe, creeping as quietly across the grass as she can as to not frighten her again. She can’t have gone far, but the edge of the Meadow is silent, almost eerily so. It only takes Cress a few more steps before she realizes why.
Everything around her is dying.
Plants, small animals—she watches a field mouse stumble for its nest only to drop dead—and even trees. The grass is browning before her eyes and she reels in shock as she feels the virus reaching for her, trying to poison her as well. Before it can she reaches for her power, spreading out her healing like a shield around her. The sickness moves on past her like she wasn’t even there, but things keep dying as it touches them. Oh, no. This is terrible. Is it a plague? She stumbles closer to the source of the virus, trying to heal birds as they lay limp in their nests, encouraging them to fly away as they heal by stomping noisily. She cannot save the plants—she doesn’t know how to heal those—but she can and will save as many animals as she possibly can.
She only goes a few more steps before stumbling right into a deer. She almost believes it to be her doe, but no, this one has an impressive set of antlers—a buck. As this thought registers in her mind, it changes from buck into… something. Something sinister. He looks like a wolf now, only darker and more dangerous. Terrified, she glances over his shoulder and sees the doe she’d been following, lying dead in another clearing. The path of death radiates from her center like she is the cause, and Cress swallows past the lump in her throat as she tears her gaze away from the deer. She can’t fix that. She can’t bring back the dead.
With a jolt she realizes that the hellhound is speaking to her, demanding that she come with it. “W-w-why?” she responds, stuttering on the simple word. “A-are you going to k-k-kill m-me too?”
do you remember
when we learned how to fly?