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“I do. Although I don’t have the exact same magical experience that you do. You’re military, right?”
“How did you know?”
“Eh, something with how your mate holds himself, and I’m sure you do when you’re actually conscious.”
“I never noticed I might hold myself in a different way.”
“That’s all right. I can tell you’re clever nonetheless.”
Hope bloomed within my chest, and I decided to ask something risky, especially to a stranger I had just met. “The curse I want to make… it’s uh… it’s a Blood Trifecta Curse.”
“Ah! I knew you were clever. Blood Trifectas are quite complicated. Where did you come across that information?”
“In the archival library at the capital of Camdaria.”
“So you’re familiar with doing your research. That’s good, that’s good. Nothing worse than a healer who won’t keep up with continuing their education. Complacency kills, you know.”
“I do try.” I paused again, trying to think of the best way to ask. But as per usual, I figured the best way was to be out with it. “Would you be willing to let me use your blood for it?” I’d been thinking about using Aodin’s blood since he had such a prestigious lineage, but I would rather have a powerful magic user like Luci.
It was a huge thing to ask someone I’d just met, and that wasn’t lost on me, so I waited for the sharp rejection, but that never came. The older woman looked at me with a considerate expression, like she was actually mulling over what I’d said.
“I suppose I would be game for it, but I have to say, if you’re planning on doing this, you need to do it soon. I’m no great magic expert, but I can tell whatever bonds are currently holding that nasty beast of a curse inside of you back are going to fail soon. Besides, I can’t imagine that’s wonderfully comfortable.”
I shrugged, which turned out to be quite a bad idea as a wave of pain tore through my body. Right, I had a packed wound there. I would think that wasn’t something I was likely to forget, and yet…
“I’ve had it my whole life.”
“Your whole life? Surely that’s an exaggeration.”
“No, it was put on me as a baby.”
“Huh, and you’ve made it this far? That’s pretty impressive.”
“Thank you,” I said, hugely relieved by her agreement to donate her blood. That would be a huge boost.
“There are still a lot of ingredients I need, and I’m not sure I one hundred percent understand the ritual in all of its steps.”
“I’d be happy to help you. Do you have a list?”
“Uh, I do, but I think I left it at Aodin’s house in our mad rush to escape.”
“That’s all right, then. Here, let me give you some medicine and tea to help you rest up and rehydrate, then I’ll shamble over to his estate to see what I can do.”
“You’d really do that?”
“Why not? More glory day pantomime.” She laughed again, a bright and open sound. “I may not be as with it as I once was, but I know that the current goings on in our world aren’t that great. I may or may not have heard through the grapevine that you and your honey here are trying to shake things up.”
“We’re trying, yeah.”
Looking at the older woman was making me feel different, like channeling my thoughts in a way I hadn’t thought of before: what it would be like if one day, far in the future, I got to look like that. To laugh with some young up and comers, talking about my own heyday and the war I’d once fought in. Given everything that’d happened to me in my life, I’d never really thought about growing old. I’d always thought my life was rarely guaranteed beyond whatever month I was in, and sometimes not even then.
“I’ll pop off to get you what you need, then. Don’t go anywhere.” She winked at that, then stood before shuffling out of the room. She returned a few moments later and set a tray over my legs with a cup of tea, a small bowl of soup, and a glass of water. Suddenly, I was painfully aware of just how thirsty I was, so I grabbed at the glass and chugged it down.
“Hey, hey there. You’re a healer. Slow down. You know better.”
I did, but the siren call of sweet hydration was impossible to resist, and in the end, Luci had to take the cup away from me.
“Now, sip at your tea and soup. I think you’ll find the flavors are plenty different enough that they won’t just taste like the same experience in different containers, and I’ll go see about getting that list of yours.”
