All eyes saw a miracle in that moment, but it was Zarrek that caught the way her hand shook on the man’s leg. Sweat slid down her temple, catching at the strange glowing freckles dusting her skin. Her lips parted, a small sound escaping—half sigh, half pained exhale.
Zarrek took a step closer without realizing.
The silver light faded from her palm. The lantern’s normal yellow glow crawled back into the corners of the tent. The soldier pushed himself up on his elbows, blinking in confusion, fingers patting at his thigh, finding whole cloth where rotten bandage had been.
“What—?” he croaked.
The girl let go of him and swayed. Just barely. A tiny wobble, a tremor at the knees. That was all. She caught herself on the edge of the cot, lashes fluttering.
No one moved to steady her.
Zarrek’s hand twitched at his side. He did not step in. He kept his arms locked, back straight.
She drew in a breath that sounded like it scraped the inside of her ribs, then pushed away from the cot. Her fingers left clean skin behind where they’d pressed, the angry swelling gone; the black rot replaced with shiny, pink flesh just beginning to scar.
That was impossible.
No runes. No conduit. Healing magic he had never seen in all the Void-forsaken corners of Daesmoria. They would have built entire temples for that kind of power in Krystopolis. They would have carved her name into the Jade Lattices with gold.
They would have Repurposed her anyway, if she’d been born this small. If they saw the way her spells sapped the life and color out of her.
The menders found their voices all at once.
“That—”
“By the Shields—”
“Impossible,” the older one said. “There is no spell craft that could—”
“That wasn’t a spell,” Tor said. He had gone pale beneath the blood spatters of his hood. “That isn’t anything sanctioned. That’s—”
The girl didn’t hear them. She blinked, as if she was dragging herself back into her body from somewhere far away. Her hand went to herbrow, fingers pressing there, then dropping uselessly to her side. Her skin gleamed with a sheen of sweat now, hair clinging in damp strands.
She turned toward the tent flap.
Zarrek watched the way her knees dipped. The way one foot hesitated, sliding half an inch on the packed earth before she forced it forward again. The ground wasn’t quite holding her up. There was a moment—a heartbeat—where he saw exactly how easy it would be for her to crumple.
Nobody stepped in.
She didn’t look back at the healed man. Didn’t wait for thanks or questions. She just walked toward the flap and out into the fading light.
In her absence, the silence turned ugly.
Zarrek took a breath that tasted like rust and old smoke. He turned.
The menders were looking at him now, not at the soldier, not at the door.
Their eyes were full of calculation. And fear.
“She…what is she?” the older man whispered. “Commander, that isn’t sanctioned spell craft—”
“Hedge magic, maybe,” Brez said under his breath. “Should have beenculled. Wild magic like that…and that weak body. What was His Quintessence thinking when he—”
Zarrek crossed the distance between them.
“Not a word past that,” he said.
They flinched. All three. Even though his voice never rose, even though he didn’t lay a hand on a weapon. It wasn’t volume that made men obey him. It had never been.
