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Aric stopped at the sound of the hesitant young voice. A boy, six or seven at most, blinked up at them—at him—with his hands gripping tight to a small bag of food. There was no other adult in sight.
Mitzi moved forward and crouched down, keeping a couple of feet between them. “Are you okay? Are you lost?”
The boy shifted his focus to her and stared for a long second, then blinked rapidly and shook his head. “Not lost,” he said. He looked back up to Aric and pulled his bag closer to his chest. “Are you … the Century?”
Aric made a point to soften his expression. “Sentry,” he corrected. “My name is Aric.” As much as he wasn’t interested in detouring from his objective, he couldn’t justify leaving this child unattended, particularly if there was a dangerous element running through the city. “What can I do for you?”
Tears puddled in front of the boy’s eyes and he sniffled audibly. “Th-there was a fire! My daddy was hurt!” He wiped at his face with the heel of his hand. “The h-healers are making him better now, b-but—but—”
Mitzi swooped in and lifted the boy into her arms, bag and all. “Why don’t you guide us back to your daddy, and we’ll have a grownup explain the situation, okay?”
The boy again stared up at her in awe for a moment, as if he’d forgotten about her, before nodding. He leaned into Mitzi’s shoulder and looked around her arm toward Aric. “Some people say you’re scary,” he said, voice quieter. “But Miss Breila said you helped her once. Said the people here don’t, um—” He screwed up his face for a moment. “Like they’re dumb.”
Viveca chuckled.
Aric had no recollection of a woman named Breila, but he was well aware that he’d rescued more people than he’d gotten the names of over the years. As well as the fact that many refugees were known to change their names after settling into Yafae, as a symbol of their fresh start. So instead of commenting on that, he said, “You’re a brave young man for coming to speak to me. Why don’t you tell us where your father is?”
The boy bobbed his head and twisted enough to point in the opposite direction of the smoke. “Caram Clinic. That way.”
They walked at a comfortable, steady pace to the indicated clinic. Viveca stayed a step ahead of Mitzi and the boy, whose name they learned was Von, and Darnel kept stride at his fiancée’s side. Ordinarily Mitzi and Cecilia would have held the center position of their formation, but nothing about this journey was ordinary. Nor were they marching into an enemy camp. It was more unsettling than Aric had anticipated, receiving so many glares from the citizens of the kingdom he’d spent nearly two decades protecting, but the worst that happened before they reached the long, single-story clinic was a pair of impudent late-teens throwing rocks. Aric made sure to glare the petulant children into silence and made sure their senses had latched onto the resumed sniffling of the fragile boy in Mitzi’s arms. Whether they’d learn or not, at least the memory would haunt them.
A single guard, not a soldier of Caram but a volunteer for the clinic, stood by the entry. His eyes widened when he spotted them, but he only hesitated a moment. “S-Sentry!”
Aric inclined his head. “Keep up the good work.” The words felt hollow, though they shouldn’t have. His own emptiness irritated him more than this detour to their mission.
Mitzi set Von on his feet once they stepped inside. “Which way to your father?”
The interior of the clinic was bustling with something just shy of organized chaos. Sorcerers wearing branded arm bands bent over bodies on tables and talked quietly with those who’d regained enough consciousness, and health, to sit themselves upright. They moved between undesignated aisles with purposeful strides, barely taking note of those they passed. Some clustered together in the far corner of the room, trying to rest, having clearly used up too much mana and exhausted themselves. Around all of that, citizens ambled aimlessly, stretched, and cried. It was a scene Aric and his team had encountered more times than he could recount, yet which had always filled him with the same sense of righteous fury on behalf of the wounded and the grieving.
This time, he felt … much less of that.
“This way!” Von’s reenergized voice called his focus, and Aric watched as the little boy darted off, deeper into the building.
Predictably, already some stares and several glares had drifted Aric’s way.
Aric ignored the looks and followed the boy’s path until they stood beside a middle-aged male laid out on a table, face-down. Two healers knelt over him, their faces mirror images of concentration and building exhaustion as they poured well-honed healing magic into their target. A quick scan confirmed Aric’s initial suspicion. This man, Von’s father, had suffered horrendous burns. He’d been under treatment for a while and, at their pace, another team would need to take over and focus on him exclusively for at least an hour.
“Daddy!”
The man tilted his head a little, revealing himself to be semi-conscious, and tired lips lifted into a strained smile. He made a croaking sound, likely still unable to easily speak.
Mitzi stepped closer to the pair of focused healers. “Why don’t the both of you take a rest? I’ll take over from here.”
The female lifted her head and blinked up at Mitzi. “Y-you’re—”
Mitzi smiled her sweet, disarming smile. Without a word of complaint, the team of overworked healers let their magic recede, stood, and walked away. Mitzi settled into the seat nearest her patient’s shoulders and spread her hands over his back until one was positioned over the back of his neck and the other near the base of his spine. She let out a quiet breath, and twin circles appeared over the backs of her hands as she let the magic flow. In moments, Von’s father was fully encompassed in her revitalizing power.
Aric studied the man’s face for another moment, but even with Mitzi’s intervention he wouldn’t be able to speak articulately for several minutes. So he looked up at Darnel. “Go ahead and stay here. I want to talk to someone about what happened today.”
“Maybe I can help,” an unfamiliar female voice said.
Aric turned, noticing as he moved that Von had offered the newcomer a finger wave, and met the woman’s stare. She wore the insignia of the clinic and held a cup of mineral water in one hand.
Von came up to the backs of Aric’s legs, grabbing hold of Aric’s pants. “Did you find Miss Breila?”
Aric frowned. That was the same woman he’d spoken about earlier.
The woman across from them shook her head. “Sorry, buddy,” she said. “I think your hero was taken to another clinic.”
