Chapter 5: The Girl Who Heals

The sun hung mercilessly over the village of Vareth, baking the cracked earth beneath a cloudless sky. Heat shimmered across sun-bleached stone walls, the air thick and wavering like breath held too long.

Despite the blaze, the market pulsed with life—vendors shouting over carts of woven cloth and dried meat, children darting between barrels, laughter rising like birds startled from the trees. But beneath the bustle lurked something quieter. A tension in half-held glances and unfinished whispers.

Aeris moved carefully through the stalls, clutching a bundle of lavender and sage to her chest. The mingling scents grounded her, even as her thoughts spun like storm winds.

Since the day she healed that boy—the one with the deep wound on his leg—the village had changed. So had she.

Back then, people had stared in awe. Now they looked away too quickly. Or not at all.

"Keep your gift hidden," Maela had warned. "Magic is feared before it's understood."

But the magic didn't sleep anymore. It stirred beneath her skin, warm and restless.

The scrape of frantic footsteps broke her thoughts.

"Help! Please—someone help!"

A woman's voice, high and desperate, cracked through the market like a struck drum.

Aeris turned as the crowd stilled. From the far end of the square, a woman stumbled forward, skirts tangled around her ankles, panic written across every line of her face.

"He's not breathing!" she sobbed. "My son—he collapsed!"

A man followed, breathless, carrying a limp boy in his arms. His head lolled, lips tinged blue.

The market held its breath.

Aeris's bundle slipped from her arms, forgotten.

No one moved.

Not the fruit seller. Not the butcher. Not the guards.

Because they remembered the last time Aeris had stepped forward.

Her feet moved before thought could stop them. She pushed past the stunned crowd.

Whispers hissed.

"She's the witch girl"

"Don't let her touch him"

A prayer stone hit the cobblestones and cracked.

She didn't stop.

"Lay him down," she said, kneeling. Her voice was steady, though her hands trembled.

The father hesitated.

Aeris looked up, meeting his eyes. "Please."

Something in her tone made him move. He lowered the boy to the ground.

Aeris hovered her hands over the child's chest. His skin was cold. Pulse faint. Breath barely there.

The warmth inside her surged.

"Stay," she whispered. "Come back to us."

And then—she let go.

Let go of the fear. Of Maela's warnings. Of the village's hate.

She opened to the warmth—fierce, golden—and it rushed to her fingertips like sunlight chasing shadow.

The boy's chest jerked once.

Then again.

A ragged cough tore from his throat.

"Mama?" he rasped.

The mother folded over him, sobbing.

For a moment, the market stood still.

Then came the chaos.

Gasps and sharp cries rippled outward.

A man stumbled back, nearly overturning a water barrel. A girl dropped her satchel of herbs and fled. Others whispered prayers or crossed themselves.

"She did it again"

"She's not natural"

"Cursed blood"

Aeris stood slowly, legs shaking. Her magic had receded, but its echo pulsed in her fingertips. Her heartbeat pounded like thunder.

She stared at her hands. The glow was gone. But something remained—an invisible heat, a hum beneath her skin.

Not just power. A pull. Like something inside her had tasted more—and wanted it again.

What if they were right?

What if this gift really was a curse?

The boy's mother clutched her in a breathless embrace.

"Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you."

But the father pulled back first.

"You shouldn't have done that," he said. His eyes weren't grateful. They were afraid. "They'll come for you now."

Aeris blinked. "Who?"

But he was already walking away, eyes scanning the crowd. "Not just villagers. Others, too."

He gathered his son and vanished.

Leaving Aeris in the center of something she could no longer control.

"Demon!"

"Sorceress!"

"Bind her hands"

Hands reached for stones.

Another hand found hers—warm, calloused, grounding.

Mira.

"Come on," she hissed. "We have to go."

They ran—through alleys, beneath sagging laundry lines, over cracked gutters.

Behind them, voices rose like smoke.

The door slammed behind them. Maela stood inside, cloak still on, eyes sharp with something deeper than anger.

"I heard," she said. "The square. What happened?"

Aeris said nothing. She was trembling now.

Maela stepped forward, laying a steadying hand on her shoulder.

"You can't stay here," she said quietly. "The Elders will call a vote. Binding if we're lucky. Banishment if we're not."

Aeris swallowed. "Where would we go?"

Maela looked away. "Someplace where your name means nothing. Where light doesn't draw knives."

Her voice faltered. "I've already buried one girl with a gift like yours."

Aeris stilled. "What?"

"She was brave, too," Maela whispered. "Too brave."

Silence thickened.

Then hurried steps in the hall. The door flew open.

Mira again. Pale, breathless.

"They're calling the Council," she said. "Tonight."

A beat.

She glanced toward the shuttered window, where faint smoke curled in the air.

"Some are saying I helped you," she said softly. "They don't trust me either."

Aeris's heart clenched. "Because you're not from here."

Mira gave a crooked, grim smile. "Because girls like me… with herbs. And secrets. They don't know what to do with that."

Maela's eyes narrowed. "Secrets?"

Mira lifted her chin. "I've been learning defensive magic. In secret. My aunt taught me—before the temple fell."

Aeris stiffened. "You never said—"

"I didn't plan to." Mira looked at her, softer now. "But I found someone worth staying for."

Maela's gaze darkened. "You shouldn't have revealed that."

"I know," Mira said. "But you need me. Aeris needs me."

Maela didn't reply.

But she didn't argue again.

The days that followed blurred into fragments.

Some villagers avoided them. Others stared too long. A few left offerings—bread, flowers, talismans—on the doorstep. None with names.

Aeris trained in silence behind locked shutters. Mira sparred with sticks and whispered in old tongues when she thought no one heard. Maela sharpened knives by firelight.

But the village was no longer just watching.

It was listening.

And beyond Vareth, others had heard too.

One evening, as the sun sank behind the cliffs, Maela stood by the hearth with a letter in hand.

The seal was broken. The ink still wet.

"Talien's men are moving," she said. "Scouts have entered the outer provinces."

Aeris's blood turned cold. "They're looking for me."

Maela nodded. "The prophecy has stirred. They're searching for a mark. A sign only the few will recognize."

Aeris touched her chest, the space where something deeper now lived. Her skin still tingled beneath her collarbone.

"It's begun."

Maela's gaze lingered. "You're not ready. But no one ever is."

That night, Aeris lay beneath the fading sky. The stars pulsed overhead like distant hearts.

The magic within her no longer slept. It hummed—awake and listening.

Something had changed.

She could feel it.

Far beyond Vareth, on the edge of a camp wrapped in desert wind, a hawk landed silently on a weathered post.

Syrina looked up from where she sharpened her blade. A scroll was tied to the hawk's leg.

She untied it, brow furrowing at the seal: two stars crossed by a burning line.

Her eyes narrowed.

"A girl?" she murmured. "A light… in the East."

She glanced toward Ryder's tent.

Then back at the message in her hand.

She didn't move.

Not yet.