Demon Child

The orphanage was quiet at this hour. The wind tugged softly at the loose boards in the windows. Dust floated in the late afternoon light. Reva sat on the floor near the back room, wrapping another cloth bandage with shaking hands.

She heard the laughter from the front hall. The others had taken her sweetbread again—the one she'd hidden behind the stove. It didn't surprise her anymore. They always found it.

They always took it.

She said nothing. She never did. Not when they pushed her out of line. Not when they kicked her cot. Not even when they whispered about her after dark.

"Demon hands," one had called her.

"She eats our pain and grows fat on it," another said.

But Reva wasn't fat. She was small. Thin. Her collarbone showed more each season.

She looked down at her hands. Thin fingers, knuckles swollen. They trembled when she used her power. Every time she healed someone, it felt like part of her was slipping away. Like she was soaking in all the broken parts of other people and not letting them go.

She could still hear her mother's voice.

"Don't touch me. Don't come near your brother. You're not right."

"You made your father sick. You did it. With those hands."

The day her mother left her at the orphanage, she hadn't cried.

She hadn't had the strength.

She remembered watching the woman walk away without looking back. Not once. Not even to make sure Reva hadn't followed. It had been raining, and her shoes had holes, and she'd felt the cold all the way in her bones.

The matron fed her, then made her sleep in the shed for the first month.

Later, they let her stay inside. But no one spoke kindly to her. No one thanked her when she healed a fever. They just stared. As if waiting for her to change into something worse.

She stopped asking for things. Stopped expecting fairness. Some nights she lay awake thinking maybe she was cursed. Maybe she had eaten something dark and it lived in her now.

The light from the window shifted across her feet. She pulled her knees to her chest and rested her head on them.

Her eyes didn't shine the way a sixteen-year-old's should. They didn't sparkle. They didn't widen in wonder.

They looked old.

Like someone who had survived too much and stopped hoping it would ever be different.

She didn't hate the children who stole from her.

She didn't hate her mother.

But there was a small, tired corner in her chest that still wondered...

Would anyone ever choose me?

And she didn't know if the answer was yes.

It was evening, the sun dipped lower behind the trees by the time Auren arrived at the orphanage.

It stood near the edge of the village like a forgotten thought—walls patched with broken shutters, a roof sagging under its own weight. A broken fence lined the garden, though no plants grew there anymore.

Auren pushed open the door. The hinges groaned.

Inside, the air was warm, but stale. A handful of children sat silently on cots and crates, staring at him with the wide-eyed stillness of those taught not to speak unless spoken to. A woman near the hearth—gray-haired, with a sharp chin—stood as he entered, wiping her hands on a worn apron.

"My lord," she said, stiffly.

He nodded, but his eyes were already scanning the room.

Then he saw her.

Reva stood near the back, folding a thin sheet over a low bed. Her hair was tied back roughly. Her clothes were clean, but worn thin at the shoulders and sleeves. She didn't look up until he stepped toward her.

The matron spoke again. "That's the one you asked about. The healer. She's... quiet."

Auren stopped a few feet from her.

"You're Reva," he said.

She gave a small nod.

"They say you heal."

"Sometimes," she said softly. "If it's not too bad. If I'm not too tired."

He studied her face. There was something hollow in her eyes—not blank, but... distant. Worn thin. As if she'd been waiting too long for something that never came.

"How long have you been here?"

"Since I was eight."

"And before that?"

She looked away. "Doesn't matter."

Auren turned to the matron. "Does she have any ties? Any blood left?"

"No one's come for her in years."

"Then I'll take her," he said.

The room went silent.

The matron blinked. "My lord?"

"She'll leave with me. I'll file the claim and adoption with the court scribes. She'll be under my name now."

The matron looked from him to Reva, uncertain. "Are you sure, my lord? She's... unusual."

"I know," he said calmly. "I've seen enough to understand what she is."

Reva looked at him then—really looked. There was disbelief in her face, but no hope. Just confusion. Like she didn't understand why anyone would speak for her like that.

"You don't have to come," Auren said, voice lower. "But if you do, it won't be as a burden."

She didn't speak.

But when he turned to leave, she followed.