Chương 7: Chapter 8: Teachable

The next day brings such a hectic atmosphere that I barely have time to think over how I did what I did. In the aftermath of the attack, the move, and then the almost-failed chimera test, the Enclave appears to be almost feverish in its bustle. When I get to Xan's room, they're already sitting up in bed. Their skin is pale, almost translucent, and their dark blond hair hangs limply against their face. But their eyes, those are sparkling with their usual good humor, and it sets me at ease.

"Good to see you haven't changed with a near-death experience," I say, leaning against the door frame and crossing my arms. Xan grins at me.

"You know you'd miss me if I was gone, Ria." They wink and I can see the fatigue under the bravado, but the fact that the latter is there at all makes me happy, which I didn't expect. I guess Xan has wormed their way under my skin more than I realized.

"Miss you like a hole in the head," I mutter under my breath, moving over to the bed and taking their temperature. It's almost painful to not correct their usage of my name.

"Keep resting. None of your shenanigans." I move over to where Lennick has the medications we're using for Xan set up on the dresser, and frown. I'm fairly certain Xan is muttering in the background, but I can't spare time to listen while I'm trying to figure out just what's missing. Enoki and shiitake mushrooms, dried and set aside for tea. Not my choice, but I know Lennick has always been partial to mushrooms in his teas. There's comfrey drying on the sill, probably for an amulet.

I catch the faint scent of coriander emanating from what looks like a paste for spreading on bread of some sort. Several potions are scattered around, but I can't help think we've forgotten something.

"Why isn't Lennick here?" I ask, somewhat absentmindedly.

"He said he forgot something important and dashed out a while ago." Xalin's tone is full of pouting.

"Left me all alone, and now you're ignoring me." I sigh and turn back.

"Let me check the wound." Because I don't really know what else to say. Especially when Xan can't be their usual cantankerous and irritating self because they talk with their hands and movement right now is a bad idea. The spikes really did a number on their side, and even as I peel back the poultice, Xan hisses through their teeth, but that's the only response I get. I'm surprised to see how well the wounds have healed.

They're already scabbed over, the poultices I prepared yesterday more potent than I thought they'd be.

"You don't need this anymore. Best let the air get to it. I'll put together a paste to apply around the wounds twice a day. It'll keep inflammation down and help prevent any infection creeping in." I glance up to see Xan watching me, a tear sliding down their cheek. Emotions of others are harder for me to deal with than my own.

"It'll be okay." I try to reassure them.

"I know that," they say softly.

"I'm just grateful. I was so sure I'd die. It felt like the life was draining out of me. Minx said there was a pool of blood big enough to fill a bucket underneath me once I was moved." Xan looks down at their hands.

"Guess I'm feeling my mortality right about now."

"Of course you are. You almost got skewered by a chimera because you tried to save someone who probably would have been safe." Maybe, perhaps. Actually, the odds were probably about even on that one. Still.

"You shouldn't have been so reckless." I'm surprised to find that I mean every word.

"Right, then. I'll be more careful in the future so you don't worry yourself sick over me." Xan's eyes are twinkling again. I roll my eyes and walk over to begin making the salve for the wound.

"Aw, don't be like that, Ria." It's all I can do to clamp down on the urge to tell them not to call me that. A promise is a promise and they damn well survived, so I can't go back on my word. Xalin starts laughing, only to follow shortly thereafter with a grunt of pain. I feel a surge of satisfaction at that fact.

"That's what you get for taking me at my word," I snap, finally, as I crush the herbs into a fine paste along with some aloe for good measure so it'll cool and soothe.

"You promised. And you may be a bit of a stick in the mud," Xalin says smugly, "but you always keep your word." I ignore them and continue to grind the paste, wishing it was a specific person's skull. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

I spend the rest of the day in the lab with Lennick going over every imaginable fact I'll need to know about teaching the classes I have coming up. Along with a calendar so I can track students, attendance, and most of all, manage my schedule. All I can hope is that they aren't planning on confining me to an Enclave. I'm extremely good at what I do. Expert levels when it comes to natural-death appearances. I'd like to think I'm too valuable to keep in a classroom, but something about all this makes me uneasy.

Maybe I'm being too conceited. I can't have my avenues to information cut off so soon after gaining them. These thoughts won't leave me alone as I make it through the day in a haze of persistent fatigue. My bed is so soft, my room so homey, that I fall into a well-deserved sleep shortly after dinner and wake up the next morning completely refreshed, if still a mite worried about the implications of everything. Whatever happened during that chimera battle drained me, and it's taken me two days to recover my energy.

This morning, Xan is up and about. Slow, but moving, which is mildly surprising. I catch up as they amble down the hall.

"What you up to?" I ask, poking my nose in. They smile, but I can see they're out of breath. That damned poisonous quasi-impalement really took it out of them, and I don't just mean blood.

"I'm on my way to Lennick, to meet with both of you."

"You're running a little late," I chide gently, trying to be considerate.

"Well, I forgot that repairing holes in my body was going to take up energy I would otherwise spend moving toward my goal." They flash me another grin, but I can see how much effort that takes.

"I'll make sure to remember that next time I get four tail spines rammed through my side." I tsk at them.

"Sometimes I don't get you." I grab their arm and shove it over my shoulders, stooping a little to lend them aid on their good side.

"There will be no next time. And there's no need to play martyr and pretend that people won't help you." Sure, Nightshade isn't the warm and fuzziest bunch of people, but we are colleagues, comrades, and mostly decent humans. Well, sort of, anyway.

"Careful, I'll think you've started to care about people," Xan quips.

"Careful, I'll drop you and walk away to prove a point," I say back, but don't because I don't want the wound to rip open. It would be a waste of perfectly good poultices. Lennick watches as I dump Xan—mostly carefully—into the armchair he has set up in his office. He clears his throat.

"I need you to tell me exactly what happened and how you managed to heal what should have been a fatal wound." Xan won't look at me. They seem exceedingly interested in how their toes splay out against the floor.

"I pulled out my potions, tinctures, and poultices, and applied them. While doing so, I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask the ingredients to lend me their strength. You know, like I do for everything I make in the lab." I shrug. It was more than that, and yet at the same time, exactly that. I knew it didn't make sense, but that's just how it was. That's all I did. The ground hummed like it always did for me, vibrating almost, but nothing unusual for me.

Except how do I tell someone that sometimes the ground sings to me without sounding like I might need some mental soothing? I don't. That's the only viable answer.

"Well." I mull the thought over before continuing. Truthfully, I don't believe the adrenaline rush was all that tired me out.

"I needed two nights' rest to fully catch up. It felt like I used up all of my energy doing that. It drained me substantially, which makes absolutely no sense at all." Lennick is watching me thoughtfully, with a finger resting against his chin, his eyes wide and his lips pursed. Suddenly, he smiles.

"I think you shared energy with Xan, though I'm not sure how."

"Shared energy?" I ask dubiously.

"That's a thing? Like gave them life force? Like the old books hint at?" My mentor shrugs a bit.

"Not necessarily just like that, but somehow you conveyed extra strength and power through whatever bond it is you share with your alchemy. It's something we need to look into." Then he turns his attention to Xalin, effectively dismissing the conversation as something to talk about later. In the meantime, I can't get his words out of my head. I'd been frantic at the time, and honestly can't remember exactly what I did. Replicating it? Not even a hope of doing so.

All I know is that I couldn't let Xalin die, or Minx for that matter. Not one of the people I work with daily, and especially not since Aarron put them all in danger with that chimera stunt. I know with certainty that I can't explain that Aarron was fully aware of chimera death stench even if Dougrant wasn't at the time. My concern is that I don't understand why he would do that. If only my mother were alive. She had this way with plants as well, this complete and utter connection.

I'm so deep in my thoughts that Lennick startles me when he speaks again.

"I'm going to help Xan back to their room. Can you prep the list I've left there for the Two-Blade Novice class you'll be teaching this afternoon?" Lennick asks, breaking into my thoughts.

"Two-Blade Novice…" I laugh. It's one of the best insults I know, the most common too. But there is an actual Two-Blade Novice class.

"Stop it," Lennick admonishes me softly.

"Will you do it?"

"Sure." I nod at the same time but know he's already left and won't see it. What has come over me today? I'm questioning the Prefect, and uncertain of how I did what I very obviously did. Glancing at the list Lennick left, I begin categorizing and measuring out the herbs they'll be using for alchemy class. It's just so they can begin making simple tinctures and potions, healing salves and poison cures that are so rudimentary they're only good enough for basic training.

They're not advanced enough yet to harvest their own stock. Not to mention Lennick and I still have to trim and cultivate the garden here in the new Enclave. Today the ground beneath me is oddly silent. I don't think I've ever realized just how used to the company of nature I've gotten. It feels lonely without the constant reminder of our strange connection. But touching and dividing the herbs, portioning them out, it's all so soothing.

There were times when I was younger that I thought I'd join the Sage Order like my mother before me. I was supposed to have an in because of that. She was magnificent. Plants sang beneath her fingertips, growing that bit higher, brighter, stronger. Just like her potions had that bit more magic in them, that extra level of potency. Even though we knew it was all an alchemical interaction, it still felt like real magic wasn't that far from us anymore. I got my mother's gift with plants, multiplied.

I am proud of it, always have been. But I wish she was still here to guide me, to answer all the questions I have fighting for space in my brain. Why were you killed? Why was I ostracized? And how the hell did I manage to heal my friend?