Chương 101: Chapter 34: From Anger to Laughter

Once the boys said their goodbyes with promises to converse again and, in Hassan's case, with a renewed curiosity for Selena's arguments, she resumed her direct path toward the Cloister of the Forest. The afternoon was tranquil, the air was cooling slowly, and the exhaustion of the day was beginning to weigh on her shoulders. However, the peace of the journey was abruptly shattered. From among some bushes of blue berries and jagged leaves, a familiar but altered figure emerged.

It was Maya, and she carried her left arm immobilized with splints of polished wood and bandages of clean cloth, fastened with clinical precision. A genuine surprise, tinged with disquiet, took hold of Selena's face, and the words burst out before any formal greeting. —What happened to you? —Selena let out. She approached with haste, her voice laden with an instantaneous and deep worry. —Rebound —Maya said.

That single word, in the context of their lives, was a complete explanation, a terminal diagnosis of a shared experience. No more words were needed. A sigh escaped from Maya's lips, a sound of pain and resignation. —You should have seen Ren. The poor guy had an entire finger gangrene during the attempt. Black, cold… a horrible thing. But Isolde healed it in time. She paused, looking at her own splinted arm with a bitter expression.

—To me, on the other hand, she only recovered all the bones of the hand, which were turned to dust. But this one… She slowly and slightly raised the injured arm. —It stayed like this. Isolde said that the ulna bone "preferred" not to heal completely. As if the echo had its whims. Selena examined the bandage with a critical eye, the fresh knowledge from pharmacology class coming to her mind. —You should go to the clinic —she suggested, her tone pensive.

Maya arched an eyebrow, then tilted her head to one side and continued listening to her. —To have them apply an ointment with waxban wax. Or perhaps zintel wax, for its anti-inflammatory properties. It could accelerate the consolidation. Maya continued looking at her, but now a wide and genuine smile illuminated her face, chasing away for a moment the shadow of pain. —So you did take the medicine classes seriously —she said with a tinge of wonder and joy.

Selena blushed, the color rising up her cheeks that were reddening little by little. —But remember that before being a resonant, I was a healer. I know what each ointment does. She laughed a little, a sound that was cut short when an involuntary movement reminded her of the injury. —Ouch… What I didn't know, because I had never broken a bone, is that it is horribly, terribly painful. As if they had shoved a red-hot iron inside your arm and left it there.

They walked together, Selena's pace adapting to Maya's slower and more careful rhythm, heading first to the dining hall. There, after eating a thick stew and black bread which they dipped in shared silence, they sought a bit of peace. They made their way to one of the university's numerous secret gardens, a small rectangle of grass surrounded by bushes of nocturnal flowers that were beginning to open their petals.

The sun was already low, tingeing the clouds with orange and lavender, but the day still had hours of dim light ahead. —You know… —Maya said. She broke the comfortable silence and lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. —Isolde presented herself to us with another title a few days ago. Selena tilted her head to one side and then sighed. —The first day of classes, with the seriousness of the ice that accompanies her, she declared herself as...

She drew even closer, until her breath warmed Selena's ear, and whispered: —Isolde the Deadly. She pulled away then, leaving the words, laden with an ominous weight, to resonate in the twilight air. —And the worst part —she continued, with her normal but still low voice. Selena shuddered for a second; it was not the title, it was Maya's breath, the closeness of her friend. —Is that it was in today's class when the spell rebounded on us. We were trying to heal the mind or at least alleviate anguish.

But neither Ren nor I could. He ended up with the gangrened finger and I with this. She pointed to her arm again with a gesture of contained pain. —Yarra, for her part, tried to improve her own anxiety… and only managed to have a panic attack for half an hour. Isolde had to use another of her precious parchments. She played a little with the edge of her simple cream-colored dress, a nervous gesture. Then, she raised her gaze toward Selena, and in her hazel eyes there was a spark of frustrated knowledge.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. —Did you know that the written touch can only heal the user themselves? Unless an object is employed as a catalyst or intermediary. It is a brutal limitation. To heal another directly… it seems that the spoken echo or something else is needed. Selena frowned her brow; Maya, seeing her, distanced herself a few centimeters, but the duchess continued with a cold tone.

—The idiot Valerian refuses to teach me anything useful —Selena burst out. The accumulated frustration of days finding an escape valve in Maya's comprehension. —Today he didn't even show up. He vanished. She took the crumpled note from the pocket of her vest and showed it to her. —"If you are good enough, you will find me" How am I supposed to know anything if the only one who could explain it plays hide-and-seek? She breathed deeply, trying to contain the wave of anger.

—Yesterday he sent me to look for a book in his office. He said it was "under the leg of some table." The worst part is that I took the stupidity seriously. I searched every leg of every table in that indescribable chaos he has for an office. Nothing. Until, defeated, I opened the desk drawer. And there, on top of a pile of garbage, was the book. Underneath a piece of paper that said, in capital letters: LEG. She made a dramatic pause, watching how Maya's eyes widened. —And the best part… or the worst…

is that on top of that paper, there was another that said: SOME TABLE. A deep sigh, laden with all the exasperation in the world, shook her chest. —I'll kill him. With my own hands, someday. Then, remembering something else, she added, lowering her voice but with a tone of indignation that bordered on the comical: —And also, in my first solo class, he presented himself with another name. Valerian the Red. He said they were important titles, that they defined the essence of the resonant.

He mentioned things like blood and fire, war and love. But I am beginning to think, seriously, that the Red is not for fire or blood. It is for the pure rage it must generate in anyone to have to endure such an insufferable jester. Maya, who during the tale had covered her mouth with her healthy hand, trying to contain a laughter that shook her shoulders, could no longer take it. An uncontrollable, clear and liberating laugh burst from her lips.

She bent at the waist, protecting her injured arm, and tears, this time of pure laughter, began to furrow her cheeks. She clapped softly with her good hand. —No! —she managed to say between gasps. Selena did not understand, she looked at her with indignation. —I can't! The image of you checking all the legs of the tables! And the papers! Leg… Some table… —She wiped her tears with the back of her hand, recovering her breath little by little.

She looked at Selena, whose expression of indulgent fury was beginning to soften before the contagion of the laughter. —Admit it, Selena. That joke… has been the best thing about this entire cursed year. The only genuinely funny thing that has happened since we arrived. Selena let out a laugh, little by little, at first contained and then more frank.

The dense and sharp anger she carried in her chest became light, almost evaporable, and things, Valerian, the rebounds, the curse no longer seemed like insurmountable monsters, but exasperating yet, for a moment, manageable problems. —You know the worst part? —she managed to say between laughs. She wiped a tear of pure amused exasperation. —Is that the calligraphy of the note… was that of a small child. Clumsy, with the letters wobbling. He took the trouble to write like a child to make the joke more complete!

Maya nodded, still gasping from the laughter, and the complicity between them sealed the absurd as a shared treasure. When the attack of hilarity passed and everything returned to its place, the silent garden, the increasingly dark sky, they continued conversing. But the theme changed. They left behind magic, the Void, the sinister titles. They clung to the common, to the mundane, to that which, within the impossible world in which they lived, could be considered safe.

Maya highlighted how much she liked her Systematic Botany of Erabergh class, a course that was taught throughout the entire year, without semester divisions, like a slow and constant river of knowledge. She spoke with affection of the professor, a meticulous old man who cataloged each moss as if it were a crown jewel. Selena, for her part, mentioned the waxes and resins from Anselmo's class, describing the properties of each one with a precision that made Maya smile.

It was a warm smile, of genuine pleasure at seeing Selena absorbed in something other than the shadow of the curse or royal secrets. Maya, in her turn, shared her fascination for specific species, like the Savannah Drosera, a giant carnivorous plant that, not content with minuscule insects, hunted creatures the size of small anurhys. —It's incredible —she murmured. Her healer's eyes shone with pure scientific wonder. —It doesn't use rapid movements, but smells.

It attracts its prey with an aroma of putrid nectar that is irresistible to them, and then… it envelops them in a very slow and sticky embrace. The most patient death in the world. Selena listened, and for an instant, the world was reduced to that: to the shared curiosity for the living, to the simple beauty of a natural mechanism. Then, changing the subject, she mentioned her perennial frustration: —The short scimitar remains elusive to me. Each class is a reminder of how clumsy I am. Maya looked at her, pensive.

—About weapons I know nothing, Selena —she confessed. Selena sighed again, this time deeply, almost resigned. —But… maybe you should ask that guard who always follows you from afar. With an almost imperceptible movement of her index finger, she pointed to a dark corner between two thick bushes, where one could barely distinguish the upright silhouette and the pale luminosity of Fjora's ash-blonde hair. It was like pointing to a shadow that, upon being observed, was confirmed as real.

Their conversation finished, more playful, lighter than either of them would have believed possible, the night had fully fallen, a velvet mantle studded with the first and cold stars. On their way to the Cloister of the Forest, they passed next to some of the public lamps powered by luminescent insects enclosed in glass. Selena noticed that several were empty, the glass containers only showing a bit of molasses and a faint trace of extinguished bioluminescence.

It was a silent but eloquent reminder of one of the collateral curses of the resonants. Arriving at her room, the exhaustion of the day, physical, mental, emotional, enveloped her like a heavy blanket. She put on her linen nightgown, an automatic gesture of preparation for the rest that never fully arrived. But instead of throwing herself onto the bed, she took the book of the bandaged mage from her desk. Its spine, dark as charcoal, was a counterpoint to the bright light of the lamp.

She sat on the edge of the bed, with her back against the cold wooden bars, and opened the volume to where she had left it. Before her eyes rested on the page, she spoke toward the still silhouette of Fjora, who merged with the shadows next to the door. —Fjora, this weekend, when we train —she said, her voice serene but firm. The Norse warrior placed all her attention on her, her eyes fixed on Selena's lips. —You must teach me to truly fight. Not the basic exercises. I feel the classes are going too slowly. I need…

efficiency. She said no more. She did not ask questions, she did not ask for permission. It was an order, but said with the simplicity of a fact. From the darkness, Fjora's voice arrived, low, clear and with a surprising sweetness that contrasted in an almost shocking way with her body of a warrior sculpted in muscle and scars. —As my lady commands. She had resolved one of her greatest problems; the slow advancement of her hands' agility, of the learning that had stagnated, so she would seek a much better teacher.

Together with everything, she held in her hands now the book and, despite the heavy sleep on her eyelids, she would dedicate the last instants to her infinite curiosity, to learning from those who were pioneers, from those who are better than her; it was the necessity to advance.