"Sure." I know Varis will not be happy, since he needs to train me, but I need to feel helpful in the moment. I need something to ease the pain of my nightmares. Of what I allowed to happen to Daison. Of what I may allow still.
"What's your name again, I don't remember?" asks Seri.
"Um… Diana."
"Very well. Nice to meet you Diana. Come, I need help with another patient."
I nod, following her to another bed, and help set a woman’s broken leg. "So many injured," I say later, sitting on an empty cot, looking around.
Seri leans against the wall, eating some kind of leaves from the pack tied around her waist. "Most were injured in the battle of Stonehill, fighting against the Fae. Others are just unlucky or careless."
She offers me a leaf, and I accept. The chewing is difficult, but the taste is nice and it's surprisingly filling. "What brought you here?" I ask. "Aren’t you Keeper to Prince Asher?"
Seri sighs, leaving a leaf half eaten. "Things are changing up north for Fae and Shade. People are being hung and beaten for no reason under Levi’s rule, and his influence is spreading. Asher allowed me to travel south for my own safety."
I think of Lars, almost hung on that tree. He healed enough to leave a few minutes ago, and I wished him well. "It seems, even here, Fae are in danger like never before."
Seri shrugs. "Times have been hard for our folk before. We always survive."
Her words touch me more deeply than she can know. For I am the reason things are changing for the worse, and I am the one who must make it better. Instead I sit here, talking, eating tasty food. "Seri, I—"
Someone screams, and we both turn, looking at the man being brought in through the back. I stand up, and the healers lay him down on the bed as I examine the wound. His belly is covered in blood, cut deep by something. A sword.
Seri gives him a tonic for pain and a piece of wood to bite down on, something to stop the screaming and help prevent him from biting his own tongue.
"Someone assaulted this man," I say, continuing my examination. "Fairly recently. They missed the major organs, or he’d be dead, but he could still bleed to death. I need string and a needle and—
Something catches my eye. A tattoo of a serpent. A tattoo I saw only in Avakiri.
"This man is a raider."
Seri nods, bringing the string and needle. "He must have never escaped back to the Outlands. Must have gotten lost and found his way here."
I step back, my hands shaking. The raider. He would have been part of the attack on Stonehill. Part of the reason Daison is dead. "We can’t help him."
Seri grabs my hands. "We are not warriors. We are not lords. We are healers. And we help all those who need our aid." She turns back to the raider, the patient, and begins cleaning off his wound.
I catch my breath, the shock of my memories wearing off, and join her, preparing the stitches. Once we are finished, Seri wraps the wound with clean bandages, and then washes her hands. "You did well," she says, glancing at me. "The first time is always difficult. Treating someone who has caused you pain."
I lean back against a pillow, sighing. "It should have been easier. I don’t care for pain. Only peace. Only healing."
"That is how it should be. But all of us have darkness within. Sometimes it comes to the surface. A reminder of why we must keep it at bay."
I think on her words. Perhaps there is a reason behind the suffering and pain, a purpose to my thoughts of vengeance against Levi and Metsi. Perhaps they remind me to do better, to be good.
"Thank you," I say.
"For what?"
"For reminding me I can still do the right thing."
***
The sun is setting by the time Seri tells me to go home. "I’ll need you tomorrow, so get some rest." I try to argue, but she runs this Healing Tree, and so I leave, traveling back to the palace, admiring the gold hues on the horizon. Something catches my eye.
A tree.
A man.
A rope.
Lars hangs from a withered branch, his face pale and blue, his body still. They hanged him. When no one was looking. They killed him. And I could do nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
How could you bring this upon us? The voices echo in my mind. You were our friend! You were our friend and you let us die!
I push away the thoughts and climb the tree, then untie the rope. I take what remains of Lars into my arms, and I weep for what has been done. And later, when the sun has set, and my tears are gone, I carry his body to the palace, to Dean’s room, and I lay the body at his feet. "You will give him a proper burial," I say. "You will give him the respect of a free man."
Then I head to the east wing and find my friends.
I stand in the doorway of the room, uncertain if I should go in, but they both look up and smile at me. "Oh darlin’," says Es, half-awake, laying in a white bed with Pete at her side. "I had the nastiest dream. My hair was all messed up."
I smile and cross the room to hug her.
And then I tell them everything.
From the beginning.
About my death.
About the deal my mother made to save me.
About the deal I made to save her.
They’re both more shaken than shocked by the story, maybe because they’re here in Inferna, seeing the truth with their own eyes.
"You could have told us," says Pete, his eyes cold. He reminds me of the way Ace looked when he learned that Fen tried to kill their father. And I decide to never hide the truth from people I care about again. I only hope I still have time to remedy what has passed.