The quiet hum of the guild hall buzzed around her like an indifferent swarm of bees, too preoccupied with its own tasks to sting. Ellie sat by the hearth, absently stirring the embers with a poker. Her attempts to stay unnoticed had been, as usual, futile. Every passing hour brought a new set of eyes drifting toward her, some curious, others reverent, but all expecting something—more.

The door clattered open, and a group of adventurers stumbled in, fresh from their expedition. One of them, a young man with a deep gash across his forearm, grimaced as he clutched the bleeding wound.

“Look at you, Aric!” one of his companions teased, a broad grin splitting his face. “You always were the clumsy one. Thought you’d finally figured out how to dodge a blow.”

“Shut it, Callum,” The wounded man shot back, wincing as he shifted his grip. “It’s not my fault the beast had other plans. Where’s the healer?”

“Not here to coddle you,” The companion laughed, shrugging his shoulders. “Besides, if you survived the monster, you can survive a little blood loss, right?”

His companions clucked around him, laughing at his misfortune but offering no real assistance. Nowhere in Lorthraine was a place for coddling injuries. If you survived, you learned to tend to your wounds or find someone who could.

"Oi, Ellie!" someone called, loud enough to shake her from her uneasy reverie. It was the woman with tattoos who had become something of an unwelcome acquaintance, a frequent participant in the stories surrounding Ellie’s supposed prowess. "Give us a hand here, will you?"

Ellie blinked, confused at first, then froze when she saw the young man, the blood seeping through his fingers. Her first instinct was to look away, to pretend she hadn’t heard, but the crowd in the hall had stilled, their attention suddenly sharper. Her reluctance to refuse could only deepen the mystery surrounding her. She had to act, had to do something.

The words stumbled out before she could think. “I—I’m not really a healer.”

The woman waved off her protest with a grin. “We know you’re more than that. But this one’s just a scratch, eh? Patch him up for us.”

Ellie’s heart sank. Healing magic was barely in her skillset. She knew the spell in theory—had seen it done hundreds of times—but it had always been a simple thing, a bandage of light, more symbolic than functional.

Eleanor had once healed a guard’s broken leg with a flick of her wrist, the bone knitting itself back together as though time had been rewound. But for Ellie, the spell had never been more than a whisper, a flicker of soft magic too fragile to last.

The young man winced as he approached, his arm outstretched. The wound was longer than Ellie had expected, running from wrist to elbow, though it didn’t seem life-threatening. He gave her a pained smile, his eyes gleaming with the same curiosity that haunted every glance she received. His friends watched, too, their faith in her unspoken but palpable.

“Think you can manage this one?” His tone was light but strained through the pain.

Ellie forced a nod. “I’ll do what I can.”

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Reluctantly, she reached for the spell, feeling the faint pulse of magic stirring in her fingers. She hoped the magic wouldn’t fizzle out too quickly—just enough to ease the bleeding. Just enough to get by.

One of the companions muttered under his breath, “Let’s hope she doesn’t set him on fire.”

“Shut up, Rex,” the wounded man hissed through clenched teeth. “You’re not helping.”

She placed her hands over the wound, her fingers trembling slightly. The incantation came to her lips, soft and hesitant. It was a simple phrase, but even as she whispered it, doubt crept into her voice. For a moment, nothing happened.

A nervous laugh came from the back. “Well, that’s reassuring.”

“Quiet,” Ellie whispered, her focus narrowing. She wasn’t sure if she was speaking to them or herself.

Then, without warning, a surge of warmth spread through her palms, stronger than it should have been. The glow of magic brightened, and before Ellie could pull back, a burst of light erupted from her hands, filling the air with an unexpected brilliance.

The young man gasped. “What the—?”

His companions stepped back, startled. “That’s... more than a quick fix, Ellie.”

Ellie jerked her hands away, heart pounding. “I didn’t mean for it to—” she stammered, but the words caught in her throat.

When the light faded, the young man flexed his arm, staring at the now-nonexistent wound. “I... it worked. But that was... something else.”

The gash on his arm was gone—not just healed, but erased entirely, as though it had never been there. The skin was smooth, unmarred by even the faintest scar. The young man stared at his arm again, his eyes wide with disbelief.

The hall fell silent, the flickering hearth suddenly feeling dim in comparison to the afterglow of what had just occurred. Ellie blinked, her mind racing, trying to grasp what had gone wrong. That wasn’t how the spell was supposed to work. The warmth still lingered in her hands, tingling unpleasantly, as if the magic itself had betrayed her.

“That... was incredible,” the young man whispered, his voice tinged with awe. “I barely felt it!”

Ellie’s stomach twisted. She had intended to do just enough to stop the bleeding, to give the spell a semblance of success. But whatever had happened wasn’t something she could explain. It wasn’t something she wanted to explain.

“That was nothing,” she said quickly, hoping to downplay the incident. “Just a basic healing spell.”

“Basic?” one of his companions repeated, his eyes wide with disbelief. “You call that basic?”

Ellie could feel the stares closing in around her, the weight of expectation growing heavier with every second. She shook her head, trying to deflect their attention, but the damage was done. The room had already filled with whispered conversations, each more exaggerated than the last.

“Did you see that? She didn’t even chant properly, and it just... happened.”

“She could probably bring someone back from the dead with that kind of power.”

Ellie clenched her hands into fists, the tingling in her palms finally subsiding. She wanted to scream, to tell them they were wrong, that it had been a mistake, an accident. But she knew, deep down, that any protest would only fuel the flames. They wanted to believe she was something more—needed to believe it. And there was nothing she could do to stop it.

The young man flexed his arm again, still marveling at the absence of the wound. “I’ve never seen anything like that. Thank you.”

Ellie forced a weak smile, her mind a whirl of confusion and dread. “You’re... welcome.”

The group of adventurers moved away, still murmuring excitedly among themselves. But Ellie remained by the hearth, her thoughts heavy and muddled. She hadn’t meant for any of this to happen. She hadn’t meant to attract their attention, hadn’t meant to create the legend that was quickly spiraling out of control.

But there was no stopping it now.

The hall continued to buzz with the energy of the moment, and Ellie, trapped by her own reputation, could only watch helplessly as the myth of Ellie Liddell grew, piece by piece, out of her reach.