> If you are born a healer, I pity you. Do not make a spectacle of your gifts, for you will regret it. Do not use your powers if you can help it.

>

> However, if you must, here is what you can do to survive. (The Book of Healers)

TONAT Reziel Camwell was one of the most ambitious noblemen of the late thirteenth-century Arcadan nobility, and if the number of children one bore was a way to demonstrate it, he certainly had more than enough—sixteen children in total¹. Four of these would pass at young ages, two would be killed in a bloody struggle over the position of the next Tonat, three would merely waste their lives, another two would die during the Arcadan Civil War, and four would go on to do great things for their country.

One, however, was not written into the Camwell family records until she was eighteen years of age. She would later be struck out, only to be written back in again after her final disappearance². It is said that her mother was a maidservant in the Camwell Estate, enraging his then-wife³. Tona Camwell had the maidservant thrown out of the house as soon as she found out of the affair. The fate of the child, however, a girl with honey-colored eyes, was decided by her father, who did not have the heart to leave her to die in the cold Arcadan winter.

It was decided. Aurelia Camwell was to be secretly raised in one of the Tonat’s unused houses in the far north, where his wife would have no chance of ever knowing. There would be a small, rotating team of maids taking care of her. She would not receive a formal education, as she was an illegitimate daughter and had no chance of being a debutante of high society.

The years passed. The Tonat switched wives five times. His influence on Arcadan politics grew by the day, and he eventually joined the Northern Faction, which swore absolute fealty to the king. A small rebellion in the south due to drought was quenched. And Aurelia Camwell was about to turn eighteen years old.

Everything was according to plan, yet it also was not. True, Aurelia had grown up like her father had planned—isolated in an unwanted estate, forgotten about by her brothers and sisters, and only vaguely remembered by the Tonat himself. However, he had not accounted for the intense thirst for knowledge this particular child would have. One of the maids who had come while she was five years old had taught her basic reading, and by the age of twelve, she had read every book there was in the house’s meager library at least twice. She then began to venture out of the house for more books to borrow from the city’s library, about every subject that was of slight interest to her.

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Of all the books that she read, one particular type captured her attention the most—medical manuals.

The maids who watched over her knew only basic healing techniques, such as how to treat slight burns. Aurelia had taken it upon herself to learn everything there was to learn about herbs, diseases, and treating wounds, for reasons unknown to everyone but herself.

“Do you plan to be a physician?” One of the temporary maids had asked Aurelia.

“I can be so much more than that,” she had replied while copying down the outline of a myrrh plant.

By the time she turned sixteen, having much free time to spare, she had finished writing a book of medicinal herbs with detailed illustrations. She then started another one containing her knowledge about how to deal with colds and other common maladies and took regular turns around the town, where she had become known as the Forgotten Girl—for most people knew she was the estranged daughter of someone important, who had never once come to visit—or sometimes, the Healer Girl.

It was safe to say that Aurelia enjoyed her freedom. She knew she was a member of a noble family, but as she had never met any of her kin, it felt very far away. She did not even know much about the Arcadan nobility in general, except for what she had read in her novels and the bits of gossip that surrounded the aristocracy like flies to rotten fruit. But what was the matter with that? The thought that she would ever be entangled with her family or their politics never even crossed her mind. She did not believe they would ever have anything to do with her.

She was wrong.

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Notes:

¹ The exact number of his children remains uncertain, as Reziel Camwell had many affairs throughout his lifetime. 16 is the number of his children on the Camwell family records.

² Camwell, Danica. A History of the House Camwell. 1528.

³ She would be his second out of seven wives.