1542, Lohnji Mountains, Kingdom of Arcada

It was the twentieth day of my endeavors, and all was going to naught until I met a half-dead man.

I had been wandering around the southern provinces of Arcada for some time, and nothing was coming up. There were legends I stumbled upon, sure, of women who turned into clouds and wild creatures that danced in woods, but there was nothing of extraordinary material. Nothing that felt like it ignited something in me or made me want to investigate further.

It was dejecting. I didn’t want to go back to the Academy in disgrace, as I’d told you, but I only had a few more days to decide on a proper topic to study. So this morning, I got out of bed, sat up and looked into the mirror, and I told myself, You are going to find something. Today.

It’s funny, thinking back on that. Fate has always been kind to me, and this time seemed to be no exception.

After doing a bit of exploring in one of the Sun Temples, I decided to have a hike in the afternoon in the Lohnji Mountains. You were right, by the way. It did help to clear my mind.

Anyway, I was alone up that mountain, which was truly gorgeous in the spring—lush greenery, easy hiking trails, flowers and birds—when I heard someone groaning in the distance, and I ran towards it.

Before you pick up your pen and start writing a letter back to me to call me a fool, I must defend myself. I knew going towards any sort of odd sound as a woman alone in the woods was a terrible idea, even if the groan sounded so genuinely painful I can hear echoing in my ears even now, as I write this. So I took out the dagger that you had given me, and I resolved to be as silent as possible. The sounds were much too pitiful for me—for anyone, I would think—to ignore.

And I was right. I ran into a thicket of trees towards my left, and I saw a trail of blood zigzagging over the ground. I followed it, and it took only a few more steps to find a man slumped against a pile of rocks near a small creek.

The man was dying; that was evident. His left leg was oozing blood all over the forest ground, and his skin was the color of wet clay. I ran towards him, dagger still in my hand. I don’t think he noticed me at first while I checked to see where his wound was—he seemed to be fluttering in and out of consciousness.

The wound was this deep slice in his thigh. It was, to be frank, disgusting. I’m no doctor, but I think I saw something that looked like bone.

I asked if he could hear me as I took off my cloak to tie it around his leg. The man made this awful croaking noise before he opened his eyes. There was blood in the corner of his mouth. I was worried he would die right there in front of me, so I told him I was going to get him help, and even though I knew there was no way I could run down the mountain and grab a doctor from a hospital fast enough, I had to do something. I asked him what his name was, and he made in this terrible rasp, like he was choking on the air in his own throat, so I could not even make out what he was saying. Then he whispered something that sounded like “beyond the creek” “healer” and “help.”

Before I could ask again what he was saying, the man had already shut his eyes again.

So I had two choices—run down the mountain, which almost certainly guaranteed his death, or follow the dying, possibly hallucinating man’s vague instructions and find a healer in the mountains.

I ran towards the path past the creek. I don’t know how long I ran—it felt like only a few minutes—when the green-leaved trees turned into looming white poplars with marks on their trunks that looked like staring, unblinking eyes. I pushed through them, when I stumbled upon a little house sitting in the middle of the woods, with cherry trees beside it and a pond glittering in front.

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It was pretty, like some sort of fairy’s residence from a Kafodian legend, with the pink petals from the cherry tree drifting down and koi fish swimming languidly in water that winked gold where the sun kissed it. This had to be where the healer was, I thought, so I ran, pounding over a wooden arched bridge and up the gravel before banging on the door. It took only a few knocks for an elderly man, looking as though he had just rolled out of bed, to open it. When he asked me “what?” his voice was as grouchy as his demeanor made him look, and his hair stuck out from his head in tufts of white like nebulae.

I said, “There is a man near the creek down the mountains. He’s bleeding to death. He told me I could find a healer here.”

The man’s gaze focused immediately; it was like someone had struck a light in him. He grabbed a coat off a hook by the door and shrugged it on, moving out of the house. He told me to show him where the man was.

I tried to ask him whether he needed a kit or supplies, but he waved his hand once, already starting down the path. For such an old man, he moved very fast. He said, “Don’t need one. Come on, kid.”

So I showed him to the dying man by the creek.

And what the healer did next was simply extraordinary. I cannot tell you how much it stunned me. If Saint Rosalia ever did exist, someone could tell me this was a remnant of her power, and I would believe them. I wish you had been there to witness it, too. But anyway, the healer knelt down beside the bleeding man. He removed my bloodstained cloak from his leg, then passed his right hand over the wound. He winced slightly, before he shut his eyes and put both hands on the flesh just on the edges of the wound.

A golden sort of glow emitted from his fingertips. Blood stopped flowing from the man’s wound. The wounded man’s pallor turned healthy and alive again, and he sat up to wipe the blood off his mouth in a swift move. The healer placed his hands down, trembling slightly, but he opened his eyes and stood up. The wounded man stared up at him in awe, which I must imagine my own face mirrored.

“How did you do that? I’ve never seen any healing magic like that in all of Arcada.” I could not help but ask him.

The healer ignored me at first. He was checking the other man’s wound—it had now become nothing but a deep, jagged scar stained faintly with blood. He asked the man how he had gotten hurt. The man replied that he had been robbed in the middle of the mountains and left to die.

I don’t know what happened to the man after that. He went down the mountain to report the case after giving the healer his name and promising to pay him for his service as soon as possible. The healer began to walk towards the direction of his house, and I followed him. How could I not? This was a miracle I had stumbled upon; how could I walk away from it?

The healer was quite stubbornly silent. It took me pestering and wheedling the entire way to his house, and telling him the reasons for my interest for him to finally relent.

Outside his house, at a stone table beneath a willow tree, he brought out a purple velvet satchel closed with a drawstring. In the satchel was a marble statuette, a stack of documents, and a book.

The healer said, “There are two types of healers in the world—those who learn it and those who are born with it. I am of the rarer of the two. I was born a healer. My whole family are mostly born healers, and she is our Saint.” He showed me the statuette. It depicted a woman with long, flowing hair holding a vase and a long scroll that fell to her feet.

Oh, the rush of fire in my heart as I’m writing this—I cannot describe it with words. All I know is that this is perhaps one of the greatest discoveries I will ever make in my lifetime, and I am determined not to let it go.

The Healers’ Saint is named Aurelia. She had been born a healer, and she had written detailed instructions on how a born healer could properly use their power and minimize fatigue and other side effects. Legends say she healed over a thousand people during the war. She then disappeared from Arcada entirely after the civil war.

So here I sit in the library. I probably won’t be sending you letters this frequently anymore for some time—there is too much to research and too many people to interview. I write this to let you know I am doing well, and I hope you are, too. I will be coming back as soon as possible.

All my love,

Your wanderer