“I could be sitting in Boh’gren drinking pepperwine with Stravus, but you had to kill that Terran.” Baila pulled another one of the bitter courgettes off the vine and put it into the woven sack she dragged behind her.

“It really isn’t so bad,” I called back to her from the next row of vines. “You just need to find a rhythm.” I mimicked the movements of Ara, Torlyn’s sister who was collecting plants and singing along with the others throughout the field.

Baila shot back an angry look. She looked at the nearest of the Terran guards, sitting atop a large, fur-covered creature that I had never seen before. Noting that he was watching another group, she lobbed one of the green vegetables at me. I watched it sail through the air, opening my bag and leaning at just the right time to catch it.

“Thanks, I was worried I would be one short on my quota!” I waved across the vines at her and smiled. She stared blankly for a moment, then shook her head and let the grin spread across her mouth. The weeks we had spent in the fields helping Ara’s family meet the Terrans’ insane quotas had left little time for me to learn transference, but I had jumped at every opportunity that presented itself.

I don’t think that I would have been able to patch up a Torak bite, but there were several other dangers in the fields. The tools we used were sharp, and even with deftly skilled hands there was always a possibility to get hurt. There were snakes and stinging insects. One old man had broken his leg on the uneven ground trying to make his quota for the day.

There were also the Terrans. I hadn’t seen them kill anyone, but the line of graves at the end of the dirt lane that led from the fields back to the homes of the workers spoke volumes. Half of those that visited the Surgeon were for severe blunt-force trauma.

I had settled into a schedule since coming to the small village. I spent two days working in the fields, learning the songs and earning my room and meals from Ara; one day helping Sylas, learning the basic concepts of transference and healing; and one day working with Torlyn and Ok’di on fighting techniques. I had never been in a real fight before my encounter with the guards. If Stravus hadn’t shown up, I would probably be dead.

Each night, I would go back to the little room that I was sharing with Torlyn in Ara’s house, change into clean robes, and walk from house to house, fixing what minor injuries and ailments that I could. Usually just scratches and scrapes, though there were always bruises from steel feet kicking down on the workers. What I had learned from the Surgeon so far was enough to give aid to the weary workers that had taken me in.

Sometimes, if there were no serious injuries, I would just spend the evening relieving the aching muscles of my companions. Torlyn was reluctant, but Baila leapt at the opportunity. “Sure, if you want to give me a magic foot rub that makes me feel better, I won’t stop you,” she once told me as she pulled her heavy boots off of her feet.

I could feel my strength as a healer growing, and I had considered asking Sylas if I could become his apprentice permanently. My disdain for the Empire was also growing. The way that they treated us, like we were no better than the creatures they rode on, turned my resolve to stone. Healing the broken bones, the lesions and cuts from the soldiers was enough for that. I wanted to make sure that the people they hurt would be able to live through the torment.

Finally, though, the Terrans pushed too far.

I was spending the day with Sylas, getting some instruction on treating sand lung. “The trouble with sand lung-” the surgeon told me with his ear pressed to the chest of the unconscious man on the table, “-is that the sand builds up over time. It becomes heavy, works its way into the lungs. Untreated, it can become impossible for lungs to function. If you try to remove all the sand, you will rip a million little holes into the lungs..”

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I shuddered at the thought. I understood enough about how transference worked to know why it would do this. If something gets in, it has to come out before the wound can heal. If you have an innumerable amount of miniscule somethings all coming out at once, it would be devastating. You couldn’t move each grain of sand out the same way it came in. It had been attempted a few times, the Surgeon had told me, but always to the same end. He refused to try, accepting that blood work can’t fix everything.

“We have found other ways to combat the problem.” The Surgeon stood across from me over an old farmer, his body withered and dark from a life under the sun. “I cannot remove all of the sand, but I have had some success with gradual extraction.” Then, he looked at the man on the table and spoke more loudly. “It doesn’t do any good if you breathe in more than I can take out between appointments.”

“I can’t breathe-” The man coughed into a filthy cloth and held it up. “-with a damned rag on my mouth.” He was wheezing and staring at Sylas with malice.

“Fine, fine. Divan, let’s go ahead and get Nolo out of here so we can get someone else into the bed. If he refuses to take preventative measures, we don’t have the resources to help him.” Sylas stared at me with a grave look. “Make a note on his charts that we can no longer treat him for sand lung.”

The man between us started panicking, looking first at Sylas, then at me. “Hey, wait! I can wear the mask. I’ll do better. Please, don’t let him give up on me.” Nolo reached out to me with a scarred, sun-damaged hand. “I can’t go back to work like this. I won’t make my quotas, and if I miss one more time they will take it from my rations.”

“Well, I do apologize. We simply cannot afford to have you in here every other day, and you have more sand than when we started. We aren’t miracle workers. You need to go to the Temple of Boh for what you are looking for.” With that, Sylas turned around and walked away. The click of his heels on the concrete filled the small examination room.

The man on the bed moaned and pleaded with me to try to help him, and I was almost convinced to try, when Baila burst into the room. “Quick, it’s Ara. She’s in bad shape.” I forgot about the man on the table, pulling away from his grip and rushing to the door.

Sylas, already most of the way there, did not change his pace or his tone. “What happened to her? Was it the Toraks?” he asked, his face looking empty and afraid.

“Those damned Terrans. Torlyn gave Ara some of his water. She hugged him, and one of the guards saw. They beat her for wasting time, and made him pick up her slack for wasting the water.” Baila had red streaks running down both sides of her face that matched the red on her plain gray smock. She was panting, as if it had taken great effort to get here. She didn’t say anything else, just stared at Sylas, who immediately took action.

“Divan, get me fresh water and some clean washcloths,” the Surgeon said as he turned around and rolled the sleeves of his blood-stained robes up to his elbows. He stopped, looked around the room, and nodded toward the old farmer still lying in the bed. “-and get him out of here. Come back tomorrow, Nolo. Wear the damned mask.” He started washing his hands in the basin, ignoring Nolo’s protests as I wheeled him back to the large recovery room.

As I was wheeling the old man out, I saw the damage they had done to Ara. Her face was a bloody mess, and it looked like her leg was pointing in the wrong direction. I shuddered, but pushed the bed away. Nolo, too weak to jump down off of the bed, was still moving enough to tip it over. I fought against the swaying of the bed, which helped me to pull my eyes off my poor host.

I straightened the wheels and pushed it into a gap in the row of beds, almost all full. The square room held six rows of eight beds, a couple of shelves for supplies, and a desk stacked high with papers. I had never seen anyone sit at the desk, or seen anyone do any paperwork. Maybe they tried to keep records before the clinic became little more than a way to keep the workers just healthy enough to keep working.

I took a deep breath and turned toward the small kitchen to collect the fresh water for Sylas. As the shock finally wore off, and I thought about why Ara, the sweet woman that only ever wanted her brother to stay home and help her with their small plot of land, was fighting for her life. Just a little water.

The anger in my heart grew, and I gave up my thoughts of helping the Surgeon at the clinic. Others could heal the sick and the injured. I wanted more. I wanted vengeance.

I wanted blood.