“I’m sorry,” said the physician. “But I cannot help you.”

“He is lying,” Anki hissed.

Nua straightened up.

“Cannot, or will not?!”

The medic got up and faced her.

“Kid, if word gets out that I have an Unsagga in my hospital…”

“Then what?!” Nua shouted. “This is Hessa, lady merchant Ashraqat’s right hand, the second in command of the caravan that’s about to come! You have to treat her!”

The old man did not answer.

There was a fire building up inside Nua. Hessa was injured because she took on the assassin that targeted her student, and no one else. She fought the killer with supernatural powers at his command and saved Nua’s life instead of doing the rational, yet cowardly thing of abandoning her. They survived the duel, fled the ghouls, and managed to get through the desert in the scorching afternoon heat, and for what? Only to be refused help and turned away? And this was Hessa. Nua could accept that outside her adopted family no one thought of her as valuable - just a nameless kid from the Bottoms. But her – she was a warrior, a huntress, a swordswoman, a heroine. She escaped the fate of the regular Unsagga and carved herself a place in the world, a position that could make others jealous. She wasn’t just a nobody.

And it was still not enough. She was still treated as worthless.

Nua pinned the physician’s eyes with her stare.

“If she dies,” she said, “you die.”

The old man frowned at her, taken aback. He was looking at a diminutive, dirty girl with limbs like sticks, giving him a murderous glare. He could probably shove her away. He could call the vigiles. He could shut the door and wait her out. It wasn’t the first time he was threatened; after all, Azure Falls was full of explorers. For a reason he did not entirely understand, he could not shake off the conviction that the kid would keep her promise. And was that glow in her eyes, or was he seeing things? No – just a reflection.

Or perhaps that black musushu growling behind her back was adding to the impression.

“I’ll find a bed for her,” he said. “Not for you, though.”

“That’s fine. I can wait here.”

“Oh, gods.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Not out in the open. Take that musushu to the backyard and just stay there.

“Anki, please, watch him. Tell me if he does his best.”

“I can do even better if you wish. I can show you.”

The physician’s house was located in between other buildings, each one standing on its own and equipped with a small, unfenced courtyard in the back. They were connected by a narrow alley that served the trash collectors, servants, errand boys, and other people who came and left by the back door. It was a more orderly layout than in the Overlord’s Mercy, or at least in the lowermost area of the city that Nua knew. You could still jump between roofs, if you focused, though. None of the houses exceeded two or three floors, and they had stairs leading directly to the upper floors and terraces. Nua guessed that the larger ones were constructed with an internal courtyard, too.

In other circumstances, she would explore. Right now she just took the details in, just in case running would be in order. Judging from the walls painted in bright patterns, wooden doors, and – sometimes – real glass windows – the area was wealthy. This meant regular guard patrols. The vigiles did not like looking into back alleys, but they could always come when alarmed.

She settled near the back door, next to a wooden garbage crate. Shadow curled up on the pavement with a sigh. Nua followed, snuggling up to the steed. They were both exhausted. This side of the house was shaded, River God be praised, and the cobblestones weren’t too heated up. The Great Sun was gradually giving way to his trickster brother, and the long, red evening was commencing.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Nua leaned back on Shadow. The steed’s scales were soft and dry, resembling warm sandstone to the touch. It would be easy to drift off to sleep, now that both fear and excitement had left her and only dull pain remained.

She propped herself back up. It was not the time to rest, not yet. Waiting for Anki to set up his window, she examined herself.

First, she drank all the contents of the waterskin. She could easily fill it back up in the city, after all. She dug for food in the supplies, and the first thing she found were dried fruit bars for Shadow. She shared them with the steed. It would be good to lead her to the water, too, but the musushu could hold on for a little while, and she didn’t want to leave this place.

She had no wounds, just bruises and blisters. She realized she was lucky to get away; if the killer’s weapon was poisoned, even a scratch would incapacitate her, too, and they wouldn’t be able to reach safety (although – she shuddered – Hessa’s life was still on the line). She had no will left to try anything with the ether, but she forced herself to focus and look at her internal channel system, or what was the name that Anki had been using. She was worried that she broke it.

There was no noticeable harm, as far as she could judge. Anki told her that she should perceive her channels as empty riverbeds, ready to be filled with ether, but to Nua, that was not an intuitive image. She saw her channels as one with the blood vessels and muscles as if her body was always ready to run power through them.

That did not change. They were just terribly sore. Muscles took about two or three days to stop aching after overexertion; maybe it was the same with the sorcerous veins.

Then, Nua looked at Shadow’s wound, located in her left thigh. It did not fester, and the bleeding already stopped. Maybe the arrows were not poisoned – the girl had no ability to make sure. She would ask Anki to see if the arrowhead was still lodged inside, but Hessa took priority.

The sorcerous window suddenly opened, startling Nua.

“What took you so long?”

“One of the servants left when I was looking,” Anki said. “And I followed him for a while before he went out of range. That Azurian doctor still should get his practice approval revoked, in my opinion, but he spoke the truth about some people, including his own staff, being opposed to treating Unsagga.”

“This is such a pile of turd,” Nua’s voice was trembling. “Why there is only one bed in here, and why is it so weird? It’s basically just a table.”

“Oh. I forgot you never saw a medical facility from the inside. This is the operating room, where all the surgeries and procedures that have to do with blood are conducted. It is very primitive, which worries me a lot. Their anesthetics could easily act as a poison, and thank the Heavens they got the dosage right. He should have sorcerous contraptions that show her insides without the need to open her chest. Right now, he is just sticking in the venting needle blind, based on his practice only. He figured out what the assassin was using and gave her an antidote, though.”

“Poison? A venting needle? Wait, is he sticking things into her wound?” Nua got up so fast, she felt dizzy.

“Not exactly. This is how you allow the collapsed lung to expand,” Anki explained. “It is a known procedure. He really is working to the best of his ability. Mind you, it does not redeem his earlier words. Any half-decent medic has their skills ingrained enough that once they start, they perform. Like a swordsman.”

“Is she going to be all right?”

“That I do not know.”

Nua was watching the old man and his two assistants tending to the person laying prone on the wooden bench. They were focused and silent, exchanging only short phrases. She didn’t keep watch for the passage of time. She only knew that Utu fell asleep and the sky was blood red when they finished and moved her to a larger room, fitted with multiple beds. Anki remained on guard.

She leaned on Shadow again. She was drifting in and out of sleep, trying to prop herself up each time she got too comfortable. Trickster Sun was nearing the end of his shift when she heard wood creaking and the back door opened.

It was the medic, giving her a long thoughtful look. He was holding a tall ceramic cup.

“She asked if her student was alive,” he said. “You did not lie. She did come with the caravan.”

Shadow started growling. Nua approached the door, and the medic handed her the cup. Some sort of tea, apparently. Mint, maybe something else. She sniffed, unsure if she could trust anything he gave her. Perhaps he was trying to coax her into taking sleeping herbs.

“What, and who did you think she could be otherwise?”

“A thief, most likely. Explorer. The city is teeming with them.”

“Because we’re Unsagga?”

“Most Unsagga are thieves,” he stated as if it was a simple fact of life.

“Anki, is this safe to drink?”

“I have no idea. I don’t have a sense of smell,” the spirit was visibly flustered.

“Peppermint with honey,”, said the physician, seeing her hesitate. “You don’t have to drink if you don’t trust me. Believe me, I don’t want to take anything from you except for the payment, and I’m willing to wait for your superiors. I would not like to find myself within the reach of that beast.” He shot a glance at Shadow, who was slowly stretching and getting up.

“Is Hessa going to live?”

“If she survives the night,” he said. “The odds aren’t favorable. She spent too much time in the sun. That being said, I would like to ask you for help.”

Nua frowned.

“As I said before, having an Unsagga in my hospital is a risk,” he sighed. “And I hope that this warbeast of yours is in a good shape and trained well enough to discourage them without causing carnage.”

He was looking ahead. Nua followed his gaze. There was a group of people approaching the hospital; four, no – five of them. They were carrying torches and blunt weapons.