Chapter 6 - From the Ashes
Winrow, Vanstead Dukedom of Augustein, Year 991
She remembered the sounds of screaming. That day came to her in flashes of disjointed images and sensations. In one moment, there was the usual constant chill of the facility, and then in the next there was a burning heat spiraling outwards, climbing up the walls and dying the grey into red.
She remembered twisting shadows and contorted figures. Those magicians, distant and immoveable figures for so much of her life, collapsed to their knees and choked on smoke.
She remembered smaller figures writhing in the flames. A hand crushed beneath debris reaching towards her. A smoking corpse she couldn’t recognize.
She still wondered, sometimes, lying on the cot and staring up at the wooden ceiling, if it had been Tom or Ben. She would focus on the little details of the figure, laboring over the smoking limbs and the exact hunch of the shoulders. She never did know for certain.
She supposed it didn’t matter in the end.
—
Joan inhaled, tightening and loosening her grip on the tray of food she was carrying with her. Once she was done mentally preparing herself, she pushed back her shoulders, gripped the door handle, and turned it.
The door opened with a loud creak. Joan had decided to leave it unoiled on purpose; Amara never responded to knocks, so the least she could do was give a very obvious advance warning when she entered the room.
Joan plastered on a large smile, ignoring the numbness that had been growing on one side of her face, and stepped over to the figure seated on the bed. Amara didn’t even turn, her eyes fixed on the open window and the flowing curtains. It was a bright day, the towering white clouds drifting peacefully across a vast expanse of blue. The sight was particularly welcome after a week of non stop rain.
“Good morning,” Joan said in her most cheery voice. She set the tray down on a small table placed beside the cot. Slowly, Amara turned her head to stare at her. Joan swallowed.
Ever since Amara had woken up, she’d barely spoken or even acknowledged her surroundings. All her movements were dulled, as though she was wading through water, and Joan had yet to see any true reaction from her.
Even when she’d first quietly explained what had happened, that the building was gone and that there weren’t any other survivors, Amara had just listened quietly, perfectly still and unmoving. When Joan had finished speaking, all she’d said was, “Can I see the ruins?”
Joan hadn’t known how to respond to that. Part of her suspected she still hadn’t fully processed what had happened and seeing the destroyed building might provide closure, but she also had to be honest and tell Amara that she was in no condition to move. Amara hadn’t responded to that, but she would still ask, every now and then. Those were the only times she would speak without first being prompted. Besides that, she only ever answered in short, clipped sentences, never referring to Joan by name and never saying more than necessary.
When Joan had confided in Leila, the watchman had made a sympathetic noise and shaken her head. “Poor thing must be in shock,” she’d said.
It was the most obvious explanation and the one Joan had immediately jumped to as well. And yet, the longer she spent around her patient, the more she started to wonder if that initial assessment was wrong.
Despite how dulled her movements seemed and how little she spoke, Amara’s eyes never had the same look to them. Even when she stared off into the distance, there was a constant sharpness there, a hardness that seemed at odds with the rest of her behavior.
Even now, seated on the hospital cot, Amara studied her with that same uncanny perceptiveness, a gaze that always made Joan feel like she was being judged. She forced her own eyes to remain steady instead of darting away like her first instinct was. She briefly considered how absurd it was for her, a former Rose, to be intimidated by an injured patient who was probably half her age and barely old enough to no longer qualify as a “girl.”
Joan cleared her throat, the sound seeming to echo in the pervasive silence.
“How are you today?”
A silent stare was her only answer. Joan suppressed the urge to sigh, instead keeping her smile plastered on. She nodded at the tray of food and stood again.
“Well, if you need anything, I’ll be right there doing work.”
Some time after Amara had woken up, Joan had gotten some neighbors to help her move a table into the patient room so that she could keep an eye on her while working. Amara hadn’t voiced any complaints about it, and it made Joan a little less uneasy, so she’d stuck with the system.
Joan settled down in her seat, squinting down at the stack of letters. She didn’t start reading, however, until she heard the familiar clink of silverware as Amara finally ate. Her shoulders slumped in relief, and she leaned over the table and began to work, ignoring the sensation of eyes on her back as she did so.
—
“You’re healing well,” Joan commented as she carefully inspected an unwrapped wound. She was sure to move slowly and with deliberate gestures, not missing the way Amara’s eyes followed her hands whenever she checked her injuries.
As Joan moved on to the next bandage, she once again considered how lucky Amara was to have survived the explosion. Though she hadn’t seen the building collapse herself, a few of the onlookers had told her that it was sudden and violent. “What do you think happened?” one of them had asked. Joan had told him that she didn’t know. Truthfully she suspected it had been an experiment gone wrong, but she hadn’t wanted to reveal Amara’s secret. As far as the other villagers were concerned, the building was just a lone orphanage that had suffered an unfortunate accident.
“Can I see the ruins?”
Joan frowned. “Not yet,” she said slowly. “Not until all your bones are healed.”
When she looked up again, Amara had turned her head away and was staring at the sky again. Joan sighed and continued the check up.
—
A knock sounded from down the hallway. Joan set down the shirt she was patching and stood with a frown.
“I’ll be right back,” she said before rising and hurrying to the door.
When she opened it, she found not another patient, but Leila still in her watchman uniform. She blinked at the woman, eyes briefly darting over to the basket she was carrying, then back up.
“Leila, it’s good to see you. What’re you doing here?”
“I was patrolling around the area and thought I’d stop by. Here.” She raised her hand and passed the basket over. Joan took it and peered down at its contents. Inside, she found various ripe fruits, some bright flowers that Leila must’ve gotten fresh from the florist, and a small pouch that, when opened, contained an array of glinting coins. Joan’s eyes widened.
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“Leila, you didn’t have to—”
“They’re from the watchmen,” the other woman interrupted. She smiled. “I told them I was stopping by and they pooled together some money to help out.”
A warm feeling rose in Joan’s chest. She swallowed, carefully closing the pouch again and setting it back inside the basket beside a bright yellow blossom. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Please tell them thank you for me.”
Leila reached out a gloved hand and patted her shoulder. “After all the times you’ve had to heal us, this is the least we could do,” she joked. She glanced behind Joan at the hallway and lowered her voice. “Speaking of which, how’s she doing?”
“She’s healing well,” Joan said. “I estimate she’ll be able to walk around within the month.”
“You really do work miracles.” Leila shook her head and stepped back. “I ought to get back on patrol. Remember, if you ever need anything, you can ask me.” With a wave, the woman turned around and walked away.
Joan watched her retreating back, shaking her head with fondness before moving to close the door. Basket carefully balanced in her hands, Joan made her way back down the hallway and to the patient room.
“I’m sorry about that, Amara,” she said as she stepped through the doorway. “Leila visited and—”
Joan’s voice cut off.
The cot where Amara usually sat was empty, the wrinkled sheets haphazardly pulled aside. Joan’s eyes darted frantically around the room, landing on her desk table, where her sewing box was overturned, its contents spilled across the table, chair, and wooden ground. Fabric strips, threads, pins, cushions of needles.
And there, a few feet away from the desk, she could just barely make out the top of a head poking out from behind the bed.
The basket fell to the floor.
“No no no—”
Joan didn’t think, immediately sprinting towards the back of the room, cursing herself for being so stupid. Am I too late?
“Amara!” Joan called, stumbling as she leapt onto the cot and peered over in dread, her heart pounding against her ribcage.
There, seated on the ground with her back supported by the bed, sat Amara. She turned her head to face her, and Joan saw that in one hand she held a gleaming pair of scissors and in the other, a thick bundle of wavy hair that lay half scattered across the ground, blown around by the wind billowing into the room.
“You’re back,” Amara observed. Her gaze was as sharp and perceptive as ever.
Joan’s eyes rapidly scanned her, but there were no new injuries to make note of. The only change was her hair, which had been cropped short so that it sat in an uneven line below her chin.
All at once, the tension bled away and Joan slumped down.
“You cut your hair,” she said weakly. Her head throbbed, and she absentmindedly rubbed at it.
“Yeah.”
Joan released a long breath and slowly straightened. She closed her eyes for a moment, calming her rapid heart rate. When she spoke, she forced her voice to remain as still and calm as possible, though she couldn’t entirely mask the slight tremor in her voice.
“Amara, the next time you want to cut your hair or—or do anything, please tell me first. Please.”
Amara stared at her, quiet for a long time. She shifted her position, and for the first time since she’d woken up, something in her eyes changed.
“Okay,” she said.
—
It was a windy day. Joan shivered and pulled her cloak closer, but she didn’t remove her gaze from the figure walking just beside her.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Joan asked. Amara just nodded, not even turning to look her way, and Joan sighed and shook her head. She faced forward as well, eyes following the dirt path and remembering the last time she’d walked along it.
The closer they got to the ruins, the more Joan’s unease grew.
Amara had continued to heal at a rapid pace, and when she’d first started being able to walk around on her own, she constantly did so, moving with a silent, steady determination. The end result of that persistence had led them to their current situation, on the road to the ruins, Amara with only a few bandages left on her skin and walking by herself, albeit a bit slowly, and Joan, whose eyes kept darting over, watching for any reaction.
As far as she could tell, there were none. Amara moved with remarkable calm, shoulders relaxed and eyes steady.
Joan exhaled and kept walking. Ever since the scissors incident, as Joan had dubbed it in her head, Amara had started speaking more. She was still mostly quiet, but she seemed a little more engaged, more interested in her surroundings. She’d even requested Joan teach her how to read, after Joan had given her a tour of her little home and shown her the library. When Amara was sitting there quietly, listening as Joan taught her basic letters and spelling, Joan could almost tell herself that she was just an ordinary, curious young woman if not for the array of scars on her skin. Joan had tried to heal them, but form magic couldn’t alter colors, and so the marks still lingered.
That near normalcy, however, was where the doubts had begun. Initially she’d assumed Amara wanted to see the ruins to give her closure so that she could move on, but what if it had the opposite effect? Joan wasn’t a fool, she knew Amara’s behavior was in no way normal. She had to be repressing things, or perhaps the truth hadn’t really settled yet. What if seeing the ruins caused her to break down?
The longer they walked, the more the doubts grew. Joan quickly became lost in her thoughts, so much so that she didn’t immediately notice when they stopped walking.
“Which way?”
Joan blinked and looked up, seeing that they’d reached a familiar fork in the road. Her heart sank and she swallowed. “Left,” she said, voice hoarse. She cleared her throat. “It… it’s just past that hill.”
Amara nodded and turned without hesitation, slowly making her way up the slight incline in a steady rhythm. Another breeze blew past them, carrying scattered tree leaves with it. Joan watched Amara reach the hill top and begin descending until she’d disappeared from view.
Joan stared at the path, limbs suddenly heavy. She tightened her grip on her cloak.
“Get it together,” she muttered. There was no reason for her to be so nervous, she told herself. It was absurd, after all the things she’d already seen throughout her life. But Amara had an uncanny ability to make her feel like a lost child again, someone completely out of her depth.
Joan waited a little longer, listening for any sounds, but there were none besides the wind and rustling flora surrounding them. And so, after a deep breath, Joan lowered her head and made her way over the hill.
When she looked up again, the ruins were in sight. She slowed her pace as she approached.
Where once a simple sturdy grey building had stood, there now lay a pile of debris. Only the bottom sections of the buildings remained standing, jutting out from the ground like broken blades. Charred, splintered wood lay strewn about the grass, and large chunks of shattered stone formed crude boulders.
Surrounding the ruins, colorful blossoms grew in bright patches. Originally someone had suggested burying the bodies—at least the ones they’d been able to recover—there. But Joan had shuddered at the thought of forcing the experiment victims to rest eternally near the broken facility, so she’d requested they move them to Winrow’s graveyard instead. Thankfully people hadn’t questioned her, though the move in the burial site hadn’t stopped people from planting flowers around the area as a memorial.
Joan’s eyes scanned the ruins, finally landing on a single figure standing just in front of the collapsed building. Slowly, Joan approached until she was a few feet away, her footsteps crunching as she stepped over debris.
Amara’s back was turned to her. She didn’t move, simply standing there staring at the destruction before her. The wind blew her now short wavy hair against her neck, and her cloak billowed. The movement caught Joan’s eye, and she caught a glimpse of Amara’s hands hanging at her sides, balled into tight fists that shook barely perceptibly.
Joan opened her mouth and closed it, not knowing what to say. Hesitant, she took another step forward.
And then, all at once, the trembling stopped. Slowly, Amara’s fingers loosened, uncurling themselves until they hung limply at her sides. She raised her head, lifting her face towards the deep blue sky. Joan saw her whole body breathe as another wind blew past them, as though she was trying to fill her lungs with as much air as possible.
A few seconds passed, and Amara’s shoulders fell as she exhaled. Her head lowered back down to eye level, and slowly, she turned around.
Strands of hair lay strewn haphazardly against her face, mussed and twisted by the wind. Her posture was perfectly relaxed and casual, not a trace of tension in sight. The scars running up her arms seemed almost to move in the shifting shadows cast by her cloak. Her sharp eyes, a bright green that gleamed in the sunlight, were piercing.
But what caught Joan’s attention the most was her smile. It was bright, unreadable, and utterly unfamiliar.
“Joan,” Amara said, voice calm. “Let’s go back.”