“Alastair,” said Florence, her voice cracking.

“You should know better than to think I’d yield to a squadron of stewards,” Alastair chuckled back. Truth be told, he was grateful it was Florence and not the guild. He could beat a squadron sure, but what about specialist teams? Maybe. Then it’d end up in the hands of the imposition and they’d send an army after Alastair. He shuddered at the thought.

“What are you doing here?” Florence asked.

“Checking up on the girl,” Alastair said. “She needs healing.”

Florence's eyes widened for a half a second, then narrowed with focus. She turned to the girl, crouched low to the ground beside her and mumbled a hushed incantation. Alastair stood in waiting for several long minutes. Florence was muttering to herself the whole while, checking Rue over with an eye as keen as any healer in the sanctum.

“I can’t help her,” Florence said, looking up Alastair. “She won’t make it.”

Alastair thought to himself, trying to figure out a solution. The psychic wouldn’t be able to help, the alcohol trick would keep his power offline for the next two or three days. There was only one sure way to remove psychic damages. The hillbilly had to die. There was no other way around it as far as Alastair knew. He didn’t like being an executioner, but he’d done much worse as a steward during his time as a battle mage. He had to know the crimes, Alastair wouldn’t do it if the crime didn’t fit.

“Dammit I don’t have time for this!” he exclaimed. Florence looked at Alastair, then down at Rue. “Hillbilly, can I call you hillbilly?” The drunken sorcerer looked up at him. He was pale, he’d lost a lot of blood. “I saw you having sex with this woman. At least that’s how it looked. She couldn’t get enough of you!” The hillbilly grinned. “Then I broke your enchantment, and she stopped. Which means, she was acting against her own free will. That’s rape. Should the penalty for rape be capital? I don’t think so. You kidnapped her. Also, not something to kill for.”

He crouched by the psychic, and looked him in the eyes. “The real problem is, you forced your way into her mind. Now, she will die. You haven’t killed her yet, I guess that means it’s attempted murder. I don’t kill for that either. But, you’ve put me in a rough spot. If I do nothing, she dies. If I kill you, she lives. She was innocent, she didn’t deserve you meddling in her mind.” He took a deep breath then reached down, taking a handful of dirt and playing with it between his fingers. He could still feel the charge from Florence’s magic. He let the dirt fall back to the floor (ground?) then wiped his hands on the hillbilly’s pant leg.

“You can’t kill him,” Florence said.

“If I don’t she dies,” Alastair said back.

“But you’re not the one that killed her!” Florence shot back.

“In the sanctum, when someone comes in and is dying, what’s the penalty for refusing to heal them?” Alastair asked.

Florence stood still, not answering Alastair's question.

“Coward,” Alastair whispered at her.

“No!” she barked back. “This is different!”

“Different from what? You never answered the question,” Alastair said.

“The healer would be tried as though they committed the harm to their patient,” Florence answered. She sounded annoyed to Alastair.

“So if we don’t save her we are her killers?” Alastair asked.

“If we didn’t try!” Florence hissed back.

Alastair drew his sword and stood over the hillbilly. Roots sprang to life on the ground around Alastair and dashed towards the hillbilly, pulling him from Alastair's reach. Alastair let it happen.

“I won’t let you!” she hissed again. “We can take them to the sanctum and put them into stasis until we figure it out!”

“If you can’t fix it, no one else there will be able to,” Alastair said. “I don’t want her as a case for some rookie healer to work on!”

“The sanctum is the best place for them!” Florence said again.

“I’ll make you a deal, you try again right now, and I mean really try, and I’ll let you take him to the sanctum, otherwise, I’ll destroy every part of him,” Alastair said. He meant it. He knew he would do it too. Florence knew she couldn’t beat Alastair, and she knew he’d go through her if that’s what it took.

Florence stood, eyes wide again as she stared at the grizzled battle mage. “Alright, I’ll do it,” she acquiesced.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

She returned the hillbilly to the clearing in front of Alastair as he resheathed his sword. She had been eyeing him suspiciously, but seemed to have decided to trust him as she turned toward Rue, and reestablished the healing link.

Alastair knew she couldn’t heal the girl. Florence knew it, but she didn’t know that Alastair knew. He closed his eyes and focused his mind on himself, centering his magical energy into his second chakra, into his third eye. He let it open and beheld the world around him as it was magically. It wasn’t vision as you would think of it normally, but more a sense of what was around him.

He sensed that Florence was trying to help the girl, but the link Alastair had severed was only part of the hillbillies connection to Rue. The other portion remained intact, Alastair could sense it. He sensed all of Florence's will focus on Rue.

He stepped forward, eyes still closed and drew his sword. He pressed his will into the sword, and found residual ambient energy stored there. That’s not the kind of magic he needed now. Within him, within all life is an eb and flow that is magic, the very power of life. He needed his magic for what he was going to do. If he had to dirty his hands with magic, it’d be his own magic.

“I can’t sever the thread,” Florence said. “It moves slightly then doesn’t budge at all after that.”

The hillbilly hackeled drunkenly and said “I’m stronger than you woman!”

Alastair imbued his sword with the power of his own magic, and it began to glow in the vision of his third eye, his awareness spread down the blade as though it was an extension of his very will. He then plunged the blade into the chest of the psychic. His aim was true and the blade pierced between two ribs. Alastair stopped it short of the man's heart.

“Yield hillbilly!” he commanded.

“Alastair,” Florence squeaked. “Stop!”

“Keep trying to remove his tendril!” Alastair barked back at her.

“I don’t know how!” Florence cried.

Alastair sent his magic into the man, into his mind, through his being. “I’m going to burn the alcohol from his mind,” Alastair said to Florence. “Once I do, he’ll have his power back. We will coerce him to release his link to the girl. Be ready.”

Still using his third eye, he beheld the energy of the mans beating heart. Normally he wouldn’t be able to see it, but his sword was there and his entire focus was now on the man's circulatory system. He imbued his magic with the directive to remove the alcohol then unleashed into the hillbilly’ies heart. It spread through the rest of his circulatory system, purging the blood of the alcohol.

“Aaargh!” Screamed the hillbilly as he flinched forward. Alastair matched his movement with the blade of his sword, preventing it from penetrating the man's heart.

“Lie still!” Alastair barked. He used his staff in his other hand and pressed the hillbilly back to the ground, careful not to let the sword lose its place in the man.

“Get your sword out my chest!” the hillbilly hollered.

Alastair opened his eyes, looking at the hillbilly for the first time with both his vision and his second sight. The man was a monster, his face was white, more like a skeleton than a man. Alastair resisted the temptation to plunge the sword into the psychics heart.

“Release the girl,” Alastair growled at him.

“I can’t,” the hillbilly protested between short, shallow breaths. Alastair twisted the blade of the sword. The hillbillies face contorted with pain and he breathed out “I’ll try, I’ll try.”

Alastair focused his third eye on the link between the psychic and Rue. It looked like a translucent leach whose mouth was beneath the flesh of Rue’s forehead. It began to pulsate as it pulled a vibrant clear energy from Rue.

“She’s fading!” Florence said. Alastair saw something come from the healer and wrap itself around the leach, constricting its neck to slow its draw.

“Stop!” Alastair commanded.

Almost the moment the energy reached the hillbilly, the man's eyes blazed with magical light. His head snapped to Alastair, and Alastair felt a psychic attack on his mind unlike anything he had ever experienced. He focused his will on fending off the psychic’s advances, but the psychic was much stronger than he had been earlier.

“Can you get it off?” Alastair asked Florence. She didn’t respond. He looked at her and she had fallen to the ground, unconscious. He looked at the psychic, who was shaking with the effort to attack Alastair.

Alastair closed his eyes and plunged his sword as deeply into the chest of the hillbilly as he could. Almost immediately the hillbillies attack stopped, and the leach broke from the psychic, pouring energy into the nearby forest.

It thrashed around, and fastened itself securely to Alastair’s face. A flood of energy rushed into him. Magical energy, psychic energy, as well as emotional energy. All from Rue. He saw her, who she was, who she dreamed of becoming. He saw her husband and recognized the tell- tale sounds (signs?) of abuse. He saw her use her magic, it was a method Alastair had never before seen.

The magic exploded through him, erupting from his staff, his eyes and his sword into the downed psychic. It seared every part of his being, except his mind. In his mind it felt good. He focused his will, and used his power to harness hers. It was hard, he wasn’t sure he could do it. But at long last he had pulled it back into himself. It had created a storm in the air around them, sending his hair and beard flying every direction. He could feel the light flying from his eyes, the memories and feelings of Rue. She was beautiful. He looked at her downed body, the leach still fusing the two of them. It had begun to deteriorate with the psychics death. He had to restore her essence as soon as possible.

On the ground beside the girl Florence regained consciousness and looked up at Alastair. Her eyes widened with terror and she shranke ( from Alastair's visage. He threw his head back and roared into the night, pointing his sword high into the air above him. He pulled magic into it with his will, recalling every ounce of Rue’s essence that escaped into the night. It shot down the battle mage’s blade, up his arm, and into his being.

He stared back down at the girl, and forced the essence back into her. Some of him went with, but if that’s what it took to save her, that’s what he’d do. With a final effort of will, he forced the last of Rue’s being back into her body. He saw her take a deep gasp as he fell to the forest floor. He grinned, exhausted, then debated letting sleep come.