Chapter 3

As I walked into the town Kaylin started wiggling so I set her down on the ground.

“C’mon Ara. I’ll bring you to my mom and Doc! They’ll help heal you!” Kaylin grabbed my hand, leading further into the town. I followed her, figuring someone she called Doc would be exactly the kind of person I was looking for.

The streets were cloaked in shadows with the occasional lantern penetrating the inky night. Kaylin led me confidently, turning and twisting through the dark streets with practiced ease. We eventually arrived at a stone house sitting in the shadow of a looming chapel.

Kaylin burst through the door, not bothering to knock, and I trailed behind her more cautiously. This would be a true test of my disguise. Up until this point no one had inspected me too closely, but a thorough medical examination wouldn’t really allow me to hide.

We walked into a front room that seemed sort of like a shop. There was a counter with some papers strewn across it and walls lined with various goods. Most of the items seemed to be dried herbs, but there were other miscellaneous objects, most of which I couldn’t clearly make out in the dim room.

Kaylin continued on, walking behind the counter through a doorway. I felt weird just following her into the back. It felt sort of like an invasion of privacy. Not that I cared too much about invading people’s privacy, what with having mind magic and all, I just didn’t want to make a bad impression on the people who might be healing me.

But I decided it was probably better to enter with Kaylin rather than alone, so I rushed forward to catch up with her. My long legs made up the distance to Kaylin and I followed her down a long hallway. There were rows of closed doors on both sides. At the end of the hall we went through a doorway leading to a large room. The ceiling was high and there was a large fireplace burning dimly on the far end of the chamber. Rows of mats were laid out across the stone floor, many of which were occupied with sleeping bodies.

Kaylin softly walked through the maze of human bodies to a table in the corner where a young woman slept. She had long blonde hair braided back, though strands of hair had slipped free, falling messily across her face. She had her head cradled in her arm and there was some dried drool on her chin. The table was cluttered with various towels, bandages, and medicines.

This place must be some sort of medic station. Kaylin gently shook the woman’s shoulder.

“Mommy, wake up!” She whispered. The woman lifted her head, blinking blearily down at Kaylin. It took a moment for her to realize who she was looking at, but as soon as she recognized her daughter she shrieked and tackled her into a tight hug.

“Kaylin, my baby! I’ve been so worried about you!”

“Shhh, mom! You’re going to wake everyone up and make Doc mad!”

The woman, not seeming to care for her daughter's warning continued on talking. And none too quietly, I might add.

“Don’t you ever run off like that without telling me again! What if a demon had gotten you?” She wailed. At the sound of rustling blankets I glanced back to see some people shifting on their mats due to the commotion.

“Mom!” Kaylin whispered in annoyance. “You’re going to wake everyone up! Then Doc will make us do kitchen duty again!”

As if just realizing she was surrounded by sleeping people, the woman finally had the wherewithal to look a little embarrassed. She also finally noticed me hovering awkwardly behind Kaylin.

“Who are you?” She asked, this time keeping her voice low. “I don’t remember admitting you as a patient.”

“No, ma’am. I just arrived and was wondering if someone would be able to help me with this wound on my shoulder.”

I winced theatrically as I pulled my scorched shirt down more to better reveal my nasty burn. I forced tears to my eyes to better sell how painful the wound was. Not that it wasn’t actually really painful, but Cifer had trained me to be able to compartmentalize pain so I could keep fighting. That meant no tears or moaning about a wound. Getting distracted by a minor wound is how you end up with a fatal wound he would say. Though sometimes I felt like our definition of a minor wound was very, very different.

The woman gasped.

“We need to get you into a treatment room right away.” She said frantically. “Quick, follow me.”

I followed her as we retraced our steps back through the large chamber to the hallway. She walked halfway down the hall and opened a door, beckoning me forward. I walked into a small room crowded with a bed against one wall and a small desk against the other. There was a small window in the far wall that let some silvery moonlight into the dim room. The woman quickly lit a lamp sitting on the table.

“Would you mind laying down on the cot so I can inspect your wound?” I laid down obediently. She walked over to me, carrying the lamp. Once she reached the edge of the bed she hung the lamp on a hook in the ceiling, illuminating the bed with warm light.

“Kaylin. Please go wake Healer Kirwin and ask him to come here.” The woman ordered.

Kaylin scurried off, her fading footsteps echoing on the stone floors.

“My name is Brietta. Don’t worry we’re going to get you fixed up.”

I got the distinct feeling that she was much more worried than me. Maybe that was a sign I should be a little more worried about the severity of my wound. But like I said before, I wasn’t a stranger to being injured and the pain had dulled significantly over the course of the day. That or I had just gotten used to the constant ache. Don’t get me wrong, getting hit with the holy fire was definitely the most painful experience of my life, but now that the initial agony was over I was starting to wonder if I should have even come to a medic at all. Well, I guess it couldn’t hurt to get it looked at. The last thing I wanted was for it to get infected.

I had seen firsthand how debilitating infection was in some of the lower ranked demons. Nasty wounds leaking blood and puss, raging fevers, muscle weakness, and sometimes even death. Permanent death. A demon dying in the Demon Realm dies for good. No getting revived a few days or weeks later like when we’re killed in the Human Realm.

Now that I was thinking about it, my wound had been bleeding and pussing a lot. That couldn’t be a good sign. Naw, I’m sure it’ll be fine!

Brietta went back over to the desk and seemed to be gathering supplies. The silence stretched on awkwardly as she shuffled things around on the desk. When I was finally about to just get up and leave to escape the deafening silence, Kaylin trotted back into the room, a man walking in behind her.

The man was tall and seemed fairly fit despite the graying hair that suggested he was well into his years. He had smile wrinkles around his eyes and mouth and his hazel eyes were kind.

“Good evening, miss. I’m Healer Kirwin. What’s your name?”

“Ara!” Kaylin interjected proudly.

“Ara, is that right?” He asked me.

“Yes, sir.”

“Thank you Kaylin. Why don’t you go to bed now.” Kirwin suggested.

“Aww, but I want to stay with Ara!”

“I’m sure there will be plenty of time for you to see her tomorrow. Now off you go!”

Kaylin gave him a pouty face but obeyed, leaving the room.

“Alright then miss Ara, what seems to be the problem?” He asked, coming over to the bed to inspect me. At the sight of the nasty burn on my left shoulder I could see his face tighten. But he kept his concern well hidden, and asked lightly. “How did you get this?”

“There was a demon that was about to attack Kaylin so I rushed in to try to help her.” Hearing my words, Brietta gasped. “I thought fire would scare it so I tried to attack it with fire. I managed to light it on fire, but then it punched me in the shoulder while it was burning. Fortunately it eventually died and Kaylin wasn’t hurt, but my shoulder was still wounded.”

“Thank you so much for saving my daughter!” Brietta said, tears sparkling in her eyes.

“Of course” I smiled at her, before allowing my face to crumble into an expression of pain.

“So you were able to kill a demon?” Kirwin asked skeptically. Whoops, I forgot how weak most humans were. Killing a demon probably wasn’t something just anyone could do. Too late to change my story now.

“Yes, but only barely. I think the fire did most of the work for me though. I was so terrified I just acted on instinct and hoped it would work.” I let my voice get choked up and willed a few tears to tumble down my cheeks. “I was so terrified. I thought I was going to die.”

A scared weak human is what they probably expected to see, so I better put on an entertaining performance for them. Then maybe they’ll just accept that I got lucky.

The healer still seemed a little disbelieving, but he left it alone.

“Well, I’m glad both you and Kaylin are safe now. Let’s see to that wound of yours”

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He pulled the chair by the desk over to the bedside and sat down. He leaned over me, inspecting the wound closely.

“Brietta, get me some water and towels. We need to clean the wound.”

Brietta scrambled to bring over a bucket of water from the corner of the room and grabbed some towels off of the desk. She handed them over to the doctor and he began cleaning the wound.”

It stung terribly, shivers of pain prickling my senses. I knew I could probably endure the pain without much complaint, I was trained for this kind of thing. Suffering was something carved into my soul, so familiar I almost welcomed it. I’m sure that was probably Cifer’s goal. To have a perfect emotionless slave willing to endure anything, wanting to endure everything.

But since my current role was of a terrified injured human girl, I let myself react to the stinging pain. I let myself flinch and shiver. I closed my eyes tightly and let tears leak out. I clenched my teeth and whimpered. Putting up such a display made me feel shameful. Like I was betraying all my training. But at the same time, it felt kind of freeing. It made me feel alive. Like I was a real person with real emotions, good and bad. I wasn’t some marble statue, carved to fit a role someone else chose for me.

Healer Kirwin continued on silently, diligently cleaning my wound while Brietta held my hand and murmured words of comfort. I’m not sure how long this went on for, but eventually Kirwin stopped and stood up.

“I don’t believe the wound has been infected yet, but we’ll need to make sure to keep it very clean. I’m going to put a salve on it and bandage it, but I’ll probably need to reinspect it tomorrow to make sure infection doesn’t take root.”

“Alright, thank you Doctor.”

“Of course, my dear.”

After bandaging my wound, Doctor Kirwin and Brietta bid me good night, promising to check on me in the morning. As I lay in bed staring up at the ceiling I wondered just what I had gotten myself into. Cifer was sure to have realized I was gone by now and was likely throwing a fit. But somehow, despite the misfortune that had befallen me upon entering the human realm, I was still glad I had come. Being here felt exciting. But most importantly, being here was my choice. A choice I had made for myself.

***

I stared at a brick wall through the small window in my room. Not much of a view. I wondered why they even bothered having a window here when there wasn’t really much to look at. I’d awoken an hour or so ago and hadn’t been sure what exactly to do. Was it ok to just walk out of my room and wander around or was there some human etiquette I was supposed to follow?

Due to the dismally short records Cifer had on humans I knew next to nothing about human culture. Sure I knew a couple things that demons had found important enough to record about humans, but those mostly centered around how to overpower them, drain their souls, or torment them. I knew that humans were generally weak compared to most demons. I also knew they had various magic affinities similarly to demons. But beyond that, I was pretty much in the dark.

I chuckled to myself. I must be a pretty pathetic demon to just be sitting here worrying over offending the humans when I could easily just kill them to avoid embarrassment. But what would be the fun in a bunch of dead humans. Live ones were so much more entertaining.

I’d always wondered about the human world. I wondered about how they interacted with each other. How they survived off of the land. What types of food they ate. Food. My stomach rumbled, emphasizing my musings on food. That would definitely have to be my first quest.

I hadn’t eaten anything since coming to the Human Realm except a few glorious bites of cake before I was so rudely interrupted. Normally going a couple of days without food wouldn’t be a problem for me, but this weak human body seemed to require more frequent sustenance. And here I was thinking I already had a large appetite since most demons only ate every couple of weeks. But compared to me humans seemed to be even more cripplingly dependent on food.

Finally deciding to brave the unknown, I crossed the room and opened the door to the empty hallway. I didn’t hear much, but then again it was still fairly early in the morning. I stepped out into the hallway, walking with trained silence on the stone floor. There was really no need to be stealthy here, but some habits were hard to break.

I walked into the large chamber with the fireplace. It seemed that most of the people in here were still asleep so I decided to continue on. I walked across the room and through another doorway to the left of the fireplace. I entered a foyer with a large wooden door. Not knowing what else to do at this point I decided I might as well continue my exploration.

I pulled open the heavy door, and was met with brisk morning air. Stepping through I found myself in a large courtyard brimming with neatly kept plants of all kinds. There was an open hallway right outside the door that provided a covered path to another wooden door on the other side of the courtyard with the gardens to the left and a sturdy stone wall to the right.

I contemplated perusing the interesting gardens, but my stomach protested angrily, reminding me of my quest for food. I walked quickly across the pathway to the other door and went inside.

I entered yet another hallway running both to my left and right. Before my indecision had time to plague me, I caught the scent of a tantalizing aroma coming from the right. That meant that going right was the obvious choice so I strode excitedly down the hallway, following my nose. Before getting too far I heard the clattering of metal coming through an open doorway. I peeked inside to see a man with his back turned pulling something out of a brick oven. The room was comfortingly warm from the blazing fire under the oven. This was definitely the source of the smell.

The man hadn’t noticed me yet and I didn’t feel inclined to inform him of my presence yet. There was something mesmerizing about the way he worked. He sliced up things and stirred boiling pots and pulled loaves from the oven in a rhythmic flurry of movement. He had shoulder length blonde hair tied back loosely at the nape of his neck, a few sweaty strands sticking to his neck. He was fairly tall and moved about the kitchen with a confident grace.

Deciding I had looked my fill, I cleared my throat from my place in the doorway. The man whirled around. I had planned on having a mischievous smirk on my face. It was one of my trademark expressions. But as soon as I met his familiar moss colored eyes a wash of horror went through me. The Clunaic. THE Clunaic. The one who had nearly killed me with holy fire. I quickly reeled in my emotions and fixed a friendly look onto my face. I had to act normal. I looked different now so he shouldn’t have recognized me.

“Good morning, miss. How can I help you?”

“Sorry to interrupt you. I was just passing by and got curious. I’ll just leave you to your work.” I needed to make a quick exit before he got the chance to get suspicious, even if it meant abandoning the glorious smells.

“No need to rush off! Would you like to come in and eat some? I’m just finishing preparing everything.”

“That’s very kind of you, but I wouldn’t dream of imposing.” I said with a little more sarcasm than I had intended.

“Oh it’s no trouble.” I got the distinct impression that he sensed my discomfort and was enjoying it a little too much.

“Well, if you insist, sir.” I probably should have made more of an effort to leave, but the food smelled so good and I was practically starving to death.

“Sir? That makes me feel like an old man. Call me Kivani. And what, pray tell, should I call you, my lady?”

“Ara. My name is Ara.” I forced a delicate blush to my cheeks. Normally I’m not one to flirt, especially in the demon realm where relationships are more like transactions than any sort of emotional attachment, but I thought I’d heard somewhere that humans were constantly seeking affectionate relationships. So if I’m stuck in this human body I might as well try to act like one. Since the possibility of escape was dwindling, maybe I could flatter him with my feminine charms to distract him from who I really was.

“Ara. What a beautiful name. Is that short for something?”

“Maybe.”

“Oh, a woman with secrets? I can respect that.”

My stomach chose that moment to growl obnoxiously and my false blush bloomed into a deeper, probably less attractive, burn across my face.

“I’d better hurry it up,” Kivani laughed.

“No need to rush for my sake.” This sickly sweet facade was so exhausting, maybe flirting really wasn’t for me.

“Well, lucky for you the food’s hot and ready now.”

Kivani pulled a bowl off a shelf and ladled some steaming soup into it. He carried it over to a rickety looking table and set it down. I shuffled over to the table and sat down, my chair creaking ominously. Kivani handed me a wooden spoon and I dipped it into the soup.

I raised a steaming spoonful to my mouth, blowing on it gently before eating it. Bliss. The soup had a rich broth and the vegetables were perfectly softened. Flavor shot through my mouth as I slowly swallowed, reveling in the satisfying warmth as the soup settled in my stomach. This was nothing like food in the Demon Realm. Sure we tried to grow vegetables and occasionally meat would be brought back from the Human Realm through tears, but it was as if everything in the Demon Realm rotted. Everything always had a gritty, sandy flavor, regardless of how you tried preparing it.

But this soup was pure art. A symphony of subtle flavors blended perfectly together.

“This is amazing!” I bursted out excitedly, then quickly regretted my outburst. I had really wanted to hate Kivani after he almost killed me, but after tasting this I was starting to think he might not be so bad to have around as long as he made me more of this glorious food. But that didn’t mean I wanted him to be aware of that. I wasn’t in the business of feeding egos.

“I’m glad you like it so much.” Kivani said, a slightly surprised look on his face at my adamant declaration.

I tried my best to stifle a glare as I quickly scarfed down the rest of the soup, drinking every last drop of broth. It was seriously annoying that he turned out to be this amazing at making food.

“It’s like you’ve never eaten a decent meal or something.” Kivani smiled. “I guess I should feel honored that you like it so much.”

“Well, I guess it’s not the worst thing I’ve ever eaten,” I admitted begrudgingly.

At that Kivani started laughing. At first I wanted to be mad that he was laughing at me, but he had such a carefree laugh it took all my willpower to keep a smile off my face.

“I’m sorry for laughing, it’s just that you’re such a contradiction between your actions and words.”

“Ara! There you are.” Brietta stood at the doorway a little breathless. “I’ve been searching for you! When you weren’t in your room this morning I got worried. Oh good morning Sir Salhoa. C’mon Ara, Kirwin wants to check on your wound again.”

“You’re hurt?” Kivani turned to me, concern in his eyes. The audacity he had to look so concerned over a wound he gave me made me bristle in irritation.

“A little.”

“A little?” Brietta exclaimed. “You were severely burned. Honestly it’s a miracle you survived. You need to be in bed resting.”

“What happened?” Kivani asked, considering me more closely. Oh no, we were getting into more dangerous waters now. I really didn’t want Kivani to put things together and realize I was actually the demon he burned.

“I was attacked by a demon and got burned.”

“Oh don’t be so modest!” Brietta interjected. “You risked your life to save my daughter and managed to kill the demon! Kaylin told me all about it.”

“You killed a demon?” Kivani asked, surprised.

“I think it’s more like I just got lucky.” Not taking credit for a kill that was by no means luck irked me, but after Kirwin’s reaction last night I got the feeling killing demons was not something so easily accomplished by humans.

“Well, it looks like I owe you another meal.”

“What do you mean?”

“You see, I’m a Clunaic so it’s my job to get rid of the demons before they can hurt anyone. The fact that you and so many others have gotten hurt is my fault.”

I almost wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it. Did he really believe that he, a single human, should have been able to get rid of all the demons that had gotten through the tear? To be honest I thought it was a little arrogant, but upon seeing his morose expression I realized he was being genuine. He legitimately felt responsible. I guess I would do him the courtesy of not laughing. At least on the outside. Inside I was totally cackling.

“Well, I guess I would accept more food as payment.” I probably should do everything possible to avoid this man, but I couldn’t resist the idea of more mouthwatering food. Plus he did have a debt to pay. Not for the demon I killed, but for burning me. The least he could do is pay me back through delicious food.

“Thank you for your generosity.” Kivani bowed, “I’ll let you go get treated. I hope you feel better.”

I sighed internally as Brietta ushered me out of the room. I had really wanted another bowl of that amazing soup.