Erin toiled over Abed with her hand, channeling the power of her gate to encourage muscles and skin to regrow. There was too much damage, and she knew it. While she would restore some movement to him, Abed would be crippled for life, assuming he survived the rest of the day.

Lightning was a strong element. People with curses specializing in that element were in the top tier of destructive power. Her curse paled in comparison. With her gate, she could make living things grow, including spurring people's bodies to heal with just a touch. She couldn't reverse damage beyond what the body would do naturally, but she could enhance the healing process and speed it up.

An ache echoed through her head as she ran her hand down Abed's leg. The flesh was stitched together and bruised, but it wouldn't go any further. She was already pushing her curse too far by doing this much. She was denying reality.

"You will never be a true healer," she whispered the words to herself as she pulled back her hand and closed her gate.

She stood up and looked over to the entangled man. Thorns from the vines she had grown over him pierced his skin, and he was bleeding out. A vine wrapped around his mouth made sure he wouldn't be able to use his power again. One thing she knew about all curse users was that they needed to speak to make full use of their powers. He might be able to throw sparks from his body without speaking, but more complicated techniques required intent. Intent required speech.

"You had to interfere," she scolded herself as she then looked back to the men behind Abed.

She had been looking for Roald. Every piece of information she had told her that he had stopped at Glory Plateau. Not even finding one piece of information confirming he had been on Glory Plateau didn't bode well. His knowledge would tip the scales in the fight against the Scions for the People's Revolution.

Yet, she had come here only to find a dead end. Then, she had gotten involved when she didn't have to. Every second lost was a second that Roald might be out in the ruins, fighting and dying with the information in his head on the line.

"Erin," Abed whispered from the ground. "Can you help me?"

The healer inside Erin pulled down at her heart, and she frowned. She wanted to be anywhere but here right now. However, she knew the rules of the Coven. Even if she had been expelled, the first rule was written into her soul.

"Rule One. Never abandon a patient." She knelt next to him and listened to his last words.

"I know I will not make it," Abed said, shivering as he pulled his curved sword up and pointed the hilt to Erin. "Please make sure that Sayed gets my blade. Tell him that I will see him in the Crimson Fields again."

Erin honestly didn't know what to say. She reached down to take the hilt of the odd sword, and Abed let go. It fell heavily in her hand, and she had to change her balance to keep it from hitting the ground.

"Oh, how sad." A voice called from above, and Erin looked up to see a figure in a brown cloak looking down from a window.

He held a bow in his hand and had already notched an arrow. He held the bowstring tight, aiming directly at Erin down below. Erin instinctively held up her hands, holding the sword high in one hand as the man looked her over.

"Now, let's set down the sword," the man said. "Looks like a good trophy to keep from this encounter."

Erin did as he asked, slowly lowering the sword and setting it against the stone street. The archer nodded as she rose back up. She needed to think. There had to be a way to get out of the situation.

She noticed a flicker in the light that cut through the archer. His form shifted in the light, and Erin narrowed her eyes. Something was wrong, but she didn't know what it was. The archer smiled down at her, and she saw that his eyes weren't watching her.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

"Now, stay still," the archer said the second Erin tried to turn her head to find the source of the noise. "I wouldn't want to kill you accidentally."

Thump.

She felt a cold sliver run up her spine and instinctively turned. From above, the arrow flew, and to her surprise, a dagger came for her back at the same time in her peripheral vision. Erin spun on her heel, deflecting the dagger at the attacker's wrist by instinct and stepping to her right. She flinched for the arrow but felt nothing. A moment later, the image of an arrow shot out of her chest and shattered into shards of light.

"An illusion," she whispered as she stepped further away from her attacker.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

He stood off to the side, recovering from his thrust with his dagger. He wore a cloak that was a mix of dark green, black, and brown speckled in a way across his cloak that it would hide him if he stood in a forest. He held a long, curving serpentine dagger in his hands, and when he turned, a mask covered his face, so only a portion of his pale face was visible, along with his bright blue eyes.

"You saw through it," he said, holding up his dagger vertically in front of his face in his gloved hand.

"Who are you?" Erin asked, holding up her dagger with her right hand while she held her left ready.

"Someone who would know the 'Thorn Queen' when he saw her," the man said, closing his eyes for a moment as he stepped back. "Hidden Mirage."

He slipped away from sight like stepping behind a curtain. Erin tensed her body and listened to the world around her. Rocks and rubble scratched at her ears, and she spun around. A faint footfall thumped behind her, and she spun again. She couldn't pinpoint him, no matter how hard she tried.

Scratch.

Erin tilted the second she felt the dagger touch her back, sliding so that it cut into her shoulder instead. She gritted her teeth as the dagger pierced through her left shoulder. The dagger was cold to the touch, and her nerves lit up in response to the piercing metal. She looked down and saw the long serpentine knife jutting out from her. She suddenly felt the heat of the man standing behind her, where there had been nothing before.

"Why do you drag it out?" he whispered in her ear. "Do you know how much money I could make with your head?"

Erin stabbed down with the dagger in her right hand, right into his leg. She wasn't going to waste words on the man. He was the type to enjoy toying with his opponent. In a rapid movement, she pulled out the dagger and stabbed him a second time before he pushed her away, throwing her forward into the ground and taking her dagger with him.

"Grah!" he yelled out as she rolled on the ground.

The pain in her shoulder spiked like fire, but she forced herself to take the roll into a kneeling position. She opened her gate, and a green light erupted from her shoulder. An itch ran across her nerves as skin and muscle stitched themselves back together beneath her clothes. The blood flowing from her open wound slowed and stopped in seconds.

"You're going to regret that," the man said, pulling her dagger from his thigh as he stepped back again. "Hidden Mirage."

He disappeared, leaving Erin in the alley with Abed seemingly alone. Erin put her back against the wall, keeping her eyes open as she reached into her bag and drew out a smaller sack. Her attack would buy her a few seconds. The man would need to bind his wound, or he would risk bleeding out. She opened the bag and scattered the seeds across the ground in a wide arc around her. She wasn't about to go down easily.

She reached out with her senses, opening her gate further. Each seed was a tiny flame in the world around her, and she tied the threads of life to each one and her gate. They waited for her command. Now, all she needed to do was wait.

Her plan was simple. The man would have to approach her to attack. All she needed to do was to wait for him to step on one of her seeds. She would cause it to grow when it cracked and wrap him in vines. Then, she could move in and finish him off. He could hide himself visibly, but that didn't mean he didn't exist. She just had to be patient, and she would have him.

"What are you planning?" the man asked, but his voice came simultaneously from two directions. "Do you think you can see through my mirage with just a few seeds? I know your reputation. I won't approach you so foolishly."

Abed moved in her peripheral vision, his arm reaching out and scattering her seeds further. After swinging through the wide arc, he grabbed his sword. Erin kept her focus on her seeds. She needed to see the attack coming.

"Grah!" the man yelled out in pain.

Flick. Snap.

She heard it a fraction of a second before it hit, and she had to duck. An arrow dug into the wall above her head. At the same time, a man holding a bow appeared beside Abed's prone form. The shot had gone wide, and Erin could see the reason why. Abed had stabbed the man in the foot with his sword. Blood flowed freely around the blade, and the man swung his bow down at Abed's face as he screamed in pain.

"You bastard!" the man yelled as he swung the bow down at Abed's face again and again. "Why would you do that."

Erin lunged forward, reaching into her bag for a bunch of seeds and throwing it onto the man as he vented his rage. She opened her gate fully and channeled life into the seeds as they fell into the man's clothes and around his feet. He had a moment to look up at her, fear in his eyes as he stopped swinging his bow and realized what was about to happen.

"Thorn's Grasp."

Vines grew from the seeds, thorns piercing into the man's skin as they climbed up his limbs and around his body. He dropped his bow and reached for his dagger. He tried to hack away at the vines and pull at them with his free hand. In the process, he cut into his skin, even as the thorns pierced his free hand and let blood flow out from his fingers. In moments, he was covered in blood from a hundred tiny wounds across his body, and he ceased his struggles as the vines closed tight.

Erin closed her gate, and the rampant growth of the vines stopped. Moments afterward, she fell to one knee, her breath coming in short gasps as she focused her mind. That much forced growth after attempting to heal Abed was pushing her body to its limits. She felt like she wanted to throw up to get rid of all the access energy inside her body.

"Are you alright?" Abed asked her.

"I'll be fine," Erin said, looking over to him. "Thank you. How did you see him next to you?"

"What do you mean?" Abed asked as he attempted to turn his head but had to stop to grimace in pain. "I did not know why you stood there while fighting him. Did he have some way of holding you still with magic?"

"No." Erin frowned, looking over to the vine-wrapped man. "You were able to see him, but I couldn't. He must have been able to project illusions into one person's mind."

"Not that it matters now." Abed laughed but ended up in a coughing fit. "You should go. Leave me here and look for the others. If you all work together, I am sure you will be safe."

He didn't have much time left. Erin shook her head, shuffling over on hands and knees and retrieving the sword from the dead man's foot. She returned it to Abed and set it down next to his head before sitting next to him.

"I'll be here until the end," she said to him. "No one deserves to die alone."