The world moved beneath him, a violent jostle that shook him awake and roused the dormant agony; a burning, angry pain that sleep had helped him forget. Like a scream in the silence it pierced his senses, a thick blanket of heavy flame that smothered every thought. He could feel the wail growing in his chest, pushing back against the weight of the pain and clawing up his throat and out his mouth.

And then, it was all gone. The pain vanished faster than it appeared, and the scream withered and died on his lips.

Vincht wrenched himself upright, shaking and confused. A thick sheen of sweat coated his furrowed brow and bare chest. Beads of the salty water stung the corners of his eyes. His chest heaved as he sucked in breath after breath of dry, dusty air.

Blinking in the dim light, Vincht found himself reclining on layers of crag wolf pelts that were spread out in the bed of a moving wagon. The sun bullied its way through the thin sheet of brown leather that stretched across an arched wooden frame, barely enough to illuminate the cramped interior but still managing to sting his sleep-weak eyes. A jumbled cluster of deep green curtains covered both ends of the wagon, preventing Vincht from discerning front from back. Piles of blood soaked rags and empty unguent pots were scattered all around him. A fresh pile of clothes, along with the majority of his equipment, awaited him on atop a small crate in one corner.

“You are awake,” said the woman sitting on her knees in the corner. She dutifully smoothed the ruffles of her blue dress before sliding over to his side.

“Willa,” Vincht whispered, unsure of the strength of his voice. “How lo-”

The wagon jumped as it encountered some unknown obstacle. Vincht braced himself against the floor. The strain elicited a painful groan; the muscles in his arms and chest were sore and stiff. He flexed them cautiously.

Willa shushed him, wiping his sweat-soaked face with a lace-trimmed cloth and forcing him to lay back down. At nearly ten years his senior, the aging beauty always carried herself with an unbreakable composure. That fortitude had cleaved Vincht to her back in Vadderstrix, in the days following his parent's untimely deaths. With her characteristic frilled blue dress cinched just beneath her breasts with a wide black ribbon and her gray-streaked chestnut hair pulled up in a tight, spiral bun, Willa stood out amongst the sweaty, unkempt soldiers like an iris in the desert. And yet, the dark stains coloring her wrist-length sleeves added a touch of violence to her beauty - the dried blood of the wounded and dying.

He silently wondered how much of that blood was his.

Vincht closed his eyes, relaxing his troubled face until calmness smoothed the skin into an emotionless mask. How close he had been to achieving their goals today. Mere moments from success, he was certain. But, as it does, Fate had stepped in and snatched victory from his grasp.

Why it had still chosen to let him live despite his dramatic failure, he could only guess. Maybe it wasn't time. Maybe his moment of victory was yet to come.

He chuckled - a strained, unnatural sound. He found it odd how little he could remember after the fight with Nevin and his pet cat. The shattering of glass, a ball of fur and claws and teeth, the look of his decimated face in the reflection of his blade. So much blood - his blood - dripping and oozing from ragged strips of torn flesh. The trees rushing by as he stumbled past...the noises of the forest fading in and out as he fought to remain conscious...the endless, burning agony driving him to run harder than he'd ever run before….

Yes, that was what he felt as he woke. A memory of pain. He looked down at his arms and chest, fingers trailing along the faint depressions in his skin where the cat had torn into him. Only scars remained now, the wounds almost completely healed over.

Anger swelled beneath the forced mask of indifference as his hands swept over his face, tracing the numb lines over his left eye and down his right cheek, the jagged impressions in his scalp and forehead. His fingers stopped at a divot in his left jaw about the length of his thumb. The bone felt unusually close to the skin.

I'm hideous.

The wagon overflowed with light as the front flap was yanked back, and a squat man clumsily ducked inside. Vincht shielded his eyes with a hand, hiding the brief crack in his composure caused by the man's sudden and unexpected appearance.

“Oh, um, I thought I heard you moving about in here.” The man waddled over to Vincht and crouched down awkwardly next to him and Willa. He had a scholar's skin – pale and blemish-free from a lifetime of ease and sloth. His squinting eyes darted across Vincht’s body as his hands moved from wound to wound. He chattered quietly, pausing occasionally to wipe the sweat from his bald head. Vincht suspected his perspiration was less a symptom of the heavy brown robe he was wearing, and more a result of the man's permanently nervous disposition.

“How are you feeling? Still a tad sore, I imagine?”

Unsure if he had enough control over his anger to prevent it from coloring his tone, Vincht simply stared at the ceiling and nodded sharply.

“I can help with that.” Stephen closed his eyes and spread his open palms across Vincht's chest. Within moments, the soothing tingle of magic spread out through his torso and into his extremities. The tightness in his muscles vanished. His residual soreness disappeared. Any lingering grogginess faded away beneath the warm rush of energy that wrapped itself around his body like the gentle embrace of a loved one.

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Vincht fought the urge to squirm and shift. The invasive nature of spirit magic had always made him deeply uncomfortable.

“That's enough, Stephen,” Vincht said, shorter than he would have wanted. He took a calming breath and gently pushed the man’s hands away. “Between you and Willa, I'm grateful to be alive.”

Stephen smiled shyly. “W-well, I did my part.” The faintest flicker of light retreated from his eyes as the man released the mental grip on his soul.

Vincht sat back up, patting Willa on the shoulder and waving her off. With a brief nod and a solemn look in Stephen's direction, Willa faded back into her spot in the corner.

“You definitely did part of it, Stephen, that's for sure,” she said, a disingenuous hint to her words.

Stephen visibly relaxed, failing to catch the subtle barb. Vincht placed a hand on the robed man’s bony shoulder and changed the subject. “Bring me up to speed. I remember very little of today after being injured. How long have we been traveling?”

“Um, well, we’ve been back on the road for over half a day now. It was barely afternoon when you appeared on the far side of the gorge, screaming and covered in blood. We raised the bridge, but by the look of you, I wasn't sure you were long for this world.” He bowed his head deferentially. “Without my help, of course.”

Vincht ignored that last comment, leaning forward. “Who gave the order to break camp? Milo? Frick?”

Stephen shook his head and met Vincht’s gaze. “I've not seen either of them. Not since everyone struck out into Elbin. In fact, you are the only one who came back. When I saw your wounds…”

“Stephen,” he interrupted, his tone insistent. “Who gave the order?”

Stephen chewed his lower lip. The wagon lurched again, and he yelped in surprise. Vincht had always thought the old mage was a bit high strung, but his current attitude was beyond the pale.

He was right to be nervous, and he likely knew it.

“Well...you did, my lord. You told us to break camp and return to Comelbough with haste.”

Vincht frowned unconsciously. He turned his attention to Willa, earning a quick nod of confirmation from the one person in the wagon he actually trusted. He didn't remember doing it, ordering his crew to break camp and return to the capital, but he had to have had a reason. Leaving the area should have been the last thing on his mind, wounded or otherwise. Nevin and his glowing eyed companion had to know the location of the object in question, Vincht was sure of it. He'd seen the truth in the boy's eyes.

But he had them cornered, trapped on the Traagen Peninsula with no way out aside from the bridge his team controlled. Why would he not choose to press his advantage? Hunker down across the gorge until his wounds healed and then return in force? He must have learned something, something that made him decide it more advantageous to break camp than to remain.

The writing desk.

Vincht chuckled to himself. Turns out that those childhood language lessons his father had forced him to endure weren't entirely useless after all. Ilwarin had never been his strong suit, but it seemed enough of the language had made a useful impression on his young mind.

Still...that would necessitate a slight deviation from this current course of action. “How many returned with us?”

Stephen scratched his head. “Four...no, five soldiers, aside from the three of us.”

Vincht waved him off. “No, I meant, how many horses?”

“All of them. Jayla didn't feel comfortable leaving them behind, what with the fires popping up all over the western woods.”

Vincht usually didn't care much for Jayla's bleeding heart philosophies, but in this instance, it had served him well. Extra horses – ones not pulling wagons – could be enlisted to provide him with the means to rapidly return to town ahead of the wagon train. With a two or three in his possession, he could ride hard for many hours, regularly trading steeds to spread the strain of bearing a rider and prevent him from running them to death.

He flexed the fingers of each hand in turn, cracking his knuckles as he squeezed each into a tight fist. “Willa, considering the state I arrived in, would you say I'm healthy enough for some serious physical exertion?”

Willa nodded. She wet her lips and responded, her monotonous tone strong and unhurried. “Aside from the visible marks left behind when Stephen attempted to heal you, you are in otherwise perfect health.”

“Not quite,” interrupted Stephen, wringing his hands. “You had very little muscle damage, and somehow, the wounds on your face avoided damage to either eye. That would have been catastrophic, but you were quite lucky in that regard.

“Still, infusing the body with healing magic strains it in unique and sometimes unforeseen ways. For the next few days, you may experience mild fatigue, difficulty concentrating, increased emotional response, nightmares, and you'll likely hunger more frequently. Your body needs to replenish its spiritual stores after all the work it had to do to regenerate your wounds.”

“I'm well aware of the side effects of healing.” Vincht flexed his arms, his shoulders, rotated his ankles. Truth be told, he felt fine. Better than fine, actually. All of the typical aches and pains associated with travel and hiking through uneven terrain were gone.

He ran a finger along the depression of a particularly wide scar on his arm. The unnaturally smooth scar tissue's paleness stood out in stark contrast to the surrounding skin's bronze luster. “But what of these? How long until they fade?”

Stephen cleared his throat, tugging at the collar of his robe. “That's uh...only time will tell, my lord.”

Vincht frowned. “What's that supposed to mean? I thought you said the wounds were only superficial.”

The balding man dragged a sleeve across his forehead, leaving a wet stain on the fabric. “Superficial yes, but none of the wounds were cleanly made. More tears than cuts, you see. The body can heal them, but large chunks of flesh were missing completely, and in order to fill such gaps, the body must generate brand new tissue, and it doesn't always fill in properly.”

“No, that doesn't make any sense, Stephen. I've been healed before, from wounds far worse than this. Pierced here, through the lung.” Vinct crossed his legs beneath him and straightened, circling a finger around an unblemished patch of skin just above his right nipple. “A barbed arrow, went right through a gap in my chestplate. The medic pulled it straight back out. Pulling an arrow out that way doesn't exactly leave the cleanest wound behind, but after she healed me, there was no evidence I'd ever been wounded.”

“A skilled healer, indeed,” said Willa from her corner.

“Ye..yes. A Shaman, I'm sure.” Stephen nodded emphatically. “But...I'm just a Dabbler.”

His frown only deepened. “Magic is magic, and you're a wizard.”

“Not quite, my lord. While I have a working knowledge of how to manipulate and direct each of the five elements, I don't have the natural skill necessary to specialize and master one element specifically. Healing magic – true healing magic – is a complicated process. I can only energize and accelerate the body's own regenerative efforts. Manually creating new flesh and bones from nothing is not within my capabilities.”

Stephen took a small step back, wringing his sweaty hands together and bowing. “I'm sorry, my lord, but I'm afraid your scars may very well be permanent.”