Hot!

With every breath, Nessa could see condensation. An unfortunate side effect of her magically draining away someone’s flesh and blood was that the excess energy tended to overwhelm her in the form of heat. She felt like her skin was on hot coals.

She immediately threw off her fur cloak and decided to lay it over the gaping hole in the man’s chest. Seeing what she had done to her assailant made her feel guilty, and she had hoped that covering it would at least put it out of her mind for a while.

Beads of sweat dripped off her flushed forehead, a stark comparison to the man’s pale face. She wanted to jump into the nearest lake and cool off.

It’s okay. I can save this man. I just need to reverse my magic…

Nessa knit her brows. The last time she had “reversed her magic,” she accidentally exploded an injured wolf. It was a case of too much energy infused in too little time. However, she figured that since this man had more mass than the wolf, it reduced the risk.... slightly.

Nessa removed the cloak. Not a pretty sight.

She steeled herself and gripped the man’s exposed ribs like handles. Channeling the remnants of her power, Nessa felt the heat quickly leave her core and flow into the man. The aura of heat that hung around her like a heavy blanket was lifted, and she finally felt the cold night air on her skin again. Muscle, blood, and skin were being formed from her fingertips, warm and living, regenerating onto the man’s injury. As the wound finished closing up, Nessa withdrew her hands.

But now, she was freezing.

She snatched the fur cloak off the ground and put it back on. Although the fresh bloodstains on the cloak would be pesky to remove, hypothermia was decidedly peskier. Her hands and feet were growing cold as ice, and the numb chill was spreading up her arms and legs.

She looked at the man’s chest to judge the quality of her work. From what she could recall, flesh wasn’t supposed to be translucent. Still, his blood was flowing fine and nothing was leaking. Best of all, there were no flesh explosions this time. She had never been this successful before.

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Nessa briefly wondered what she should do with the man. The layer of flesh she had generated for him to cover his chest was as thin as paper. Any type of foreign pressure on the area would certainly lead to a fatal puncture.

The man once again reminded her of that wolf she had blown to chunks last year. Her mind began to go off on a tangent.

Like the wolf, this man’s attack was motivated by desperation and hunger.

In both cases, she had only retaliated in self-defense.

Killing defenseless creatures without reason horrified her, so she decided that it was her duty to nurse him back to health.

Her thoughts wandered to how nice it would have been to have the wolf as a pet.

She didn’t want to make a similar mistake and miss out on a companion.

Nessa shook her head, attempting to maintain clarity. Why was she thinking about the past right now? There were more urgent matters at hand. She felt all of her functions slowing down. Two thoughts breached the murkiness of her mind: she needed warmth and she needed helter. She dragged the man off the road and into a large clearing.

Her frozen hands clumsily attempted to spark a fire with flint and steel, but she fumbled with the tools and cut herself. Cursing, she tried again and finally got a flame going. She threw any kindling she found around her into the fire, knelt in front of it, and thrust her icy hands straight into the middle of the crackling flame.

Before it could burn her, however, she breathed deeply, and the fire visibly shrank. The energy from the fire rippled through her and warmed her. As she breathed in, the inhalation sucked away the fire completely. She was still chilly, so she was forced to strike another fire. She carefully sipped away at the new fire this time, not wanting to drain it away completely again. After a few minutes, she was as warm as a nice summer’s day.

Nessa got up to drag the man’s limp body next to the fire. As she put the man down, she felt his face and neck. He was cold as death; the heat from the fire would not be enough to keep him warm.

She unrolled her animal fur bedroll and maneuvered the man into it. To be safe, she tied many lengths of rope around the bedroll, being careful to avoid the chest area, so that the man could only wriggle around like a worm if he regained consciousness during the night.

“Not bad, not bad at all,” she remarked aloud, stepping back.

The rope was tight, but not tight enough to restrict any essential blood flow. Nessa was pretty confident that the man wouldn’t be going anywhere and wouldn’t pose a threat. This brought a satisfied grin to her lips. She had always been excellent with using rope, after all.

She gazed upon the highwayman’s face and saw that a bit of color was returning to it. Good. Satisfied with her handiwork, she curled up near the fire and eventually fell asleep.