Orange pain seared Ranvir’s eyes, and his leg thundered with a low growling red hurt that echoed all the way to his groin. His lips were parched and peeling.
He let out a long breath, trying to sink into the bed underneath him. Carefully, he reached for the cup of water and pain medication that he’d mixed before going to bed the night before. He slowly clasped his fingers around the fired clay, making sure he had a proper grip before he lifted it. His forearm quivered slightly as he grasped it, then lifted the mug to his mouth.
The water had a bitter taste from the medicine, and it was thicker than it should be. On the upside, it would only be another quarter hour or so before his injuries stopped hurting. As he waited, he leaned back into the bed.
His eyes itched under the day old paste, but it didn’t need to be changed yet, so he had to deal with it. He let out another long sigh.
Slowly, over the next ten minutes, his mind started clearing and other information started rolling in. He was alone in the room, as was usual. The others didn’t sleep as late as he did. But noise was still filtering in, which was odd since most of the students remaining at the academy would be down for breakfast.
It didn’t come from the door, though. It came from the other side of the room, the window. Slowly Ranvir sat up, listening closer. Animal sounds were the first noises he registered, then the cries as teachers tried to rein in their students.
Someone burst through the door to the sleeping room. The door hammered into the wall with a bang that made Ranvir groan with pain.
“Ranvir! They’re here! And Master Stjarna is with them!” Esmund exclaimed.
Ranvir tried to calm his breathing before replying, but couldn’t wait that long. For the first time since before the break, he had something to look forward to.
“My crutch!” He started searching for it, forgetting the exact place he’d put it yesterday.
“Uniform first!” Es corrected. Cloth hit Ranvir in the face. He didn’t mind, though. His heart was racing for a very different reason now.
He quickly slipped on the uniform jacket as Es wrestled the pants over his bandaged leg. Not that he had a huge bandage on any longer, since it had stopped bleeding, but the uniform trousers were still pretty tight and it took some effort to get them over the wound.
Within minutes, they were racing down the hallways towards the stairs. Ranvir swinging on his crutch far faster than he should. They only slowed down once they reached the stairs, not wanting to risk a fall. Ranvir felt the urge to rush down. The main stairs were wide and big. With one hand on the railing and the other supporting himself on the crutch, he could probably make it down plenty fast.
Even as the idea struck, his crutch slipped slightly on the carpet laying on the center of the steps. Because of his caution he didn’t fall, a mixture of Esmund catching him and the railing turned it into a stagger.
“We gotta slow down.” Esmund said, though Ranvir could clearly hear the gritted teeth in his voice. He wasn’t any happier about it, either.
Finally, they reached the bottom of the stairs and were headed for the main entrance. Ranvir heard it open before reaching it and Sansir’s voice called out. “He’s headed for the medical building. Grev is with them.”
Ranvir felt his heart warm with golden colors at the realization that his friends were working together to get him help as fast as possible. He couldn’t stop the giddy smile from his face, even as the movement hurt his burnt skin.
Leaving the dorm building was a scary feeling. Through the window he’d been hearing the tidbits that crept up and through the shutters, but now he wasn’t just close to it, he was in it. The whinnies of horses and mule cries were all around him. Teachers and caravan masters screaming for one man to do that or to handle this, right in his ear.
It was with a sigh of relief that they emerged on the other side of the field, then into the medical building. The first thing Ranvir heard was Pashar’s calm and soothing voice as he entered the building. There was an indistinct murmur going through the room and it was plainly busier than anytime Ranvir had been there previously.
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“There he is.” Pashar's voice changed enough that Ranvir noticed the shift in tempo. Her comment was followed by a few gasps, which led to more outcries as more people noticed him.
Ranvir was sure he was a sight to see. The top of his head a mess of bandages that had been applied some time ago and his pant leg had been folded up to avoid it messing with the bandage.
“We’ll look at him right away.” A woman said. She had a light voice, with a professional tone that spoke to years of experience.
Ranvir felt someone join him on the side opposite Esmund. “Master Stjarna has someone to speak for him, but he’s here.” Grev whispered.
Ranvir nodded as people approached him. “Student Ranvir, I presume.”
“Yes.” Ranvir nodded, hesitantly now that he was here. He swallowed nervously. He didn’t know what the limits of tethered healing were. Maybe they couldn’t fix injuries that were too grievous or old? Would he never recover? Was he going to be blind for life? They couldn’t fix him, they were coming to tell him he had no more future at the academy. Dark colors accompanied the dark thoughts, heavy swirls of dark blue intermingling with dragging crackles of deep reds.
“Master Stjarna would like to ask for permission to have his treatment of you observed by his students. All fourth and fifth years who have proven themselves capable and won’t disturb him. We personally guarantee it.”
“Whatever it takes.” Ranvir hastily said. If he had to sacrifice a bit of privacy to see again, then he would sacrifice it all. Everything.
“We can easily do it without.” The woman continued. “This is not a requirement of your treatment, it’s a request from a teacher on behalf of his students.”
Dawn rose within Ranvir, banishing the dark colors that crawled throughout him. He paused. “Oh. Uh, yes it’s fine.” He nodded, feeling a bit of heat flush his cheeks, following the pink embarrassment inside him. It was almost undetectable through the golden yellows and glittering blues that filled him, though. The only reason he could be sure it was actually there was the flush in his cheeks. “If it’ll be a valuable lesson for them, then I would insist, in fact.”
“Good man. If your guide would follow us.”
They led him through a few hallways before entering a cool room. There was a minute or two of Master Stjarna setting up before the woman guided him further into the room. “Now the specific injuries that you needed to have looked at were your leg, eyes, and ribs, correct?” Ranvir nodded. “Then I’m going to have to ask you to take off your uniform, down to your undergarments. This is so Master Stjarna will have the proper space to work with. Again, if you’re uncomfortable with that around his students, then don’t hesitate to say anything.”
“It’s fine.” Ranvir replied, licking his dry lips before taking off his uniform coat, then shuffling out of his pants. He could put on and remove his pants without help. Putting them on just took a while, since he couldn’t see where it was stuck.
“Out of the problem areas, where would be the first you would look?” The woman asked.
Ranvir stopped confused. A man spoke up. “The ribs, right? If they’ve punctured a lung, then we would need to fix that immediately.”
“If we were on the battlefield you would be right, but Ranvir has been walking around with this injury for more than a week and a half, he’s no doubt in pain, but it’s not life threatening or we would’ve been too late.”
“The eyes.” Another student said, more confident.
“The eyes are the most complex healing we’re doing today, so it would make sense to start there. Go in fresh. You could also start with the leg, there’s a chance it’s a simple injury, and it would be a relatively easy fix.” There was a pause and the woman’s voice was directed turned towards Ranvir again. “Student Ranvir, please lay down on the examination table.”
She guided Ranvir to lie down. Soon after, he felt someone else’s hands, larger and colder, touch his neck as they adjusted the direction in which he was looking. Then they started unraveling the bandages around his eyes.
Ranvir couldn’t help himself and embraced the pressure as quickly as he could. His eyes watered as the bandages came off and he blinked them open. Master Stjarna gently shut his eyes again and started wiping them down, removing the paste that hadn’t left with the wraps. As he did, Ranvir felt the overwhelming presence of a Master open up before him. Like mountainous blocks of ice solidifying before him.
Slowly, Master Stjarna wound up the energy that he would use. There was a distinct ‘flavor’ to his power. Where Master Orulf felt like a bottomless pit made of ice that could swallow an army whole, Stjarna’s was a calmer, more soothing power. It felt like a pristine snowland that simply covered a mountain side, rather than an avalanche that would descend with crushing force.
Ranvir could feel him working up the power to fix his eyes and got the impression the slow build up was as much for the students in the back as it was a meticulous and careful expression. It was so far beyond anything Ranvir had ever felt before. There was a complexity to the energies that Master Stjarna was weaving. Despite the enormous weight of his power, he moved it with grace through the complex working. Ranvir couldn’t even begin to understand what he was sensing.
Then something in the energies changed, and the already cool room dropped five degrees. “Open your eyes.” The woman said. Ranvir did so to see a white haze before him that aptly matched the white awe that filled him. The haze descended into Ranvir’s eyes and he tried to blink them shut, but the haze resisted, growing firm.
It was more uncomfortable than painful and Ranvir suffered in silence. Then suddenly, he felt the haze set and grew. One second, the fog was seeping into his eyes, the next it grew into a solid block of ice that encased his eyes and most of his forehead.
Ranvir screamed.