Sil woke late into the day, to the snoring competition going on between Tallah and Vergil. Awoken in the dark, cold sweat broke across her back as a momentary feeling of dislocation had her questioning just where she was. She stopped herself from making a sprite as her eyes began picking details in the semi-dark.


    It wasn’t, after all, Erisa’s domain. She hadn’t been carried there by a giant, mutated spider.


    Vergil had brought her up the stairs, and from there her own two feet.


    Breathe in. Hold. Breathe out. I am of the many…


    The mantra centred her state of mind and she dropped back into bed, breathing quick, heart still hammering beneath her ribs. Erisa was dead. Her soul buzzed angrily in the gemstone. Sil was… safe.


    She’d been asleep for too long, she realised with a jolt of shame that pushed her off the bed. People needed her help above. They needed healing and medication. The other healers required support and relief. She couldn’t spend the day asleep!


    With a bitter taste in the back of her throat and a tongue that felt two times too thick for her mouth, Sil crept through the room and dressed in fresh clothes. The bloody mess she left in the wash basin would be dealt with later… if she could find some lye to wash the things. Blood stained after all.


    Let’s see about getting a focus, she thought as she quietly opened the door and then clicked it shut behind herself. With no staff, it was hard to deal with some of the more complex effects. Weaving complex barriers was nearly impossible without a staff concentrating her power.


    She could ask to borrow Tallah’s wand, but the sorceress got… weird when they did this.


    “Is there anywhere where I can get some supplies?” she asked the red-faced tavern master as she descended the stairs. The common room was far quieter than earlier, many of the drinkers now asleep with their heads on tables or leaned one against the other.


    The man suppressed a grim smile. “There ain’t no supplies t’ be had. Some adventurers sell their gear t’ th’ soldiers. Few of those left now.”


    “There’s nothing left?” She sat and studied the board behind the man. There was plenty of beer in casks lined up against the wall, but the food selection boiled down to boiled cabbage or boiled grits. Everything else was crossed out. Bread was on-demand, set at an eye-watering price. So was butter.


    Now she wished she would’ve eaten along with Vergil instead of drinking the piss-thin beer.


    “Any potato vodka?” she asked.


    The man shook his head. “Louts drank it all.”


    Blast. She had some alchemy supplies but she lacked any reactive alcohol. Vodka would have been perfect to brew some common usables.


    “Where’s the adventurer selling stuff?”


    “Hangs around near the sliver. Can’t miss it.” He gestured with a spotless mug. “Keep heading towards the mouth of the city and ye’ll find it. Some lass collecting from th’ rest.”


    It didn’t prove hard to find the way to the girl. It was, very much, a child that was hawking wares off by the side of the road. Couldn’t have been older than… ten summers? Maybe fifteen, if she were charitable.


    Armour scraps. Weapons—dented and too abused to be useful. Some random enchanted trinkets. And a wooden staff that had seen better days and was in dire need of some bitterleaf oil.


    What proved difficult was getting the blasted girl to part with the thing.


    “How much do you want for it?” Sil asked for the fifth time. Her patience had begun fraying around the edges. “I can pay in Valen currency.”


    “Oh, but I can’t part with it just like that, miss healer. It simply wouldn’t be proper to sell my family heirloom just to anyone.”


    “Why do you have it out on the street if you don’t want to sell it?!”


    “But I do want to sell it. I need the money,” the girl said without a hint of self awareness. “Times are hard in this armpit of a city.”


    “I want to buy it. How much do you want for it?”


    “Well, y’see, it ain’t that simple a thing. This is me ol’ mum’s ol’ staff. Hard to put a price on it.”


    Your mother’s old staff indeed. The only true thing in that sentence was that the bloody thing was, indeed, old. One good swing at anything tougher than a stern breeze, and the staff would break in two. Maybe she should just see if any of the healers in the fortress above could lend her theirs… but nobody lent out their staff.


    It wasn’t terribly hard to guess what the miscreant expected of Sil. If she made an offer, the girl would haggle all the way into Aztroa’s treasury. If the adventurer made an offer and Sil met it immediately, then there would be no way to haggle for more, even if it would be clear that Sil could afford it. This was the kind of negotiation stalemate she neither had the time nor patience for.


    Sil slit open a rent, dug inside for her money pouch, and counted out ten Valen griffons. The heavy gold coins glittered in her palm.


    “This is what I’m offering you,” she said simply, making a show of stowing the rest of the jingling money pouch into the rend. She kept the slit open.


    The adventurer’s eyes glittered with the promise of a payout that would exceed their earnings of an entire season. The git shook her head sadly and looked down. “Is a pretty offer, lady healer, but—”


    Sil chucked two coins into the rent. She picked two more and gave the adventurer a pointed look. “Try again.”


    Money passed hands in silence and Sil went away with her worm-eaten staff. One day she would follow Iliaya’s example and make her own to suit her needs.


    Maybe even now…


    Maybe later.


    Would there be an announcement of an attack? She should’ve asked Tallah before heading up the wide stairs into the fortress. Well, too late now. She headed up. Maybe she’d get some more of that horrible coffee and clear her head. Dreams had plagued her again, but not as terrible, exhaustion driving away the worst of it.


    Has the Goddess sent me here to atone? It didn’t seem likely.


    Christina would call her a silly hen for even considering it. This trip was clearly meant for Tallah, not herself. She’d had time to think while she cleaned and dressed wounds the previous day. They were now closer to the School of Healing than they would have been anywhere else. Passing the mountains from this side was easier, in theory, than from the north.


    The knowledge sat in her memory like a leaden weight. Panacea hadn’t sent instructions on how to reach the School. The coordinates had simply unlocked some time after killing Erisa, positioned in her mind as if they had always been there, and yet never.


    Did Panacea know of what was happening here? Or had she hedged on them? She missed the days where she felt unshakeable in her faith. But that had been a lie too, hadn’t it? Dreea had no real faith, given the things she’d done.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    And Sil wasn’t a real person, just some thing made out of false memories.


    She shook her head in the middle of the courtyard, having people tripping over her on their way to the night’s duties. I need to stop thinking on things. It’s going to get me killed.


    Then again, it wasn’t a very normal worry to have, not being a person. She laughed as she ascended the stairs to the hospital, then stopped and wondered at how everyone passing would interpret that.


    Yes, trust your life to the crazy woman laughing stupidly out of the blue.


    Kor met her at the entrance to the healing ward. He gave her a long up-and-down look and then stood aside, welcoming her in. “I’ll get ye a proper apron,” he said without preamble. “Ye should’ve slept more.” His eyes were kind under the thick caterpillars that were his eyebrows,


    “Hard to sleep in here,” she lied. “I still have part of my allotment. Do we have more that need it?”


    “Wait for tonight and we will. Save your prayers for then. We’ll need ’em.”


    Under the overcast sky, the fortress was quieter than she’d expected. There were the sounds of industrious building and repairing, people carrying up boulders for the engines of war, the hammering of smiths, and the quiet grunts of men training.


    But it was a kind of muted noise, like the wind kicking up before a storm broke. It sent her skin into gooseflesh.


    “Coffee?” Kor asked as he led her to a bucket of the dark stuff.


    They brew it in buckets?! The less she thought of what actually made up the liquid, the happier she’d be. Kor dipped a metal mug in and handed it to her. By all rights, it should have dissolved.


    “Looks better than it tastes.” He smiled the tired smile of one used to raising morale against unfathomable odds.


    She nodded, sipped and grimaced. Bitter, and crunchy for some reason.


    The ward itself had several soldiers still asleep on their pails. It smelled of fresh soap. Sprites bobbed in the air, the torches too valuable to waste inside.


    “Is there any alcohol left?” she asked.


    Kor led her around the place, to show her where the surgery ward was, where the linen and bandages were, and where they kept their meagre supply of healing herbs and medicine. The stock was incredibly low.


    “Aye, we got some squirrelled away. What do you need it for?” he gave her a look over his thick spectacles. “I ain’t handing it out for nerves.”


    She cracked a smile and pulled out several bundles from her rend, setting then out on the table. “I don’t have much on me, but if you get me a few litres of good grade alcohol, I can brew us a fair amount of rotclear. With the excess, I can make some Chort’s Spirit, though it won’t be quite as potent. I’m nearly out of beaster’s salt.”


    “You’re being mighty kind,” Kor said. Sil caught the errant glimpse that went to her arm. “Not many would volunteer their supplies so readily. Beaster’s salt ain’t cheap.”


    Sil shrugged and drained the foul coffee. “I want to help.”


    What she actually wanted was for the dreams to stop. If she didn’t dream of Erisa and her stinger plunging through her belly, she dreamt of watching people be broken. It was going to drive her insane, and maybe, if she saved enough lives here, she could be free of them in some manner.


    It wouldn’t be enough.


    It would never be enough.


    But it’s a start, she thought glumly as she pulled up her sleeves and sat at the worn alchemy table and took stock of the tools at her disposal.


    Her two helpers from before drifted in later and brought a casket of mirabelle distillation. The smell of it, once they pried off the lid, made her eyes water. Kor had been right to hide this away. Soldiers would kill for it, just so they could drink themselves out of their minds.


    Castien stared openly at the scars on her arm, opened her mouth to say something, and got elbowed in the ribs by the other.


    “Stop gawking,” Adella admonished. “Not yer place t’ ask. See to your job. We’re all penitents in here.”


    “I like you.” Sil smiled at this. “Are you serving here? Or just trapped?”


    The girl helped her measure the alcohol and begun preparations for brewing rotclear. It wasn’t a terribly long process, but it needed careful measuring.


    “None of your business, lady Iluna.”


    The girl reminded her acutely of Tallah, though there was no physical resemblance. Sil took a heartbeat to study the chit of a girl. Short of stature, gaunt-faced, wide-eyed and wide-mouthed, she wore her wheat-coloured hair tied in a short and messy ponytail. Her black eyes were spectacular. Sil could sharpen blades on their gaze.


    “Fair enough,” she said finally. “How much alchemy do you know?”


    “Little. Not my area.”


    “But what is?”


    The girl readied some other cutting response but swallowed it down. “Children. Children’s care.”


    Sil’s eyebrows shot up at that. “A midwife?”


    “Aye.”


    Sil had never delivered children. She had the training, same as everyone, but something about childbirth made her skin itch. Midwifery wasn’t for the fainthearted, and the girl here proved that with aplomb.


    “I can dress wounds. Sew a soldier’s guts back in. Treat most burns and animal bites. I can amputate in a pinch and may patient may even survive. That’s it. Are we done asking questions?”


    Tallah indeed. Sil smiled and explained how to prepare her ingredients so she could focus on the process.


    By the time darkness dropped outside and the first blasts of the war horn resounded into the night, Sil had a good supply of her brews ready, and more still cooling. They would be ready come the proving moment.


    Tallah and Vergil emerged from the city soon after, flanked by squads of soldiers in battered armour, all heading up and out. Vergil stopped by as Tallah and the rest climbed the stairs to the battlements.


    “Figured you’d be here,” he said. “Brought you some food from our reserves. Don’t know if you’ve eaten yet.”


    She accepted the jar of preserve that he brought, and handed it out to her helpers. Their stomachs growled in unison at the sign of the red vegetable paste inside. The acid coffee had made sure Sil didn’t need any other food for the rest of the night.


    “Tallah says we’re not going out into the field tonight. We’re going to hold them at bay from the walls.”


    “We, Vergil?”


    He blushed and looked around the room. Luna peeked over his shoulder, the glitter of its eyes the only indication of its presence.


    “I offered to help.” When she aimed the staff at him he shook his head. “Don’t tether me. You’re more needed here. I’ll manage.”


    “Are you sure? Safer to be stronger.”


    “I’m sure.” He inclined his head to the roomful of the sick and wounded. “This is more important. I’ll be close to Tallah.”


    “That’s what I’m worried about.”


    He smiled and drew off his helmet and waved at someone past her shoulder. Sil turned and saw one of her patience struggling to rise to a sitting position.


    “I owe you,” the man rasped out, cringing in pain. “I won’t forget what you did for me, man. Thank you.” He held out a trembling hand.


    Vergil’s blush deepened and crept up all the way to the tips of his ears. He looked to her for… what?


    Sil stood aside and waved him in. “Normally, you shake a hand held out to you like that,” she stage-whispered.


    The boy approached the man and clasped the offered hand. The soldier embraced him. “Thank you. Thank you for coming. I thought I’d die out there. I thought I was dead.”


    Luna had dropped to the floor and peered curiously at the entire scene. Sil tapped her heel and the spider disappeared from sight, hidden under the bed. A panic over a spider the size of a man’s head wasn’t what the place needed.


    Vergil was clapped on the shoulder and the soldier released his arm soon after, dropping back into bed. “I’ll make it right by you. Anything you need, just ask for Miron at the quartermaster’s office.”


    The boy walked past Sil and out into the night as if in a daze. Luna didn’t follow. Instead, it approached Sil’s boot and tapped it with a leg.


    “May this one?” it asked in a whisper, its colour matching the floor.


    Sil swallowed a sudden lump in her throat and nodded. If Sil herself wasn’t real—and what a mad thought that was to really consider—then her terror of spiders wasn’t real either.


    She squeaked when Luna climbed her legs and settled on her back. One of its front legs moved a lock of Sil’s hair over her shoulder, so the spider could get a better look forward.


    “I have gone utterly mad,” she mused as she set back down at her desk to measure alcohol. “I am mad. And this is a nightmare. And I will never wake from it ever again.”


    Outside the war horns blared. Soldiers called out, a riot of defiance. The thick boom of the unleashed catapults and trebuchets throwing their loads over the wall.


    Madness had come at the gates.


    Sil kept working.