The rain in the borderlands did not wash things clean; it only made the filth heavier.
In the sunken village of Blackwood, the mud was ankle-deep. It was a slurry of soil, animal waste, and the runoff from the nearby tanneries. The air smelled of wet fur and sulfur.
Inside the only structure with a stone roof—a repurposed grain warehouse—Miriam knelt on the straw.
Her knees were soaked. Her hands, pale and slender, hovered over the mangled chest of a miner. The man was screaming, but the sound was muffled by a thick leather belt clamped between his teeth. Two other men, his brothers, held his shoulders down with all their weight.
"Hold him," Miriam whispered. Her voice was cracked, dry from days of silence. "If he moves, the rib will puncture the lung again. If that happens, he drowns in his own blood. I cannot fix a drowned lung."
The brothers nodded, their faces pale under the grime of the mines.
Miriam closed her eyes. She did not pray. She had stopped praying three years ago. Instead, she reached into the hollow space behind her sternum, searching for the reservoir of heat that sat there.
Her Ether core.
It was small. A flickering candle in a dark room. She was an Iron-rank Healer, barely scratching the surface of mediocrity. But she had precision.
She placed her palms flat against the miner's bruised skin.
Connection.
The sensation hit her instantly. It wasn't a sound or a visual cue. It was a physical slam. The "Sympathetic Feedback."
In a split second, Miriam's nervous system synced with the dying man's.
A white-hot lance of agony shot through her own chest. She gasped, her back arching involuntarily. It felt as though a hammer had just smashed into her ribs. She couldn't breathe. The pain was absolute, blinding, and terrifyingly real.
Focus, she commanded herself. It is not your pain. It is an echo.
She grit her teeth so hard her jaw clicked. She forced the Ether out of her palms. The energy flowed like thick syrup, diving into the miner's flesh.
To the brothers watching, it looked like a faint, greenish glow seeping from her fingers.
To Miriam, it was a construction project performed in a hurricane.
She could feel the jagged edges of the broken fourth and fifth ribs. Using the Ether as forceps, she mentally grabbed the bone fragments. The pain spiked—a grinding, tearing sensation deep in her own torso. Tears leaked from her squeezed-shut eyes, mixing with the sweat on her face.
Push. Align. Knit.
She fed the calcium. She stimulated the periosteum. The cells accelerated, dividing a thousand times a second, knitting the bone back together.
The miner groaned, his body thrashing.
"Hold him!" Miriam shrieked, her voice breaking into a sob.
The pain was overwhelming. It felt like she was being crushed by a cave-in. Her vision grayed at the edges. This was the curse of the Healer. To fix a break, you must feel the break. To heal a burn, you must feel the fire.
For two agonizing minutes, she worked. She stitched the intercostal muscles, sealed the capillaries, and smoothed the bone.
Then, she severed the connection.
The pain vanished instantly, leaving behind only the dull, heavy throb of "Mana Shock."
Miriam slumped forward, catching herself on her hands. She vomited bile onto the straw. Her body was shaking so violently her teeth chattered.
The miner spat the belt out. He took a deep, shuddering breath. Then another. No gurgling. No blood.
"He lives," one of the brothers breathed. "By the Saints, he lives."
They looked at Miriam. They did not see a savior. They saw a tool that had done its job.
Miriam wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve. She pushed herself up, her legs trembling. "Water," she croaked. "And the payment."
The elder brother nodded. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small pouch. He tossed it.
It hit the straw near her knee with a light clink.
"Three silvers, as agreed," the man said. He didn't offer a hand to help her up. He was already turning to his brother, helping the injured man sit. "You're good, girl. Better than the butcher in the next town."
Miriam picked up the pouch. She didn't check the coins. She just shoved it into her sash. She grabbed her satchel—a battered leather bag that contained her life's possessions—and limped toward the door.
She needed to leave. The gratitude of poor men was short-lived, and she had stayed in Blackwood for two days. That was one day too long.
The outside air was cold enough to bite. Miriam pulled her gray woolen cloak tight around her throat. The hood was large, designed to shadow her face.
She walked through the mud, heading for the village gates.
She was twenty-two years old, but she walked with the gait of a cripple. The phantom pains of the surgery still echoed in her nerves. Her chest felt tight, a ghost-memory of the crushed ribs she had just repaired.
Status check, she thought.
She looked inward. Her core was dim. She had used maybe forty percent of her Ether reserves. She was tired, hungry, and cold.
"Leaving so soon?"
The voice came from the shadow of the tavern.
Miriam froze. She didn't turn. She knew the voice. It was the village Reeve—the local lawman.
"The work is done," Miriam said, keeping her head down. "I have miles to cover before sundown."
The Reeve stepped out. He was a large man, a retired Iron-rank soldier with a belly full of ale. He leaned against a wooden post, picking his teeth with a splinter.
"We have more sick people," the Reeve said. "Old Hagar has the gout. The smith has a burn on his arm. You could stay. We'd feed you."
"I am not a resident doctor," Miriam said quietly. "I am a traveler."
"You're a Mender," the Reeve corrected. His eyes narrowed. "And a young one. It's dangerous for a Mender to be alone on the King's Road. Slavers, beasts... the Empire's press-gangs."
He took a step forward. The mud squelched under his boots.
"Maybe you need protection. Maybe you should stay here, under my protection. The tax collector comes next week. He'd be happy to find we have a Healer on the payroll. Might lower our quota."
Miriam's hand tightened on the strap of her bag. This was the conversation she feared in every town.
She was a resource. A battery.
"I have a destination," Miriam lied. "My Master waits for me in the capital. If I do not arrive, he will send the Battle-Mages to find me."
It was a clumsy bluff. No Battle-Mage cared about a stray Healer.
But the mention of mages made the Reeve pause. Fear was the only currency that worked on these people.
"Go then," the Reeve spat, losing interest. "Die in a ditch for all I care. Ungrateful witch."
Miriam didn't answer. She turned and walked. She didn't run—running attracted predators—but she walked fast, ignoring the burning in her lungs.
She passed the rotting wooden gates of Blackwood and stepped onto the Old Imperial Road.
The road was a relic of a better time, paved with cracked cobblestones that were now slowly being devoured by the forest. The trees here were tall and twisted, their bark black from the Ether pollution of the nearby industrial zones.
Miriam walked for hours. The rain turned into a drizzle, then a thick mist.
As she walked, she let her mind drift. It was a dangerous habit, but silence was louder than noise when you were alone.
She thought of the Academy. She thought of the white marble halls, the smell of lavender and clean linen. She thought of the day she was expelled.
"You have the hands of a goddess, Miriam," the Dean had said, looking at the disaster on the operating table. "But you have the judgment of a child. You tried to play God. And look at the mess you made."
Miriam shook her head, physically shaking the memory away.
"Focus," she whispered to the empty road. "One foot. Then the other."
She needed to reach the Free Cities in the West. It was three thousand miles away. A suicide march. But in the Free Cities, a Healer could buy a license. They could work independently. They weren't property of the State.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of dried meat. She chewed it slowly, savoring the salt.
Sudden movement.
Miriam stopped.
Fifty yards ahead, the mist swirled.
The birds had stopped singing. The forest was dead silent.
Miriam's heart hammered against her ribs. She was a Healer. She had no radar, no combat sense. But she knew the feeling of malice. It was a vibration in the Ether.
Something was ahead.
She slowly backed away, aiming for the tree line. If she could hide in the brush...
Snap.
A twig broke behind her.
Miriam spun around.
A man stood there. He was wearing light leather armor, dyed a mottled green to blend with the forest. He held a short crossbow, leveled directly at her stomach.
"Easy," the man said. His voice was smooth, professional. "Don't scream. Don't run. Just stand there."
Miriam froze. She raised her hands slowly.
"I have no money," she said, her voice trembling. "I have three silvers and some herbs. Take them."
The man smiled. He didn't look like a bandit. His gear was too well-maintained. His boots were clean.
"I don't want your silver, darling," he said. He tilted his head, looking at the satchel on her hip. The symbol of the serpent and the needle was faintly embossed on the leather.
"A wandering doctor," the man said. "Jackpot."
He whistled. A sharp, piercing sound.
From the mist ahead, three more figures emerged.
They were heavy hitters. Miriam could feel their Ether pressure from here. Two of them wore partial plate armor. The third was a woman in robes—a mage, but likely a low-level one.
They surrounded her. It was a professional encirclement. No gaps.
"What do you want?" Miriam asked, backing up until her back hit the rough bark of an oak tree.
The leader of the group—a tall man with a scar running through his left eyebrow—stepped forward. He wore the insignia of a twin-headed wolf on his pauldron.
Mercenaries. The "Twin-Fangs." Notorious for taking dirty contracts.
"We ran into a Spotter-Beast a few miles back," the leader said. He gestured to his side.
One of the armored men was limping heavily. Blood was dripping from the joints of his greaves, leaving a dark trail in the mud.
"Gerry took a bite to the thigh," the leader explained, his tone casual, as if discussing the weather. "Deep. Arterial. He's got maybe... twenty minutes before he bleeds out. Our potions are gone."
He looked at Miriam. His eyes were cold, calculating.
"Fix him."
Miriam looked at the wounded man. Even from here, she could smell the copper scent of blood. It was a bad wound. The femoral artery was likely nicked.
"I... I don't have the supplies," Miriam stammered. "I need clean bandages, sutures, antiseptic..."
"You have hands," the leader interrupted. "And you have Ether. That's all a Mender needs."
He drew a long, curved dagger.
"Fix him. Or I slit your throat and we leave you here for the wolves. You have ten seconds to decide."
It wasn't a choice. It never was.
Miriam lowered her hands. "Let me see him."
The group relaxed slightly, but the crossbowman kept his aim fixed on her spine.
Miriam approached the wounded mercenary, Gerry. He was sitting on a fallen log, his face grey. He looked up at her with glazed eyes.
"Hurts..." he mumbled.
Miriam knelt in the mud. She unbuckled the greave. The metal clattered away. The pant leg was soaked red. She took out her shears and cut the fabric.
The wound was ugly. Four deep puncture marks where the beast's fangs had sunk in. The flesh was torn, and blood was pulsing out in a steady, dark rhythm.
"He's losing blood too fast," Miriam said. "I need to cauterize it or seal it instantly. It will take a massive amount of Ether."
"Do it," the leader said.
"I am drained," Miriam pleaded, looking up at him. "I just performed a surgery in Blackwood. If I do this... the Shock might kill me."
The leader looked down at her. He didn't blink.
"Better the Shock kills you than me, right?"
Miriam looked at the dagger in his hand.
She turned back to the wound.
She had no choice. She had to overdraw.
Overdrawing was forbidden. It meant pulling Ether not from the reserve, but from the body's own life force. It burned the lifespan. It turned hair gray. It aged the cells.
She placed her hands on the bloody mess of the man's thigh.
Connection.
The pain hit her like a freight train. It was sharper than the miner's ribs. This was raw nerve damage. She felt the teeth of the beast inside her own leg. She screamed, a short, sharp cry that was cut off as she bit her tongue.
She pushed.
She didn't carefully knit the tissue this time. She didn't have the luxury of finesse. She forced the flesh to fuse. It was sloppy. It would leave a terrible scar. But it would stop the bleeding.
More power.
Her core was empty. She reached deeper, into the marrow of her bones.
She felt a cold sensation spreading through her limbs. Her vision tunneled. The world became a narrow tube of light focused on the wound.
Seal. Seal. Seal.
The blood stopped. The skin pulled together, angry and red, but closed.
Miriam pulled her hands back.
She didn't slump this time. She collapsed.
She fell sideways into the mud. The world was spinning. Sounds were underwater. She could hear the mercenaries talking, but the words were slurred.
"Is he good?"
"Yeah. Bleeding stopped. He's up."
"What about the girl?"
A pause.
Miriam lay in the mud, staring up at the grey sky. Raindrops hit her eyes, but she didn't blink. Her heart was fluttering like a trapped bird—arrhythmia. A symptom of acute Mana depletion.
A boot nudged her ribs.
"She's alive," the leader said. "Barely."
"Leave her?" the crossbowman asked.
"Are you stupid?" the leader scoffed. "We have three weeks of travel left to the Ruins. Gerry is going to need follow-up treatment. And who knows what else we'll fight."
The leader crouched down. His face swam into Miriam's view.
"You're coming with us, darling," he said.
Miriam tried to speak. She tried to say no. She tried to say I have rights.
All that came out was a small bubble of saliva.
"Load her onto the cart," the leader ordered. "Tie her hands. If she wakes up and tries to cast a spell, break her fingers."
"She's a Healer, boss. She can't cast offensive spells."
"I don't care. Tie her anyway."
Strong hands grabbed her. She was lifted into the air. The smell of wet canvas and rust filled her nose. She was thrown onto a pile of supplies in the back of a small hand-cart.
Rope was wound around her wrists. Tight.
Miriam closed her eyes. The darkness took her.
She woke to the smell of smoke.
It was night. The rain had stopped.
Miriam lay still. She tested her body. Her head pounded with a migraine that felt like a nail being driven into her temple. Her limbs felt heavy, leaden.
She was bound. Her hands were tied behind her back, looped around a wooden spoke of a wagon wheel.
She opened her eyes.
She was in a camp. A fire was crackling a few feet away. The mercenaries were sitting around it, eating beans from tin plates. They were laughing.
"Did you see the way she screamed?" one of them chuckled. "Thought she was going to die right there."
"Useful little thing, though," the leader said. He was sharpening his sword. "Saved us a trip back to town."
Miriam shifted. The movement caused the wheel to creak.
The leader looked over.
"Ah. Sleeping Beauty is awake."
He stood up and walked over to her. He loomed large against the firelight.
"Here's the deal," he said, crouching down. "My name is Kael. We are the Twin-Fangs. We are on a contract to retrieve an artifact from the Sunken Temple in the marshes."
He pointed the knife at her nose.
"You are our new medic. You don't get paid. You get to eat. You get to sleep. And if any of my men die because you were too tired or too slow... I will cut off one of your fingers. Do you understand?"
Miriam looked at him.
The fear was there. It was a cold knot in her stomach. But beneath the fear, there was something else. A simmering, quiet rage.
She had spent three years atoning. She had humbled herself. She had crawled through the mud to fix the broken.
And this was her reward.
To be a slave to a butcher.
Miriam looked at Kael's hand—the one holding the knife. She saw the old scars on his knuckles. She saw the way his veins pulsed with robust, aggressive Ether. He was a Steel-rank warrior. He could snap her neck with one hand.
"I understand," Miriam whispered.
"Good." Kael stood up. "Eat."
He threw a piece of hardtack at her chest. It bounced off and landed in the dirt.
Miriam stared at the bread.
She couldn't reach it with her hands tied.
Kael laughed. The other men joined in.
"Go on," Kael said. "Eat like the dog you are."
Miriam stared at the fire.
Weak, the voice in her head whispered. You are weak. You are nothing.
She leaned forward. She buried her face in the dirt and bit the edge of the hardtack. She pulled it closer. She chewed, the grit of the soil mixing with the stale bread.
She ate. Not because she had no pride. But because she needed the calories.
She needed the energy to think.
One day, she thought, swallowing the dry lump. One day, you will be on my table, Kael. And on that day, I will not be a Mender.
She looked at him, her eyes dark and hollow in the firelight.
She analyzed him. Not as a threat, but as a biological system.
She saw the slight tremor in his left hand—an old nerve injury? She saw the redness around his eyes—liver stress from too many potions?
She began to catalog his weaknesses.
It was the only weapon she had.
The next three days were a blur of marching and exhaustion.
The Twin-Fangs moved fast. They pushed Miriam to her limit. She walked with her hands tied, tethered to the back of the cart like a pack mule. When she stumbled, they yanked the rope.
She healed them.
She healed blisters. She healed strained backs. She healed a cut on the cook's finger.
Each time, she felt their pain. Each time, she took a piece of their suffering into herself.
She learned their names.
Gerry, the one she saved. He was quiet, avoiding her eyes. Guilt? Or just indifference?
Varn, the mage. She was cruel. She liked to trip Miriam with small gusts of wind when the terrain was rocky.
Kael, the captain. He was efficient, brutal, and paranoid.
They were heading deep into the marshes. The Ether density here was strange. It was thick, cloying. It tasted like copper and rot.
On the fourth night, the attack happened.
They were camped on a ridge overlooking a stagnant black lake. The moon was hidden behind thick clouds.
Miriam was tied to a tree at the edge of the camp. She was dozing, her head lolling against the bark.
The silence broke with a wet thud.
Miriam's eyes snapped open.
The sentry—a young man named Pol—was standing by the fire. He looked confused. He looked down at his chest.
A spear made of black chitin was protruding from his sternum.
He didn't scream. He just collapsed, coughing blood into the fire. The flames hissed.
"Ambush!" Kael roared, leaping to his feet, his sword already in his hand.
From the darkness of the lake, they came.
They were not men. They were Drowners.
Corpses reanimated by the corrupted Ether of the swamp. Their skin was bloated and green. Their eyes were empty sockets glowing with pale witch-light. They moved with a jerky, unnatural speed.
There were dozens of them.
"Form up!" Kael shouted. "Varn, light them up!"
Varn, the mage, raised her staff. A blast of fire illuminated the clearing.
Miriam watched from the tree. She pulled at her ropes. They were tight.
A Drowner lunged at Kael. He sliced it in half with a brutal overhead swing. The creature didn't bleed; it oozed black sludge.
"Protect the supplies!" Kael ordered.
The battle was chaotic. The mercenaries were skilled, but the Drowners were relentless. They didn't feel pain. They didn't stop when you cut off an arm.
And they were drawn to Ether.
Miriam realized with a jolt of horror that she was a beacon.
Healers naturally radiated a soft, warm Ether signature. To these creatures, she was a lighthouse in the dark.
Three Drowners turned their heads toward the tree.
They hissed.
"Help!" Miria