Chapter 97: Ch. 97: Inception

Courtesy of many weeks tending to the ugliest wounds the human body can contain, I list off the injuries in my head and reach a few very quick conclusions; someone only wishes to silence the weaponsmith, not kill him. And that someone is not Julian.

It was a heist within the heist, that final climactic moment in the film when a teammate betrays the crew and attempts to take the booty for themselves. Only in this film, we have no clue who that second party is. All I know is that this is no coincidence. I’d stake my life on it.

An itty bitty cloud of pink trailing after a group of grown men, I draw a few, strange glances as I accompany them to the dungeon of Belfort Castle. It is disturbingly close to the banquet hall, where everyone was eating and making merry moments before. A few turns down a dark corridor lit by torches and descending a set of stone stairs that give me intense ‘hell naw’ vibes, delivers us to the Belfort dungeon.

It is surprisingly clean, I would know from experience. The tiles are worn with age, but they aren’t caked in blood and human waste. The smell only makes me want to vomit a little bit and the hay within the prisoner’s cells doesn’t seem like it’s been sitting there since the founding of the Erudian Empire. But the cleanliness is disturbed by a shock of blood that has splashed out of the damning cell into the pathway we all stand in.

My excuse for accompanying the men down lies in a heap a few feet from the cell. One or two imperial physicians check his temperature and straighten out his body while the rest swarm the blood-stained cell. I take a deep breath, opening my eyes wide enough for a few tears to form.

“Julian!” I wail like I give a damn about the two-faced, unconscious brat before me. “Wake up!”

I fall to my knees and grab his face, rocking back and forth. I’m giving it my all.

.....

Please wake up, so I can beat you black and blue for ditching me. If things had gone as Julian had hoped, he would’ve been the traitorous teammate from my film analogy who walked away with the information he needed. But his cockiness got the best of him as he got played by this secret individual who knocked him out and left him to take the fall for the crime.

He totally deserves it.

Seeing his face peacefully at rest, I don’t want to heal him and just let him enjoy nursing a lump on his head for the next few days. The two imperial physicians kneel beside me, looking at me with a hopeful expression.

“Will you heal the prince, your highness?” One bravely asks.

I chuckle inwardly and extend a look of understanding towards them. “Oh, you were in the middle of healing him weren’t you? I shall leave you both to it then.”

I toss Julian back to them like a hot potato and settle in my corner to see what has become of the weaponsmith I should’ve been questioning at the moment.

From the open cell, a mangled body is dragged out. I’d almost mistake it for a corpse, but the body twitches in the strong grasp of the knights of the royal guard. The wounds are indeed as the messenger reported. The hands are stumps from the palm up, the cuts jagged and uneven as if his fingers were swiftly removed without a care. Blood and saliva pours from a mouth whose soft moans are drowned under the heavy boots moving around the scene.

The messenger was also mistaken, however. In addition to the fingers and tongue having been removed, both eyes have also been destroyed. I shake my head at the scene, although my stomach has long been hardened against such sights. Whoever did this was truly trying to ensure that not a word would leave the weaponsmith’s lips. The wounds won’t kill him though, hence perhaps why no one has called me forth yet.

However, in such a manner, under the emperor and the ailing duke’s nose, this is more of a humiliation. A taunt. And although my father’s face is motionless as he looks down at the transmigrated weaponsmith’s twitching corpse, he must be incensed.

As the representative of Belfort Castle, Sir Finn immediately falls under blame.

He steps out, his complexion ashen under the flickering torchlight that barely illuminates the dungeon. But his face is brave as he looks my father in the eye, a good distance away from the killing aura, of course. I bite my lip, feeling slight anxiety at the sight of one of the few people I care about in trouble.

“Your Majesty, such a crime occurred under my watch. Please punish me for my transgressions.” Finn is quick to admit to what he’s done wrong. It is now only a question of whether my father will approve.

“So you know you’ve done something wrong,” Emperor Helio says imposingly over the kneeling Sir Finn.

“Yes, Your Majesty. In leaving the guard thin so that we could catch any outliers seeking to have a conversation with the prisoner, I should’ve left some people who wouldn’t be so easily felled by the enemy. I should’ve personally overseen the operation myself, Sire,” Finn says.

I have to swallow down a gasp, my blood running cold. A trap? Our heist was simply a trap?

I can piece together what happened quickly from Sir Finn’s and my father’s words. The weak defense of the dungeon was a ruse meant to reveal which spies were within the army, seeking to use the weaponsmith’s knowledge for themselves. However, perhaps at the same time Julian went down to the dungeon to interrogate the transmigrator, another far more skilled individual tagged along, killed all the guards, knocked out Julian, and left the weaponsmith looking like a kid’s mangled doll.

Thinking of how close my neck was to being on the chopping block, I can hardly draw breath as I listen to their conversation.

“Were there any eyes on the perpetrator?” My father is all business, not asking after Julian. But the conversation gets steered to the second prince anyways.

Sir Finn shakes his head. “All the guards we had placed, both visible and hidden, were slain with a swift cut to the neck. It seems the only hope for a witness is his highness, Prince Julian.

Everyone in the stuffy dungeon looks to my brother, who still lies on the ground, out cold. The two imperial physicians quake in their uniforms under my father’s burning gaze.

“W-We cannot awaken the second prince for some reason. May we request her highness, Princess Winter, to aid us in healing the prince?” One stutters out.

I raise a brow in interest. Simple wounds like a bumped head are a piece of cake to imperial physicians. Although their healing ability isn’t as effortless and overpowered as mine is, not to brag, I’ve seen up close and personal how their work is over the past few weeks. They study magic, same as the battle mages, in institutions and are trained in traditional and magical medicine. However rather than killing the Empire’s enemies, they heal the sick and if they are especially good they can come work in the capital as an imperial physician in the palace. Even if they have difficulty healing me for some reason, a simple, bumped head should be a piece of cake.

Now, everyone’s eyes swivel to me and I get a taste of the uncomfortable weight the poor physicians were burdened under. I instantly regain my weepy appearance, wiping at my perfectly dry eyes and casting an eager glance at Prince Julian as if I actually want to heal him.

“It would be my pleasure,” I even add, getting on my knees to touch Julian’s exposed wrist.

My hands don’t get warm. In fact, they have felt ice cold ever since we entered the dungeon, which is strange since I’m in the presence of the wounded. By now, I should be burning up in invisible flames.

There’s no golden shower. No sleeping beauty moment as Julian opens his eyes. After a few seconds pass, it begins to get a little embarrassing. No one says anything, but I can feel their judging stares on my back.

I clear my throat. “It doesn’t seem to work on Julian,” I say sheepishly to my father, who stands in front of them all with his arms crossed.

He doesn’t ask any questions, thank goodness.

“Then heal him,” he orders in a curt manner. He jerks his head towards the forgotten transmigrator who is still bleeding out all over the floor.

I nod, more than happy to redeem my fail. But inside, I pump my fist that I couldn’t heal Julian. Does my healing perhaps not work on family members? I can live with that.

I squat next to the transmigrator’s body, clothed in a torn, Sarsavalian uniform. He has plain features, from what I can tell under the blood he’s coated in. Short, spiky brown hair and tanned skin since it’s summer. I lay my hand on his chilly wrist and the same phenomenon occurs.

I cannot heal him either. But this time, I can feel the wrongness crawling under his flesh like a parasite. When I close my eyes, I can see a flash of purple energy that is so averse to my being I can’t help but release the transmigrator’s wrist and dry gag a few times beside his body.

I don’t hold the truth back from my father. “Something is wrong with his injuries,” I tell my father honestly.

I can practically smell the skepticism in the air. Most people have not seen my healing abilities for themselves as I spent most of my time in the nursing station. Aside from my father and Harold, none of the gathered members of the royal guard have seen me heal. I see a few judgemental smirks and I can almost read the words they don’t dare say.

“You lied once to gain our goodwill and poison our commander, now you lie to the emperor?”

They bristle like porcupines that have been provoked, spearing me with their eyes. I don’t pay them any mind though. Any grown men who believe that a five year old child could have poisoned him are not people I would’ve wanted to know anyways. I solely staring at my father with an imploring gaze, begging for him to believe me.

My father unsheaths a short blade from his waist, totally invisible until he slides it from his sheath.

“Father, I-” I blurt out, thinking he’s going to strike at me.

But he slides the blade through the hand of a royal guard member whose sneer was particularly insidious.

“Heal him.” The ailing royal guard knight falls to his knees, too proud to make a sound but drowning in agony.

And I do, the bones and flesh regrowing before the bewildered eyes of the former nonbelievers. I don’t have a chance to feel smug about it though, as my mind is still taken with whatever force or energy prevents me from healing my brother and the weaponsmith. When I was close to the transmigrator, his bleeding mouth kept making the same sound over and over again between moans of agony. Was he saying the name of the person who did this to him?

historical

I have too much on my mind, especially with the reassuring confirmation that my healing abilities are not broken. My father similarly does not react to the confirmation.

He turns to the imperial physicians who were doing their best impressions of wallflowers and says to them, “Patch him up. If he breathes his last tonight, then so shall you.”

And with that, my father stalks out of the dungeon, his elite guards following as the royal guard take up the rear. I just shake my head at whatever has prevented me from using my healing ability, which has previously worked unencumbered on any patient.

I suppose I have gotten so used to working miracles with my hands, that I have not bothered to question what would happen if I can’t some day. And the thought of falling back to that kind of life, to put it frankly, scares the absolute shit out of me.

I look down at my tiny hands, my salvation, and interestingly, my burden as well. My wellbeing, my stalemate with House Duvernay, the people’s love, it all depends on these healing abilities that I suddenly have. I cannot afford to lose them, under any circumstances. So I must learn more about it. It’s not an option to remain ignorant of these powers.

“Princess,” a voice murmurs coldly.

I startle, as even though I recognize the voice, I have never been spoken to by Finn in the manner.

Sir Finn stands in the shadows far from the torchlight, somehow appearing more overwhelming in his young lord’s polished outfit than his royal guard uniform. He is not pleased, even a blind man could see that.

His handsome face is as still as a mask and his lips are pressed in a thin line. With his pale hair and sudden gloominess, he almost reminds me of Bishop Duvernay, but the Bishop’s eyes are dead with no waves of emotion. In Finn’s, a quiet anger burns in them.

“You forget I know you been around you longer than anyone else in this castle.” Finn says, quietly enough that the shaking imperial physicians working to patch up the weaponsmith can’t hear, although his words slither into my ears and conscience. “I saw you every day for over two years. And I can tell when you’re up to something. Now Princess Winter, what did you do?”

And the fox shows his teeth.