The Healers Hands, chapter 4.

Hello! Ugh, I have my foot in some literary goop right now, and the other in the quicksand of a body that is constantly fighting me. Throughout today I have had something brewing in my chest, like a hot piece of coal right between my lungs, and sometime after lunch time, it bloomed. I got a fever so high that my eyes were completely glossed over and I couldn’t take staring at the screen for more than 10 minutes at a time. I tried taking a nap, but it just got worse. Besides that, I'm not loving the plot I selected for this story, but I feel even less like rewriting the whole thing right now. It's not that I hate it, it's just lame to write. I have to think about it for a little while, run a full diagnostic. I cut the chapter in half, because I have a gap in the middle where, first, they get in some trouble that I haven't written, meet Ida, and then Leith and the healer head to the baths-- that I have been savoring like a hard candy, but I just. couldn’t. make. myself. write. today. I am so sorry.
Now, I am going to rest. I will take a few days off work in the hopes that this all doesn’t catch up to me like a freight train, and I will get back to it as soon as I feel even the teensiest bit of strength to see it through. I hope you enjoy the remainder of chapter 4, and I’m so sorry for the disruption, but this is how it is, writing from the seat of my pants sometimes, with so much Life Stuff chasing me it feels like my body is shutting down evil style. :( bleh. I am so excited to get back to just writing Leith and Healer being cute together, I just want to skip the plot all together, ha. I just need to twist this story around like a rubik's cube in my head for a while. Hope you're doing well. xx

Peep the moodboard I made for this story!




It was murky inside the sanctum, the cathedral around the Stila endless in height. Every step echoed, every breath expanded and fitted to the domed ceiling like a thin film. The water was unmoving in the great pond where it collected from the center of the earth, a great mirror to the sky that shone in from above, filtered through stained glass of a million colors. In the middle, a great hollow that went down and down and down; you could toss in a pebble and not hear it splash until late the next day. All was lit by the moon, and the lanterns, those magical orbs run solely on captured currents of the surge. She felt it here, deeply, the surge. How it flitted around them, a million threads, these spinning currents of energy, infinitesimally thin, bursting with power. It sought them out, these great tapestries of magick, and wrapped around them, as if it was curious of them. She stretched out her hand, and it spun around her wrist, into her bones, to the tip of her fingers. She closed her fist. Opened it. It surged through her, like a deep breath, a gasp.
“The veils are so thin here,” she whispered, in awe, buzzing. It had been a long time since she visited the sanctum, her taste of the fantastical soured by the many hours in surgery, in hospice, trying to mend what the waters had sundered. “I had forgotten what that felt like.”

Leith leaned over to look at her hands, furling and unfurling with this great energy playing in her palm. He stepped back and began surveying the hallway they would head down. “It is quite neat,” he murmured, his mind elsewhere. His danger still leashed inside him, taut, ready.  “Come here.” The surge was within him too, coiling and coiling like a snakepit in the making. He collected it, plucking the threads and placed them within himself, just like he did when he prayed in here, before any mission, or anything that required courage. The surge was a pet to him; a companion. He made sure it always had a place to rest within him.

She followed him as he began walking, creeping up the dark on the tips of her toes. Leith had outfitted them both with masks, heavy on their faces, making them anonymous in the shadows. She hooked a finger in one of his belts, trusted him with where to go. He took them down the hallway, and they climbed a ladder, and another, until they reached the rafters off the center of the room. Right above an altar, and another room, sectioned off with pewters in elegant rows, for people who sought the kind silence that lingered like a blanket over it all. No one was there, but now they heard voices, hushed and low, coming from further away. Leith had shown her the signals, the hand and finger motions they would use to communicate when sound became too risky. Follow me straight ahead, he signed and turned around on the beam, still crouched and bent out of shape, but so confident, so sure, the healer had no room for hesitance, even though the height they were at was dwindling and quite frankly, terrifying, to her. They reached the end of the rafter and ducked into an alcove, a recession in the wall large enough to fit them both. They sat at one end each, their feet tucked in so that nothing spilled out. In between them, carved, sat a gargoyle. Leith put a finger to his mouth, hushing, and then peered down below. The voices were still far away, but approaching, so he ventured to whisper while they still had time. “We might be here for a while.”

“I know,” she nodded. “What do you think we’ll find out?”

He shrugged, pressed a hand to the hollow of his clavicles, rubbing there, calming the animal of his heart. This felt…  “I don’t know. Hopefully enough to make another plan.”

“A wholesome one?”

He shook his head, smiling wide. “Yes, that.”

It took another quarter of an hour before the voices reached them, rising high like steam from a cup. Leith leaned forward, straining to catch the words, a futile distraction from the echo of the kiss still lingering in his mind. Emerging from the dark was the High Priestess, flanked by a druid, and an oakwerthian clergyman. 

“The Comtesse of Riar arrives next week, with her sacrificial bride in tow,” the priestess declared, voice like ice and fire. “She seeks immortality, yet demands a very specific outcome.”

“Holiness, we cannot assure—”

“I am well aware,” she snapped, a whip-crack in the stillness, the fabric of her robes swirling as she pivoted to face the druid, his clothes tattered, but with that air of sanctimony; a green sash adorned with gold threads that shimmered, betraying a lineage that had long since compromised its integrity. It had not always been like that, but the druids had eventually relented. Always with the money. That’s what happens, when gods die. The priestess continued. “I informed her we offer no guarantees, yet I have placed her in my prayers with greater fervor. That seemed to satisfy her.”

“As you say, your holiness.”

They paused at the altar beneath them, all three of them intent on something upon it. A chalice, a lid welded on to it. A cage. 

“How go the preparations for the capture?” asked the clergyman, his visor brought up. 

“Indeed they go well,” said the priestess, handing him the chalice. “Some of the essence, from the deepest part, for your vicar. We have no more need of the little divers, though they are good to keep. Once we get to the heart of it, the caves should open up. Train them well, whisperer of the worm,” she sneered. “We might have need of them yet.” 

At that, the priestess’ chin raised, and she made direct eye contact with Leith. His heart ripped through his ribcage like an animal on the loose, and fell down to the floor, where it splat, gore and all. She had seen them. He looked to the Healer, who had tensed up until her shoulders were past her ears. She was shaking her head, halfway up from her spot. He signed. Calm. Stay.

“And the final approach?” The clergyman was none the wiser.

“After the turn of the year.” 

A consensus settled among them, their heads bobbing with noble nods and fat promises. They dispersed like shadows retreating into the night, leaving Leith and the healer engulfed in an oppressive silence that pressed down on them, down and down, thick as fog. They were both seething. As the echo of their footsteps faded, Leith tore off his mask, trembling fingers brushing over his face, feeling the heat of anger radiate off his skin. Shit. The healer did too, rubbing the palm of her hand into her eye sockets until he thought he heard them squeak. 

“Stop that,” he hissed, scooting closer, grasping her wrists and bringing them down to her sides. Their eyes locked, and for a fleeting heartbeat, the world outside fell away, leaving only the two of them. The moment broke when the healer looked over the edge and swayed with the height of it. Leith held her, fierce, shook her shoulders a little. The guilt of bringing her along was choking him out, fire and smoke.

“That—” she stammered, frantic, her fingers tangling in her hair, pulling up and up and up,  as if trying to pull herself free from it. “Little divers? Is that really…”

“I don’t know,” he replied, frustration lacing his voice. “It was vague, but they knew we were watching. You saw her.”

“The priestess?” she echoed.

He nodded, his jaw so tight he felt he might need a crowbar to pry it open. “It felt as if she knew we were here all along.”

A whimper escaped her lips, hopeless. “Oh no. Leith. Leith, what will we do? This was a bad, bad idea.”

Leith felt himself cracking. He leaned closer, cradling her face between his hands, desperate to draw her focus away from the encroaching dread. “Sweetheart,” he murmured, “we need more information. Just like your patients, we require a full diagnosis before seeking a cure, hmm? I need to speak with Yrsa. She knows how to navigate, how to move forward. Remember how Oakwerth operates—layers upon layers of conspiracy. We are moving in the right direction.”

She nodded. She was calming down. Leith separated himself then, looking down, scouting. A shadow flitted from the pews to the altars. Ida. He felt like smiling; she hadn’t seen them. Rookie. Ida was too eager for her own good, too much of her enthusiasm to fit in her body. What was she doing here?

A sneakpeek from the baths-scene, well, the end of it, after Leith and Healer enjoy a moment alone :]

And then, a commotion at the wide double doors that led into the wide hallway of the baths. Several men, tall, limb over limb, poured into the humid space, their hands carrying bottles by the necks and classes by their fingers, like apples plucked straight from long branches. “Leith!” rumbled one, then another, and they stumbled their way forth to the bath where the healer had hid behind Leith’s back, peeking over his shoulder. “And the healer!” Vax roared, in earnest. He had a joint in the corner of his mouth, smoke pouring from his nostrils. There were six of them: Ohro, Kinsa, Vax, Nima, Lanas and Kelles, all unruly and unsticking their coats and shirts, hopping out of their pants one leg at the time. Soon they were all naked, dicks and muscles and sinew and sweat, and they invited themselves into their bath while conversation was like bramble, loud and pricky and completely impossible to untangle. Lanas had hobbled over to the coals while removing his tight leather pants and was in the process of adding more steam, fogging up the entire bath, and the others in the bath groaned with approval. The water splashed over the edges of the gray and red tiles as the last of them, Ohro, lowered himself without any grace what so ever. They spread out, and the healer was guided by posessive hands into Leith’s open lap, where she sat, his arms loose around her, hooked on one shoulder, and the waist another. She settled in, his voice at her ear, his breath tickling her wet neck. 

“Valorn,” Leith greeted them by their mercenary group name. “How was Hirswreath?”