The Last Empath of Doctsland

by Leah Putz

“Pretty rough,” she said, her voice sounding hoarse.

  “We had a healer take a look at you last night, but your injuries are a bit beyond his skill. He did give me some herbs to mix up a tea with when you awake,” I explained. “I’m going to warm up some water for you. I’ll be right back, try to stay awake for a bit so you can drink it while it’s still warm. He said it will help with the pain.”

  With that, I stood and rushed out, trying to hurry in my fear that she would fall asleep again.

  I returned as quickly as possible, carrying a steaming mug of a strong smelling herbal drink. “You’ll have to try to sit up to drink this, if you can.”

  “Is there berryroot in it?” she asked. “Or dragonshearth?”

  I paused, uncertain. “I’m not sure what’s in it. What is dragonshearth?”

  “It’s an herb my grandmother uses in her healing tonics. Berryroot, sage, thimbleweed, and dragonshearth to numb the pain.”

  “I’ll ask if any of those are in this. If not, we’ll find them and make that tonic as well. For now, try to sit up to drink this. I’ll help you.”

  I gently braced her arms with my own as she pushed herself upright. Her face was scrunched in agony, and it took several minutes before she was fully upright.

  “Don’t lean back against the wall,” I warned, seeing her sway in that direction. “The moment your back makes contact it will feel even worse. Try to hunch forward if you need to, or lean sideways against me.”

  She must not have been listening to me, or her mind was clouded in her pain, for she allowed herself to sway backwards regardless. As soon as her body made contact with the wall, she cried out, immediately shooting forward as tears sprang to her eyes and spilled onto her cheeks.

  “Lis!” I cried, putting my arm out and bracing her so I didn’t fall forward onto the floor from the force of her lurch. “Are you okay? I just told you not to lean against the wall!” Immediately I felt regret at my tone, which due to my concern came across much more harshly than I intended.

  “Well I’m sorry,” she spat back, gritting her teeth.

  I ignored her bitter reply, knowing I’d deserved it, and instead moved to look at her back.

  “Do you mind?” I asked, reaching towards her shirt. She shook her head and I continued speaking as I examined the afflicted area. The tunic was sliced open in the back, but the material had clung and crusted to her wound regardless. “It probably wasn’t in the best judgement, but we left the shirt you’ve had on this whole time. You weren’t awake, and we didn’t want to remove it in the forest just in case something could get in your wounds. Now that we’re back in an environment we can at least semi-sterilize, I think we should take it off and try to let your back breathe. Here, take the blanket to cover yourself.”

  I held up the edge of the blanket, and she reached forward to grasp it and held it tightly under her chin and against her chest.

  “The blood has dried, the shirt is crusted against you. I think I’ll have to cut it to get it off. You should drink your tea first, hopefully that will help to dull the pain a bit. I’m sure this won’t feel good.”

  She leaned against my side and I tried to ignore the warmth in my chest at her contact as she grabbed the steaming cup of tea I had brought in for her, bringing it under her long nose and smelling it.

  “I don’t know what this is, but it has berryroot in it,” she murmured.

  “That’s good, right?” I replied with a small smile. “Go on, drink up.”

  Doing just as I suggested, she took a sip of the tea. After that first taste, she tipped the cup back and drained it.

  “This acts fast,” she said, gazing at the empty cup in wonder.

  “Good. I’m going to start working on your shirt. Let me know if it becomes unbearable at any point and I’ll stop. Though, I feel it may be better to try to just get it over with.”

  She nodded. “Please just get it over with. I feel numb at the moment.”

  “Alright. Try to focus on something else if you can,” I said before readjusting myself so I was behind her. Then I set to work. It was slow work, peeling the fabric away from her flesh bit by bit.

  A few moments passed and she huffed, but so I halted my ministrations to ask, “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, yes, please continue. I’m just trying to remember my grandmother’s healing methods, but I never paid much attention so I’m struggling.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to take over for her when she passes?” I asked, resuming my work and trying to keep her engaged in conversation as a distraction.

  “Well, yes, but I never liked to think about that. The fact that someday she wouldn’t be there to guide me. I think part of me felt like the longer I put off learning, the longer she would have to stick around to teach me.”

  “There’s no logic in that.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” she snapped, turning back to look at me. She paused before grimacing. “Sorry, I shouldn’t snarl at you like that,” she said, turning back around.

  “Probably not,” I replied. “I am your king, after all. Though there’s been no coronation, so maybe I’m just your prince. But I don’t blame you.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Because, it’s entirely my fault that you’re in the situation that you’re in. I took you away from your home, I led us into a trap that got us caught by Siglind’s men, I allowed you to be tortured in my stead.”

  “You didn’t allow me, I volunteered.”

  “Ah, but if I had revealed my true identity, Carthoc would not have cared about you in the slightest. Empath or not.”

  “You’re more important to the mission than I am.”

  “I would say that we are equally important.” It’s probably time to accept that neither of us will win this squabble, I thought. We are both far too stubborn.

  “Regardless, I don’t hold any resentment towards you. Maybe I did at one point-”

  “Maybe?” I interjected, raising a skeptical eyebrow as I thought back on how cold and snarky she had been to me in Loch.

  She grinned. A beautiful grin, I thought before I could help myself. “Okay I definitely did at one point, early on. But ultimately, it was my choice to accompany you on this mission. And it was the right choice. The only choice, really. I love Doctsland, and I love Loch. If there is anything I can do to protect our home, and it’s leader, I will.”

  I smiled at her words before looking up. “I’m finished. Do you have the blanket? I got the shirt separated from your back, it’s probably best to remove it completely to try to clean the wounds.”

  She gathered the blanket in her hands and held it close to her chest. “Alright, I’m ready.” As gently as we could, we worked together to remove the garment. I helped her to lift each arm up and out of the sleeve, and though the fact that the shirt was cut made it much easier than it would have been, it still took several minutes because I was being so slow and particular, terrified to injure her further.

  Once it was removed, I glanced away as I spoke, trying to avert my eyes from her. “I’m afraid I don’t know much about healing. I’m assuming hot water will help?”

  “We’ll need to clean the wound, though I’m not entirely sure how to do that out here. Let me think for a minute. In the meantime, do you have any more of that tea? It’s wearing off fast,” she said.

  “No, I’m afraid not. Stay here and rest a bit, and I’ll go out and see if we can find any of those items you mentioned before, berryroot, dragonshearth, thimbleweed, and what else? Sage?”

  She nodded as she moved to lay down on her stomach, and offered a brief description of each herb to help me in my search.

  “Okay. I’ll be back as soon as I’m able.”

  Feeling overwhelmed by the amount of foliage that needed to be searched within the boundaries of the camp, I decided to ask for help.

  “Siofra,” I called, heading towards the center of camp.

  “Chopping firewood!” her voice called back. I rounded the ed
ge of the fire pit and turned a corner to the wood pile.

  “What do you need? Is Lisalya okay?” she asked, laying an axe down before wiping sweat from her brow.

  “She seems as well as she can be given her condition. I need help finding a few herbs, though.”

  “I already have some scouts out checking on the safety of the camp and its boundaries. We’ll have them look for these herbs as well. Do you have a list?”

  “Yes,” I replied. “Berryroot, dragonshearth, thimbleweed, and sage.”

  She nodded, committing it to memory before grabbing a passing scout and relaying the information.

  “Also, Siofra, can you conduct a roll call? I want to make sure we account for anyone we lost during last night’s events.”

  I didn’t have to wait long before a few of the scouts returned, each with one of the herbs, until my bundle was complete. Siofra took it, promising to find Jaeboc and have him make and deliver some tea. I bowed in thanks, and was about to turn to leave when Siofra’s voice stopped me.

  “Vik, are you going to tell her?” she asked.

  “Tell her what?” I replied, entirely confused by her question.

  “That you’re in love with her.”

  “What?” I blanched. “I’m not…” I choked off, the denial sticking in my throat. And then, quietly I asked a question. “How did you know?”

  She smiled. “I know you. I see the way you look at her. And the way you let her get under your skin as no one has before. You should tell her.”

  “I can’t,” I said resolutely. She certainly doesn’t return the feeling. And even if she did, my father married a commoner, and now my birthright is in question. How can I do the same?

  Siofra gazed at me, pity in her eyes. “You can. And you should. Just think on it. And hurry along now, I can see you’re desperate to get back to her.” I nodded, then rushed back to Lisalya’s shelter, not wanting to leave her alone for long.

  As soon as I arrived I burst through the door, only to find her sitting upright on the bed, without the blanket to cover her. Immediately I felt my cheeks grow hot as I whirled around to put my back to her.

  “Lis!” I screeched. “I’m so sorry!”

  “It’s.. alright. I should have been covered. You said you’d be back. I’m fine now, you can turn around,” she replied, her voice breaking slightly.

  “Are you alright?” I asked, turning back around and looking at her critically. “You sound worse, somehow.” I searched her face, which had a sheen of sweat over it despite the fact that she was shivering.

  “The tea wore off,” she said simply.

  “Ah, right. Well, I have good news. We went a few scouts out and were able to round up the items needed for your grandmother’s tonic. The healer from Cessam is working on making it at the moment. I just wanted to come in and check on you.”

  “Thanks,” she replied. “I remembered, or rather it came to me, I suppose, what my grandmother used for sterilization. Snowleaf. She would crush the leaves and place them in a pot of boiling water, allowing them to steep. After a few minutes she would bathe the wound with said water. It’s supposed to both clean and calm the afflicted area.”

  “Hmm, I’m not certain we’ll be able to find that here. The climate is much warmer than in Doctsland, and snowleaf thrives in a cold environment, does it not?” she merely shrugged, seeming as though she didn’t know.

  I sighed. “Nevertheless, I’ll send a few people out to search. We need to do something.” I leaned to take another look at her back. “The wounds are still open. They’re not bleeding anymore, not much at least, though pulling the shirt off opened a few scabs. I’d like to get it cleaned before it tries to heal any further.” I stood and made ready to leave.

  “Thank you,” she said. “For everything you’re doing for me.”

  Pausing, I turned to look at her before I left. “It’s really the least I can do, Lisalya. Truly. I’m sorry to keep leaving you, I’ll be back shortly. Hopefully this time with some more tonic for your pain.”

  I returned this time with my arms full of a mug and a large pot, both steaming with warmth.

  “Just as I thought, there doesn’t seem to be any snowleaf growing in Bushand, or at least not anywhere near us. However Siofra, the angel that she is, had brought some along from home because she enjoys snowleaf tea. She had no idea it would be used to clean wounds. By some miracle it was not damaged in the shipwreck. She’d had it in her pocket when she hopped into the lifeboat.” I took a seat beside Lisalya on her bed and gently set my burdens on the floor. “We followed your instruction, crushing up the leaves and steeping them in a pot of water. I also brought a cup of the thimbleweed tonic. Do you want to drink that before or after we clean your wounds?”

  She ignored my question in favor of asking one of her own. “Why didn’t you listen to me?”

  I gazed at her. “What do you mean? I listened to you, and had both of these made in accordance with your instruction.”

  She seemed frustrated. “No, that’s not what I mean. I told you and Jion about those men in Cessam. I told you something wasn’t right about them, but you didn’t listen. I thought about it while you were gone making the tea. I ran through everything that happened since the moment we landed in Bushand, trying to pinpoint exactly when things went wrong and where things could have or should have gone differently. No matter how many times I assessed or what angle I came from, I kept arriving at the same obvious conclusion: the two men in Cessam with the same frozen minds as Carthoc and his men. And you and Jion accepted them into our party despite my warning and misgivings. ” I held my tongue, knowing better than to interrupt her in the state she was in. “And you ignored me when I knew something was off about that town we were ambushed in. You didn’t listen, you completely dismissed me, and look what happened.”

  As she spoke, my anger grew to match her own. She’s acting like I intended for all of this to happen. Plus, she’s making assumptions and connecting events that don’t necessarily need to be related. “What makes you so sure that those events are even related?” I snapped back.

  “I told you I felt nothing from those men, and ice cold nothing. Carthoc and his soldiers contained that very same nothingness.”

  “And? Maybe you just aren’t as all powerful as you thought. Just because you could read the minds of everyone in Loch, which is a very small town, doesn’t necessarily mean you can read the minds of everyone in the world!”

  “Viktor,” she said, filling the word with venom. I blanched, startled by the poison. “Carthoc told me Siglind has a sorcerer in his employ. A sorcerer with the power to hide someone’s mind from an empath. When an empath attempts to get a read of someone under such a spell, all they feel is emptiness. A chilling void.”

  The color drained from my face as the realization of what her words meant hit me. So the rumors were true. “You mean to say that...” I trailed off, wrestling with the knowledge she had presented.

  “That if you and Jion had listened to me instead of completely dismissing me, we most likely wouldn’t have been captured, and this wouldn’t have happened to me? Yes, I mean to say exactly that.”

  “How can you be so sure? It’s possible that they were already on to us, that we would have been walking in to a trap regardless of whether or not they joined our company,” I argued.

  She glared daggers at me. What’s that old saying…if looks could kill? If that were the case, I would certainly be dead. “You cannot stand there and look me in the eye and tell me you believe that. I found that village, they were true. Not willing to risk themselves for our cause, but not on Siglind’s side either. Carthoc confirmed as much by slaughtering them. The village itself was not a trap, rather we were followed and waylaid there. Somehow those men were in contact with Captain Carthoc.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know!” she screamed at me. “I can sense emotions, I can’t read thoughts, and I certainly couldn’t do either on those men because of the spell they were
under!” She seethed as she sat, confined to the bed, back raw and bleeding. “Can’t you just admit that you were wrong? You should have listened to me when I cautioned you against taking on those men when we were leaving Cessam. You should have listened to me two days ago when I told you I had a bad feeling before we went into that village.”

  I roared back to life. “Siofra was out there! So you think we should have abandoned her to face Carthoc and his men alone?”

  “That’s not what I’m saying and you know it,” she said, gritting her teeth. A moment passed in tense silence.

  She glanced around the small room, fighting back tears, and seemed to notice the items I had placed on the floor. “Will you just help me bathe my back and leave?” she murmured, her voice sounding so small in comparison to the uproar just a minute ago. “The water is going to get cold, and then we’ll have wasted Siofra’s snowleaf for nothing.”

  Rather than answer, I bent down and picked up the pot. I handed her the cup of tonic as I began to speak, “Drink your tea first, then meet me outside, if you can. I’ll have to pour this over you, and I don’t want to get everything all wet in here.”

  As soon as I was outside I sat on a log across from the door. My legs began to bounce anxiously, and I picked at my fingernails, thinking about how badly I wanted a drink. Lisalya’s words raced through my mind, filling me with a bizarre combination of rage and guilt.

  I was so wrapped up in my own head that I didn’t notice Lisalya until she cleared her throat and spoke. “I’m ready.”

  I stood and called Jaeboc over. “This is Jaeboc, the healer I told you about,” I said as he walked up. “He’s going to help me so we can ensure this is done correctly.”

  Lisalya tried to give a bow in thanks, though her movement was limited. “Thank you, Jaeboc.”

  He seemed confused by the custom, but returned the bow nonetheless, his shaggy mop of blonde hair falling into his face as he did so. “You’re welcome, miss. Now, the afflicted area covers the surface area of your back as well as a few scrapes and lashes on the backs of your arms. I think it will be best to have you sit with your back to us while we work on cleaning the wounds. Can you sit on this?” He gestured to the log I had just been using.