“Hey, Chef?”
Chef Boyle didn’t look up from her work of drizzling batter into hot, glistening oil but gave me a noncommittal grunt.
“Can I try something?”
She paused and turned her head like an owl. “Am I going to regret saying yes?”
I dunked the sausage in her batter and dropped it into her fryer. Her eyes widened.
“Corndog?” she asked, her voice incredulous and much too excited for an adult.
I grabbed the tongs and pulled it out when the meter hit orange, holding it up for her with a bright grin.
“Funnel Dog!”
She cackled and gave me a high-five. “I’ll get some mustard prepared.”
I let the chef try it first. When she approved, with deeply satisfied moans and a knowing nod, I made one for myself. I absolutely melted at the familiar taste of crunchy batter around the fatty sausage. It wasn’t quite the same as summer at Coney Island—for one, it didn’t have a corn breading—but it tasted like home. I wiped a tear off my cheek with the heel of my hand and hoped my mother was safe in China. I wasn’t counting on it. It felt selfish to hope the safe passage I bought for her with the entirety of my bank account worked when so many were certain their loved ones only lived in their memories now. But hope dies last.
Just in case, I set up some incense for her, and sketched out a quick picture of how I remembered her, wrinkled but smiling, sitting in her wheelchair at the top of the brownstone’s stoop with Lickerish the cat in her lap.
I was praying to the shrine of her, complete with a corndog, when a Dawn Elf woman gently touched my shoulder.
“Sister—”
I leapt to my feet, book at the ready and hand already glowing to cast a shield, and she jumped back, her ears drooping like a kicked dog.
“I-I’m sorry,” she said, shifting her weight. “Someone said you were a healer. Is that true?” she asked, tapping her fists together in anticipation.
I sighed and bent over to let the tension out of my shoulders. “Yes, I am,” I said. “Is something wrong?”
She took my hand, and I followed her to the main festival area.
“HEY! I FOUND HER!” she called out with surprisingly strong lungs.
At once, I was crowded by a swirl of faces of every race begging for healing.
I tried to back up but ran into more people, who pushed into me.
“Okay, whoa. Make a line!” I pleaded.
“But I’m sicker!” whined a disembodied voice.
I shielded myself with Lenity in a burst of holy light that forced them at arm’s length.
“I said MAKE A LINE.”
The crowd silently slipped into a queue.
I rubbed my temples and closed my eyes. I hadn’t planned on setting up a triage area, and I wasn’t sure what could possibly have injured these people that they were so desperate, but the positive part of me whispered that they mostly wanted to see if I could, and the plague wasn’t back. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted the Commissar with her tight black curls munching on a corndog, eying me with an intense stare. I didn’t know when she’d showed up. I hadn’t noticed her before, but I didn’t like being watched.
I ignored her and pulled out various herbs to mark people’s hands as green, yellow, or red and went down the line with Acuity running. Greens were the walking wounded, didn’t need attention quickly, and were sent to the end of the line. Yellows I healed for a three-copper donation to the Sophitian Temple, which got some incredulous whispers that I was surely a fraud. A healing potion cost three gold, and there were accusations I was bad at math. Most of the Yellows had common diseases I healed with a touch of my hand. If someone didn’t have the three coppers, the person next in line paid for them. It was a special day.
Was I undercutting myself greatly? Yes. Did I care? No. Not today. Today I wanted to prove how easy it was, and if it was truly my last day as a priest, I wasn’t going to spend it nickel-and-diming people. Accounting for the fifteen percent donations to the temple, and after paying Amanda and Sten for their work, I’d still made at least twenty-five gold from my wares before taxes. I had enough. Gaia would provide the rest.
I marked people green until I came to my first red. Or rather, I spotted her hiding behind her father’s knees and covering the black mold encroaching up her face with her blue cloak.
I snapped for the man’s attention. “Bring her to me. Now.”
He stepped out of line and coaxed his daughter to me. I knelt and held my hands out for her. She placed her little fingers in mine, and I prayed for the blight, for Serth-Rog, who was surely whispering nightmares in the child’s ears, to leave her in Gaia’s name. Veracity encircled her in a swirl of holy light and washed away the plague marks with a sizzle.
I had cleared two sources now of the plague. Corvus was investigating if there were more and surely would’ve told me if they found any. I didn’t want to believe what I was seeing.
The father reached into a leather pouch on his belt, and I shot him a glance.
“Put your money away. Or donate it to the temple. I don’t want it,” I said a bit too roughly.
He stammered out that he insisted, but I ignored him and fixed the girl’s cloak to show her pretty face, now cleared, but unfortunately with a scar similar to the one on my right hand. I showed it to her for her to touch and inspect. She ran her fingers along it and inspected how the cleansed skin was pale and rough around the edges.
“Proof of a battle won,” I reassured her with a smile. “It marks you as a fierce warrior.”
She giggled and touched her cheeks before running back to her father.
I stood and demanded the crowd bring me anyone with a black vein that shouldn’t be there. Those were my Reds. They were only a handful, but even one was one too many.
Corvus spotted us from across the way and hung up their apron. I directed them to interview the people I cleansed for the Inquisition’s reports. The Commissar still silently watched me, now sipping mead from an earthenware flagon.
Rumors spread through the crowd that I was “Liset the Blessed,” the woman who cleansed a whole temple. I finished healing who I could until I was exhausted, thirsty, and out of Spirit.
The crowd followed me to Aesop’s Tables’ booth, but Kismet stepped out from her guard position, having watched over us. The group formed a queue as if they always intended on buying funnel cakes and corndogs. Chef Boyle handed me a glass of cool forest fruit tea that I guzzled greedily. I paid Amanda her share and turned to Sten.
He held out his hand with a smile.
“Listen to me,” I said, holding the coins in my fist. “If you spend this on Affka, that is your choice, but know I will personally send you to Morsheim. Do you understand me?”
He blanched and nodded.
I placed the coins in his hand and turned to my new partner.
“Chef Boyle, do you think—”
“They start work tomorrow morning,” she said, flipping another Funnel Cake for the new customers I’d brought her.
I sighed in relief and sat next to Bjorn, who was napping under the table. He looked up and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, then crawled into my lap and laid his head on my shoulder. I rubbed his back.
I had proven to myself I could heal people without magic. I could manage a business. But I wasn’t satisfied. I could never not be a priest, even if the Temple excommunicated me and revoked my powers. I lived for this. Cooking was fun, and selling things was its own adventure, but people needed me still, and I couldn’t turn them away. If I found the plague on someone in the future, I wouldn’t be able to live with the fact that the temple stole the ability to heal not only from me, but from these people. People were exhausting, but they would always need a healer.
There was no way I’d let the temple win. No way I’d let them designate themselves the sole source of comfort and arbiter of who got to live or die.
Exarch Jericho and Justiciar Olivia could both rot in Morsheim for all I care
d. I’d pull the whole diseased temple on their heads before I’d let them take my class from me.
Too Stressed to be Blessed
The festival lasted into the afternoon, only winding down as the farmers returned to their final chores and the townsfolk took their mourning to the taverns. I spotted Kismet sitting on a stump by the bonfire. She removed her helmet and rubbed her forehead, then ran her hand through her long black hair. We hadn’t really had a chance to talk since the messages yesterday, and even a day at her feet listening to her speak wouldn’t have been long enough for me. I had been so busy with concessions and confessions throughout the day, and I missed my team. Her, especially.
I couldn’t hide the skip in my step as I approached her with a final hop and folded my hands behind my back.
“Is that seat taken?” I asked her.
Kismet looked up and blinked away her thoughts. She glanced around, then to where I pointed.
“That’s my lap.”
“I know what I said.”
Kismet grinned and stood. I stepped in to hug her, when she held her hand on my shoulder. “I’m still on duty,” she whispered. I pouted. She shot me a wink. “But I’m getting off in a bit. You’re welcome to join me.”
I grinned.
Corvus joined us and gave me a side hug. I settled into their warm leather cloak as Yvonne met us with arms crossed.
“You know,” I said, batting my lashes at the tall Inquisitor, “Gaia asks us to feed the hungry and give drink to the thirsty. How about you and I have dinner tonight?”
Kismet held Yvonne back with an outstretched arm, her smiling dropping. “I understand why you don’t want to go to Hector’s funeral,” she said. “I wouldn’t want you to step foot back in that temple again either. But—”
Oh. That again. I wasn’t going to get out of it, was I?
“If I remember right,” I said, my tone changing 180 degrees, “they kicked the Inquisitors out after you tried to keep Jericho from strangling me.”
“The relationship between the temple and the Inquisition is... tenuous at best,” said Kismet. “They insist Areste’s laws are higher than the Empire’s when we all know nothing is. But High Commander Carrera spoke with them and cleared up the matter, so we are expected to go. Duty calls.”
“Is that it then? We’re just going to let them strip me of everything I’ve worked for?”
Yvonne ducked under Kismet’s arm. “We’ll also honor the life of our fallen friend. You might as well accept it with some grace, Liset. There’s nothing you can do to keep avoiding this.”
I looked to Corvus to back me up, but I couldn’t get a read on them beyond their black plague mask and the glinting glass eyes. Hector was their NPC. They should’ve been invested in this more than any other. But then again, Hector was keeping Corvus prisoner as a criminal for donating fifteen kidneys. In the end, Hector tried to be a hero when we fought Cian, and was punished for it when the black dagger of Serth-Rog sucked the soul out of him.
I couldn’t deny he deserved as much honor and remembrance as everyone pictured next to incense on the field beside us. Including my own mother.
“Is that what the birds told you?” I spat, pushing Yvonne away from me.
Yvonne scoffed, and Lucky the Sparrow flittered its wings in her nest of hair. “A little birdie might’ve—”
We were interrupted by a flash of light to our side. Justiciar Olivia stepped out of a portal with more grace than I ever managed. She hadn’t seen us yet, but she was scanning the area, and an Inquisitor, a plague doctor, and a priestess stood out in a crowd, especially standing next to a raging fire.
I grabbed Kismet’s arm with both hands. “I have to buy time. You can’t let her take me,” I pleaded.
“Peace, Soror,” said Kismet, placing a gloved hand over mine. “She’s here to personally escort the High Commander to congratulate him on his faction.”
“Not everything is about you, you know,” added Yvonne.
I hid in front of Kismet so the Justiciar wouldn’t see me when she passed behind the bonfire.
“I don’t know what you want me to do,” said Kismet plaintively.
“If I throw salt in the Justiciar’s eyes to make her go away, is that a crime?” I asked her.
“It’s assault.”
“Yes, I know it’s a salt,” I said, moving so I remained hidden. “But is it a crime?”
“If you make one more pun, I’ll arrest you myself,” said Kismet, her literal feathers unruffled as I pinned myself to her armor.
My ears perked up. I held out my wrists. “Oh, would you?”
“What?”
“If I get thrown in jail, that’ll at least buy me a few more days without having to deal with their bullshit.”
Kismet quirked her head and rested a hand on her hip. “I uphold justice. You’re just being a nuisance.”
“But you’ll let her take me,” I said. “How is that just?”
“The temple judges their own for breaking their rules. That was our agreement.”
“But that rule is bullshit!” I yelled, a bit too loudly. I peeked around Kismet. Olivia hadn’t heard me over the crowd. I lowered my voice. “No one could’ve healed through that much damage per second. Not even the exarch himself. What was I supposed to do?”
“It’s the law.”
“Yeah, the law,” I scoffed. My breath came in quick gasps and I felt like I was going to faint. I wanted to throw myself in a woodchipper or on the bonfire before I’d go back to that temple.
“I don’t have to accept abuse just because ‘it’s the law,’” I said mockingly. “I don’t have to accept abuse for any reason. And if the law exists to abuse me, it’s a goddamned shitty law, and maybe I can just abuse it right back.”
Kismet sighed and stared at me. I could see through my panic that she understood, she genuinely did, but her hands were tied as much as mine.
“I need to commit a misdemeanor or something.”
“Liset...” whispered Kismet, stroking my arm.
“I can’t give up my class, Kismet!” I screamed. “This isn’t fair.” I snapped my fingers. “Indecent exposure. I’ll just pull my top off.”
Kismet glanced skeptically at my chest. “I have seen you exposed. I’m not sure that counts,” she said. “Knowing you, you’re better off with public intoxication.”
“Right, right,” I agreed, ignoring the dig at my cup size. “Where’s the mead—”
“That’s just a fine, Liset,” said Kismet, grabbing me from running off to drink the nearest tavern out of business. “That won’t get—”
She snatched my wrist as I wriggled away from her and held tight. “Soror, please.”
I froze. Kismet ran her hands down my arms and made me look at her. “We’re going back for Hector’s funeral anyway. I know you don’t want this, but we’ll go with you. You won’t be alone. It’ll be okay,” she pleaded.
“No, it won’t!” I cried, hitting her in the chest. It was futile. The tank of a woman didn’t move, didn’t even flinch as my fist pounded her armor. She let me exhaust myself without a word, until I glanced up.
“What does assault of an officer get me?” I asked, tilting my head.
Kismet let out a heavy sigh and squeezed my shoulder.
I had to come up with something. I searched my inventory.
Oh. Three Affka.
“This is possession,” I said, holding one up for Kismet to see. I offered one to her and smiled as if I had solved the whole problem. “And this is distribution.”
Yvonne and Kismet exchanged looks as if I had gone mad, which wouldn’t be far off from the truth. The bonfire option would buy me another eight hours at least, even if it wouldn’t be my favorite. When Kismet refused to take it, I handed the syringe to Corvus.
Kismet crossed her arms and stood to her full height. “You’re really trying to force my hand here, aren’t you?” she said, shaking her head. “You know we use that in battle for soldiers. As an Imperial Hea
ler, you have a”—she paused as if thinking over why, exactly, and when I had acquired Affka—“valid reason to have it.”
Hot tears streamed down my cheeks, and I glanced at the bonfire.
“There’s no delaying the inevitable,” said Yvonne.
My shoulders slumped.
I turned around and found myself face-to-face with Justiciar Olivia Deeds, the woman I used to call Oaklynn, my friend and a pharmacist at St. Mercy’s hospital back in Manhattan. My old drinking buddy had me drink poison to prove my worth to the temple. Instead of gray scrubs, the Imperial woman wore flowing golden robes with the sleeves pinned with brooches to show off the self-harm scars on her arm. While she had intended for me to get free of the temple by becoming a Disciple, we weren’t friends anymore.
“Disciple Liset,” she said, her voice friendly and warm. It still made me freeze cold.
“Mater,” I said, forcing a smile.
“I hear congratulations are in order after your recent success with the apostates. I’m sorry that Brother Hector is unable to celebrate with us. Word is, you had something to do with that,” she said, her smile more plastered than mine.
I rolled my eyes and tilted my head back as if beseeching the heavens to strike me right then and there. “I don’t owe you an argument, Lynn. You came here looking for one, and I’m fresh out,” I said. I faced her. “I’m not going back.”
Olivia sighed and nodded, giving me a soft hmm. She clicked her tongue. “Look, it’s nothing personal, but I feel like it is in our best interests to release you to follow a more suitable calling,” she said. She held up a hand. “But that is for the exarch to decide.”
Corvus nudged me and handed me a bottle of vodka.
“You look like you could use a drink, sister,” they said in their metallic whisper.
Were they ever right. Their gloved hand lingered on mine as I took it. When I went to lift the bottle, they covered my hand with theirs and stared at me from behind the glass coverings on their mask. I didn’t understand. I certainly couldn’t pull the same stunt that cleansed the Black Temple, as much as I did love Molotov cocktails. I pulled the top off the bottle and took a long swig. I could throw myself on the bonfire, sure, but my bindpoint was in Ravenkirk. And they knew that. They’d just meet me there when I woke up. Plus, now that I had Ubiquity, that just bought me ten more seconds of burning to death, and I’d lose all my experience points into level thirteen that I just earned.
Viridian Gate Online: Schism: A litRPG Adventure (The Heartfire Healer Series Book 2) Page 19