Chapter 48:

  Not A Priest

  As soon as the sickness that had ailed the woman finally passed, Damien dropped to his knees and gathered her into a tight embrace. They clung to one another, laughing and crying all at once, their relief raw and almost disbelieving.

  Murmurs and quiet exclamations rippled throughout the alley. The vacant stares that had surrounded me moments before slowly gained new life as people pushed themselves up from the ground, craning for a better look, as they were desperate to understand what had just happened..

  I rose to my feet and looked around at the faces of those who had fallen through the cracks of the city and been neglected by their neighbors. Compassion filled my heart for these people, but it was not the only thing that stirred within me.

  Anger followed close behind. Deep and heavy, it settled into my chest with purpose. Something here was not as it should be, and whether it came from my own will or from my Path itself, I did not know.

  In truth, I did not care whose will it was. All that mattered was I had the power to make a wrong right, and now I was responsible for doing my part.

  With my mind made up, it appeared I was well on my way to causing trouble for Captain Torren once again.

  As I stood there lost in my own thoughts, looking over the people who had lived for so long without hope, I watched realization slowly settle over several of them as they slowly pieced together what had just happened.

  Then, like a dam breaking, desperate bodies surged forward. Hands reached out toward me, grasping and tugging, pulling in multiple directions at once.

  “Please, sir, help my daughter!”

  “I’m in so much pain, please help me!”

  “Me next! Get out of the way!”

  Their voices overlapped in a frantic chorus, sharp with panic and raw need. Fingers brushed my sleeves and clutched at the hem of my shirt, each touch carrying its own silent plea. Hope had returned in that glorious moment of healing, and now it burned hotter than their despair ever had.

  Before I had a chance to respond and organize the sudden, desperate press of people around me, Damien rose to his feet and shouted down at those reaching out to grab me.

  “One at a time!” he barked, before being seized by another bout of frantic coughing. He bent forward, hacking until he managed to steady himself, then straightened and spoke again, this time in a quieter, strained tone. “Let’s get the worst of us here first. Nice and orderly.” He paused, glancing back at me. “Is that alright with you, sir?”

  He looked at me then with eyes full of gratitude and something deeper still. An abiding faith and trust, the kind of appreciation I wasn’t sure I had ever truly seen directed at me before. The only other time that came close was when Hershell had told me I was like a grandson to him, after I had saved Neil and himself.

  I nodded and let Damien use his best judgement to organize the remaining people within the alley according to their needs. As he did so, I turned and walked back to the mouth of the alley in order to speak with Halius and Neil.

  Neil’s face was full of wonder, and to my complete shock, Halius’s cheeks were stained with tears. Despite being such a big man, it was strangely comforting to know that Halius was a big softy underneath the hard shell of armor that he typically wore.

  “Halius, I think I’m alright here. You should go take care of that next step, yeah?” I said warmly, giving him a pat on the shoulder.

  The large man nodded and returned the pat before turning and making his way toward the church.

  “Neil, do you mind going with Halius and asking the priest there if he has any food or water to spare? Anytime I heal someone, it uses up a lot of stamina, and these people are already weak and hungry. I don’t want to see them collapse right after we’ve stepped in to take care of them.”

  “Oh, right!” Neil said with sudden realization. “I remember after you healed me, I felt like I was starving. I’ll be right back!”

  With my two companions now tending to their own tasks, I made my way back into the alley and was surprised to find how quickly Damien had arranged everyone into a somewhat orderly line. A few people stood on their own, but several others, clearly too weak to remain upright, were propped against the alley walls in seated positions on the ground.

  “Including my sister, there are twelve of us all together, sir,” Damien said, his tone far more respectful than before, his earlier hostility replaced by something careful and sincere.

  I nodded and clapped the man on the shoulder, much as I had with Halius.

  “Thank you. And just call me Sam. You’re… Damien, right?” I asked, wanting to be sure I had heard him correctly.

  “Yes, sir, I am,” he said quickly. His voice caught for a moment, thick with emotion, before he pressed on. “And I’ll be calling you sir, or lord, or master, or whatever else I can think of for the rest of my life, after what you’ve done for me.”

  Not giving me a chance to argue or correct him, Damien began ushering people forward in my direction.

  The first person in line was a young boy whose body was sweating furiously from a fever, his cheeks flushed red even beneath the layers of dirt clinging to his skin. A woman, I assumed to be his mother, knelt and carefully unwrapped him on the ground in front of me. Even this subtle movement caused his small frame to tremble uncontrollably with shivers.

  “His fever has lasted for a few days now,” she whispered. “Miss Terrah gave him some medicine. It helped a little, but last night the fever came back hotter than before.”

  The woman looked up at me with desperate, pleading eyes and, through a strangled sob, almost spoke the words as if they were a prayer. “Please… save my son.”

  That was the second time I had heard the name Miss Terrah, and once all was settled here, I intended to find out who she was. If there was someone else in this city doing what they could to help those in need, then she was someone I wished to be acquainted with.

  I knelt down beside the boy and rested my hand against his cheek. The heat radiating from his body was startling, and his cracked lips, crusted with salt from the air, only emphasized the level of dehydration he was suffering from. Whatever reserves he had once possessed had no doubt been burned away by the fever ravaging his body.

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  Once again, I pulled from the reservoir inside myself and began carefully transferring the potential within into the body of the child. Over the course of the several minutes, I settled into a steady routine, allowing a small amount of potential through at a time, circulating it gently through the boy’s body before drawing back and repeating the process again. I moved slowly and deliberately, careful not to overwhelm him with too much power at once.

  Gradually, I could physically feel his body temperature begin to drop beneath my touch, as the fever’s heat receded little by little. After a few long moments, his eyes fluttered open, unfocused at first, before settling on me with wide, fearful clarity.

  “Momma?”

  The woman surged forward so quickly she nearly knocked me over as she pulled her son into a fierce embrace, her voice breaking as she cried out her thanks to the Path itself. She pressed her forehead briefly against my hands, as if bowing in gratitude, a gesture that made me deeply uncomfortable.

  As I withdrew and steadied myself, a quiet realization settled within my thoughts. The more experienced I became with handling potential, the more I understood how much mental focus it truly demanded. Keeping control was not effortless. The power pressed constantly against my will, eager and insistent, and only careful concentration kept it from surging beyond my intent.

  With that in mind, I knew that despite my urge to help everyone here as quickly as possible, if I didn’t pace myself, I wouldn’t be able to maintain this level of control and could potentially hurt someone. Not only that, if I misused even a small amount of the potential I carried, I feared I wouldn’t have enough left to heal everyone here today. My reservoir felt full enough for now, but I knew from past experience how quickly that could change.

  “Lets do this in groups of four, and I’ll rest between each,” I said to Damien, who still stood vigilant at my side. “I can’t afford to waste anything and its mentally demanding to keep this up.”

  Damien nodded in understanding, and then brought forward the next couple people in line.

  The first two groups of four were much the same as Damien’s sister and the fever that had plagued the boy. The healings were fairly straightforward, and despite the exhaustion that quickly accumulated, I managed to maintain my control from start to finish with each one.

  As the last three approached, Damien moved himself to the back of the line, urging the remaining two forward ahead of himself.

  The next person in line was an older man who had clearly withheld just how serious his condition was. When he stepped closer, he revealed arms wrapped in dirty bandages, beneath which a large open wound oozed with pus and infection. His fever was only a symptom of struggles he had failed to fully communicate, whether out of reluctance, pride, or distrust, I could not be sure.

  What I did know for certain was that the wounds were difficult to look at without wincing at their severity. I wasn’t sure that simply healing them would be enough. My gut told me the bandages would need to be removed, and that some of the grime and rot clinging to the wounds would have to be washed away before I could do anything more.

  “Is there any water here?” I asked, feeling a bit foolish as the faces around me answered with quiet shakes of their heads.

  “It hasn’t rained in a few days,” a small voice said from nearby. An elderly woman stepped forward slightly. “We usually make our way to the fountain at night if we’re desperate.”

  I nodded and sighed inwardly.

  Healing his arm wasn’t the true problem. It was how much potential it would take to do it properly. The worse a wound was, the more potential it demanded to offset the damage it had already done. That much I had learned the hard way.

  If I sealed his wounds with the rotted flesh still clinging to them, the potential would have to work twice as hard, maybe more, to cleanse the filth and restore what had been lost. If I let that happen, I wouldn’t have enough left to care for the remaining two people still waiting in line.

  As I deliberated over how best to address the situation, a familiar pair of voices reached my ears, joined by a third that I did not recognize

  “What are you all doing?” a weak willed voice cried out. “You’re going to bring the auditors down upon us!”

  Halius and Neil stood at the alley’s entrance, their bodies blocking the path as a small man tried unsuccessfully to shove his way past them.

  I turned away from the man I had been tending and raised a hand, signaling that I would return in just a moment, before shifting my attention toward the growing disturbance at the alley’s edge.

  “What’s the problem here?” I asked, as the surprisingly young man pushing against Neil and Halius finally stepped back with an indignant huff.

  “What’s the problem?” he snapped, his voice cracking as he jabbed a finger in my direction. “What’s the problem? You!You are the problem! We cannot heal these people without the proper tithes being provided. If we do, the auditors will arrest us. They’ll kill us!”

  Despite his small frame, the young priest standing before Halius did not back down from what he clearly perceived, ironically, as an injustice. He stood his ground with rigid stubbornness, even as his hands shook at his sides.

  He was roughly Neil’s height, rail thin, and even beneath his robes it was clear he lacked any real physical presence. From the way he stumbled over his words and how his voice rose and broke as he shouted, it was obvious he was not a man accustomed to confrontation.

  Anger boiled up within me once more, hot as coals stirred back to life. It was sharper than before, heavier. This wasn’t the slow burn of outrage, but something immediate and commanding. Though the fury was mine, it felt as though it reached beyond me.

  I stepped past Halius and Neil, and in a single motion reached out and seized the young priest by the collar, lifting him just enough that his heels scraped against the stone.

  Salted hells. I hadn’t even realized I had become strong enough to do something like this.

  “Enough,” I said with finality. The indignant cries died instantly in the young man’s throat, replaced by a trembling silence as fear took hold of him.

  Several passersby along the street slowed or stopped outright, murmuring among themselves as our confrontation flared and then abruptly ended.

  I slowly lowered the priest back onto his feet, keenly aware of the attention my outburst had drawn from the street beyond the alley.

  After a moment, the young man steadied himself. His breathing came shallow and uneven as he lifted his head to look at me, his hands trembling even as his fingers curled into tight, useless fists.

  The defiance in his eyes was real, but it sat awkwardly on him, stretched thin over fear and desperation. I couldn’t understand it at first, why he would cling to it so fiercely when everything about him screamed that he wanted to run.

  “Don’t you understand?” he said quietly, his voice low but resolute as he met my gaze. “You’re about to get yourself killed.” He swallowed hard, then continued. “The auditors will come as soon as they hear about this. They’ll handle you the same way they handled Father Miguel last month. Priests within the kingdom have to obey this law or they are dealt with severely. I’m trying to help you!”

  As he spoke, I found myself really looking at him for the first time. Not just listening to his words, but seeing him. Where a priest’s sigils should have been, there was instead a single rune stitched into the fabric.

  I had only seen it once before, back in Wheat Hollow, when a young acolyte had come to our village for tutelage under the local priest.

  This was no priest standing before me.

  This was a frightened, newly awakened member of the clergy who had watched his mentor dragged away by the very auditors he now feared.

  “I’m not going to stop helping these people,” I said simply. “You can help me and do what’s right, or you can get out of my way. Either way, I will continue to set these people back on their path, walking on their own two feet. That seems to be something the priest you mentioned earlier understood. Am I right?”

  The young man looked completely taken aback, his certainty faltering as he stared at me.

  “What do you mean?” he demanded, though the edge had drained from his voice. “You’re a priest. You have to follow the law like the rest of us, or you’re just throwing your life away!”

  I held his gaze for a long moment, letting the weight of his fear and conviction settle, before turning my attention back toward the alley and the people waiting there.

  “That may be true,” I said calmly. “Priests have their own burdens to bear. But you’re misunderstanding something.”

  I looked back at him then, meeting his eyes fully.

  “I’m not a priest.”

  Notice: Skill: Cleansing Touch: is now Rank 1: level 4.

  Notice: Skill: Cleansing Touch: is now Rank 2: level 1.

  -Cleansing Touch has advanced to Rank 2. This skills control and potency have slightly increased. An upgrade and merge, will become available upon reaching Rank 3 and progressing to Tier two.

  Cleansing Touch: (Rank 2: level 1)- Amplify the vital potential within a target in order to purge toxins, poisons, diseases, and other corrupting effects of a physical nature. This skill scales with the users Spirit Attribute.