The Mercygiver

The fire crackled between them. Tellis slept in the bed behind, her breathing steady and sure—a sound Opri had feared he’d never hear again. The ragged, wet gasps still echoed in his ears, a phantom he couldn’t quite shake.

Kael crouched before the hearth, hands outstretched. The lattice of frost crawling across his skin melted in the heat—wisps of steam rising from both clothing and bare flesh. But there was something else in the way he watched the fire. An intensity that went beyond mere warmth-seeking. His eyes tracked the flames with purpose, following patterns Opri couldn’t perceive.

Kael’s hands seemed to follow the flow of the flames as they crawled up and into the air. Then, strangely, the mimicry seemed to invert—the tongues of fire now dancing to an unheard rhythm in the healer’s hands. Kael leaned closer, hands only a hair’s breadth above the flames.

Obscured by smoke and heat shimmer, Opri thought he saw Kael’s fingers close around something, drawing it from the brightest part of the blaze. A wisp. A breath. Something that wasn’t quite flame and wasn’t quite shadow.

Opri sucked in a sharp breath.

A large log cracked down the center and crumbled inward. Sparks and a puff of ash flew as it disturbed the deep-red coals on the stones.

When the smoke cleared—just fire. Normal fire. Kael still crouched before the hearth, hands outstretched to the warmth.

Had he seen anything at all?

“She will wake again?” Opri asked finally.

Kael looked up from across the hearth. “In time. I broke the sickness within her, but her body must do the rest. Keep her hydrated and fed and she is sure to regain her strength.” He looked away from Opri, voice growing soft. “She’ll carry the scars… The lines won’t fade entirely. For that, I am sorry.”

Opri glanced back at his daughter. “Small price for breathing.”

“Perhaps.” Kael stared into the flames. “Though visible scars are often easier to bear than those we cannot see.”

Opri studied the healer across from him. The charred bandages still wrapping his forearms. The weathered face lit by flames. His eyes seemed to drink in the firelight, as if they were twin pools of deep water—bottomless, where neither warmth nor light could truly penetrate. Sadness swam in those depths…

“She fought well,” Kael continued. “Even unconscious, even consumed by disease—she fought to stay. There is a strength to her, Opri. A strength few possess.” He paused for a moment. “I must be honest with you, I’ve never saved someone so close to the end as she was. To come back from such an edge—perhaps even beyond it….” He trailed off, shaking his head.

“She gets that from her mother,” Opri said quietly.

Kael nodded. “Then her mother must have been formidable indeed.”

“Aye,” Opri said. “That she was.”

They sat in silence after that, both watching the fire. Opri pondered on the healer’s words—on the scars one could not see. They spoke of Tellis, though Opri suspected that Kael didn’t only refer to his daughter. Trauma had a way of worming its way into cracks, widening them into fissures, further weakening already unsteady foundations—perhaps to collapse. He shuddered to think how this ordeal might affect Tellis as she grows, forever marked by the scars of its passing. Or how Bran could look at a father that had abandoned his sister to death.

Shame blossomed in his heart. He abandoned her, in his heart she was gone, before her time was up… But he had come back hadn’t he? When it really mattered he had come back…

And held her down while she cried and screamed and pleaded.

It had not truly been Tellis of course, Opri knew that. But could his heart tell the difference? When she awoke, who would she see? A father who abandoned her? A man who held her down as she pleaded for help? Or would that be all that Opri could see, reflected back at him?

Opri didn’t know.

Scars they could not see…

“When she wakes, will she remember?” Opri asked.

Kael shrugged, “Perhaps. But only flashes, more a bad dream than a real memory.”

“I wish I could say the same,” Opri said bitterly. “I remember every moment I wasn’t there. Every moment I was already grieving her instead of fighting for her.” He looked down at soot-stained hands. “My mother died only two winters ago. Mara barely a season. When the lines appeared again… I couldn’t…”

Kael said nothing.

“Will you tell her?” he asked finally.

“How could I?” Opri shook his head. “What kind of father admits such a thing to his child?” He anticipated the healer’s response and raised a hand. “I know what you’re going to say—lies rot. I remember.”

“I wasn’t going to repeat myself.” Kael looked at Opri, his expression one of warmth and softness. “I was going to say that I understand. Some truths feel too heavy to bear, but also too large to give up. So somehow, we shoulder them alone.”

“But you told me lies rot,” Opri said quietly. “That truth releases.”

“I did say that.”

Opri shifted uncomfortably. “That sounds—”

“Hypocritical?”

“I wasn’t going to say that.”

“No need for modesty, master collier.” Kael turned from the fire. “Because I am a hypocrite, Opri. I preach the virtue of honesty while…” He paused. “Even this night, I have already lied to you.”

Opri pondered on this for a few moments, recalling the events of the night. The fire danced before his eyes.

“Your name,” he said finally, looking up. “You claim one other than your own. You said so yourself.”

Kael nodded. “A small lie, perhaps—one even admitted to if not fully rejected. But spoken out of necessity. For to tell you the truth of who I am invites a greater lie. One we could not afford. One that may have caused… hesitation.”

A chill ran down Opri’s spine.

Kael stared into the flames, and Opri found he could not look away from the man’s face—searching it for answers to questions he couldn’t quite form.

After a while, Kael stirred. “It is time. I will leave you with your family.” He rose from his crouch.

Opri’s brow rose. “You cannot plan to travel in the dark.” He hesitated a moment, then continued. “There’s a spare bed in the attic. You may stay the night.”

“Worry not.” The healer turned toward the door. “Winter’s grasp means very little to me. And I have other tasks to attend to.”

Opri followed him to the door. He wanted to offer payment again, to find words adequate to what this man had done, but his tongue felt thick and useless. Kael pulled open the door, letting the cool night air drift into the cottage.

“Will you truly take no payment?” Opri managed.

The man paused, his back still turned. “Do not underestimate what you have already given me.”

“A place by the fire?” Opri shrugged. “Hardly seems fitting.” The memory of what he thought he saw still itched at the back of Opri’s mind. A flame that wasn’t quite a flame. Something taken from its heart.

“Yet enough.” The healer paused. “I simply ask that you cherish the time returned to you.”

“We will.” Opri said, though in truth he did not feel it in his heart. “As the sun rises, we will.”

Kael stepped through the doorway. Opri watched him go, then the words came unbidden: “Safe travels, Mercygiver.”

He froze mid-step.

For a long moment, he stood perfectly still. Then slowly, he turned back toward Opri. The hood had fallen back, and in the lamplight spilling from the doorway, Opri saw his face clearly again.

The weathered features. The deep lines around the mouth. And the eyes—

The eyes were wrong.

Not the emerald green he’d seen before, but white. Stark white, like fresh snow, like bone bleached by sun. They caught the lamplight and seemed to drink it in, reflecting nothing back.

The air between them grew heavy. Though the man stood unarmed and nonthreatening, Opri found himself wishing his wood ax was within reach.

“Where did you hear that name?” His voice was quiet, but something dangerous moved beneath it.

Opri opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. The words wouldn’t come.

Kael stepped back through the doorway, advancing on Opri. “Where did you hear that name?” he repeated.

“I—” Opri took an involuntary step back, the man seeming to transform before his eyes. Kael had been a healer before—not diminutive or small, but certainly not physically intimidating. Opri saw none of this now. Kael seemed to tower over him, a mountain of a man. Where a healer once stood, a warrior now filled his place. Something that had seen centuries of blood.

Kael seized Opri by the front of his shirt with one hand, lifting him off the ground slightly. Through the thick material, Opri again felt the icy coldness rolling off of the man in waves. Kael stared at Opri, wide eyes of starlight boring into the old collier.

“Who seeks to taunt me, charcoal burner?” His grip tightened. “Has Embasso finally awakened from his slumber? Have the sisters betrayed me?”

“I don’t know of who you speak—”

“Lies!” Kael roared. Frost edged his words in the air between them, and Opri felt the cold deepen where the man’s fist twisted in his shirt—the same cold as before, but wrong now. Untempered. The heat that had walked beside it was gone.

Kael’s bone-white eyes bore into him. The threat of violence swam in those eyes—dangerous, insistent, and…

Pleading?

It could not be possible. Should not be possible. But as Opri beheld the man, the truth in this realization became only more apparent. The danger was just the surface of the sea—swarming beneath was all manner of more haunting things. Opri saw paranoia in the way Kael’s eyes flicked to the corners of the room as if something hid from him in the shadows. Fear in the way the fist at his shirt seemed to tremble slightly before the eyes returned to Opri’s own.

Kael needed an answer—demanded it—and would not believe the only one Opri had to give.

Kael was broken.

“Those names mean nothing to me. I do not know them.” Opri said quietly.

“What you said… It did not come to you on the wind.” His eyes narrowed, searching. “Where? Who? Speak truth, charcoal maker, for I shall know your lies.”

Opri softened his voice even further. “Bran spoke it. A name given by a merchant who spoke of a mountain walker—of one who heals with a touch.”

“No… I… I thought I felt…” he trailed off, looking past Opri. He shook his head slightly.

“I did not mean to cause offense. There was no hidden message in my words.” Opri raised a hand to grasp the other man’s bandaged forearm. “It was a name I thought appropriate, for the one that saved my daughter. No more.”

Kael glanced down at Opri’s hand. His eyes widened slightly. His grip loosened. Opri’s weight settled back to the ground fully and Kael stumbled backwards a step. He seemed to shrink before Opri’s eyes in a matter of heartbeats, the towering presence gone as quickly as it had arrived. Trembling, he held the hand that had seized Opri before his face, staring at it like it was a stranger’s.

Under his breath, barely audible, words tumbled from him like a prayer: “Never again. Never again. Never…”

He raised his other hand to grip it then pressed both hands—curled into fists—against his chest.

So cold. Even then Opri could see thin trails of steam rising from the trembling fist. After a few moments, the shaking quieted and Kael slowly lowered his arms to his sides. The two of them stared at each other across the distance that now separated them. Opri remained tense, ready to throw himself between Kael and the bed if needed. But Kael made no move toward him.

“That name,” Kael said finally, each word careful and deliberate, “belonged to another.” He paused. “One who died long ago. Better forgotten.”

The healer turned away and stepped into the darkness. His footsteps faded among the trees, leaving only the sound of Opri’s own breathing and, from the bed behind him, Tellis’s steady, living breath.

He slumped down into a chair, body shaking, heart thundering in his ears. Slowly as calm returned to him, he noticed something—a chill draft that hadn’t been there before. He turned back toward the hearth.

The fire that had burned there moments before was now gone, the hearth a dark pit in the ground. Opri got to his feet and crouched on the flagstones. He squinted in the now dim light. There was no ash on the stones. He ran two fingers along the inside of the hearth—cold, with no soot to stain them black.

As if no fire had ever burned within.