You move my heart.

By afternoon of the next day, every man and woman who claimed to possess the powers of healing had arrived at the Galesing castle and were ushered into the great antechamber of the Governor’s private room. They had been stripped down and searched of weapons, interrogated and searched again. They stood, eight of them having passed the test. Their faces were pale. Some of them had closed their eyes and were chanting silently, calling strange and foreign Gods, some calling Elanzir himself. Standing with them were four guards and two men of smaller stature, dressed in black robes. There was a large, red dot on their foreheads. Priests.

Every so often someone would shift, sigh. And the healers in this room had come of their own free will. It was those who were not present that had been summoned (forced, even) to come to the castle, and they were the ones inside the room. The gigantic doors that swallowed them up were closed, having given the healers only a glimpse inside, and what they heard had terrified one of them so much that she fainted. Those in the room now were doctors who didn’t believe in Elanzir, who didn’t trust the moons. They were in common use now, and healers such as these were only common as fools. Some of their methods were similar, but the doctors known for their expertise had lost faith in the ritual and said it was not necessary for healing. That healing was, in fact, a scientific thing, not spiritual.

But where the doctors failed, the healers expected to succeed. Succeed or die, they did not realize. The inhuman scream that had echoed out into the foyer rang in their ears still and they could only pray that when the time came, it would not be like the horror their imaginations produced. Until they were needed or were not, they had to remain there, uncomfortable, especially with these two priests. The governor’s personal priests, they knew. Frightening little men, with that large red circle above their eyes, the paint dripping down onto the bridge of their noses. Silent and patient, as if they knew how everything would turn out.

There were chairs and couches in the room, beautiful blood red cushions to rest upon, but only the woman that had fainted was seated. Everyone stood; not speaking, until the doors opened again and a man in a gray uniform came out. For the brief time the door was open, the governor’s voice echoed into the antechamber, cursing the man who had just exited, screaming that he would die. The man slammed the heavy door shut and rested, gasping, with his back against it. There were scratches on his face, and he wiped the beginning droplets of blood away, looking out into the healers. Stepping away from the door, he pushed through them to leave, and said, “You are all fools.”

This was the signal. One at a time, the two priests allowed a healer to go in. Each came out, failure not only visible on their faces, but in the voice that followed them. The guards in the foyer handed them away to the guards in the hallway, and one after the other, a healer was taken away to their doom. All except for the woman, who fainted a second time and said she was in no shape to try and heal his majesty. She was escorted elsewhere, and escaped condemnation by the enraged governor.

The foyer emptied, and dark fell.

Larkin’s bed was giant, so tall there was a stepping stool to get inside of it. The canopy was of transparent red silk, flowing down around the bed, either side of it tied back with black tassel. The curtains of every window had been opened to let in the nighttime moons. Candles sat on every surface, illuminating the room with flickering blood red light. The blankets, all of them red, were pulled away to the foot of the bed, only a sheet remained and it was all that covered the governor, laid against his pillows. His chest was bound tight in clean, white bandages. There was no blood, not on the bandages, not inside of him. His skin was no longer pale and creamy, but a drained, ugly white. Heat radiated from it, and he was slick with sweat, head tossed to the side, staring off into the darkness, face only able to reflect a pinch of the rage inside of him. Rage, now that he could think, could remember and reason. Rage that he could not get out of his bed.

A small man sat near the head of the bed, crouched in the floor out of Larkin’s sight. His eyes were red from tears, and his cheek red from Larkin’s hand. The governor had slapped him as he had cried that Larkin might die, and Larkin roared that he was living because it was the will of Stryphus. Nothing had eased the governor’s mood. Order had returned quickly to the castle, and doctors remained at Larkin’s bedside, bewildered and stumped that the man was not dead. No blood, and no heartbeat because there was nothing inside of him to be pumped. They had stitched him closed immediately; of course, under the command of a man they didn’t know, but was in charge while Larkin had been incoherent. Any other man and the doctors would not even have attempted to save him. Something vital inside of Larkin had been rendered useless by the sword, yet he continued to breathe with some difficulty, and would cover his face after yelling, and struggle to breathe at all.

And when he yelled, it was, “Have they found him yet!” and the white man beside the bed would stand up and go inside the foyer where doctors and officials stood and spoke in whispers to each other. Sometimes their voices rose and they yelled, shaking their fists in each other’s faces and threatening the other. When the door opened and the small, white man came inside, they went silent and looked at him. Lovely shielded his eyes from the light and asked in a rough voice, “Any news?” Someone would shake their head, and Lovely would go back inside and stand out of Larkin’s reach near the bed, and shake his head also. Larkin then sent for the Captain of the guards.

“If they come back without him, kill them,” he said.

It wasn’t long before Larkin had sent everyone out of his room, even Lovely, who fled back to the dungeons. The doctors didn’t dare try and stay, despite his condition. It wasn’t until morning of the next day that they were allowed to return, and when they did, most had expected Larkin to be dead, but he was not, and he stood in only his bandages in front of the window, staring out over the city, far away.

All night he had lay, drifting in and out of sleep, plagued with dreams that Miraye was not dead, but alive and Tic was with her. At one point, the wound began to bleed again and feeling much more alive, Larkin got out of his bed and examined himself in the mirror. What color he had before was returning to his skin, and somewhere far away he could feel the pain of the wound. For the most part, he felt nothing. They had definitely given him something for the pain. His thoughts were off and instead of thinking about what he should be immediately concerned of, he thought of not so important things. Like what might have happened after the ball, had everything gone well. He could have been waking up with a boy instead of a wound.

The fact that he suffered such an injury and was alive and standing so shortly after surprised him, but in a way, it did not. As the moons rose, he went to the window. He was not finished with this world. His plan had been destroyed and now he needed another.