Chương 24: Chapter 23

When I woke, it was to the burning pain of something rubbing against my skin. I screamed at the top of my lungs only to find two strong hands holding me down.

"I know it hurts, sweetheart. Be brave. We need to clean the wounds." My mother's words were strained, the stress and worry so clear in her voice that I could almost taste it. For a minute I thought that I actually could taste it, but it was just my own blood dripping into my mouth. The cloth she held descended again, and the rest of my senses started working, rearing their heads once more through the sea of pain.

The sharp smell of highly concentrated alcohol reached my nose, cutting through the pain like a hot knife through butter. Then the rag reached my cheek, and I clenched my teeth against a fresh scream as my mother cleaned my many wounds. The next sense to return was my hearing. Sure, I had heard my mother, but she was very close to my face and I could see her lips moving. The rest of my hearing was finally following, and I could hear Etta crying and babbling somewhere behind me.

"Bastian was just…" she sniffled.

"Crossing the… balance beam. Then it hit him! I saw him fall and… the bird kept scratching him…" She continued to wail and described the attack on me in the words of a four year old. The entire time my mother continued to clean my wounds and I existed in a state of burning agony. If the cuts weren't hurting, then the alcohol was. I reached up with one hand and tried to feel my lips. The side of my lip moved without the rest of it following and my fingertips came away red and sticky.

That bird had done a number on me. After a few more minutes of pain my mother sat me up and I saw she was holding a small potion bottle filled with a dark red liquid.

"Just a little drink, Bastian. Then you need to rest," she cooed. My first magical potion and it was to try and heal the wounds I sustained from fighting a damned crow. Well, I reassured myself, at least this will be memorable. The liquid hit my lips and I felt a small amount dribble out of the slit in my sliced lip. I could sense the aether within the liquid faintly, though it was overshadowed by the distinct taste of dirt. No wonder Magatha likes tea!

You'd have to if you're sampling potions that consistently taste like dirt! For all my mental griping and simmering anger at the wounds I had taken, and a little at myself, the potion's contents left a warm feeling in my stomach as it settled. I felt sleep calling and my mother rocked me in her arms to hasten my journey. When I woke again, I was being prodded by fingers. I glanced around in worry, but all was well.

The fire roared nearby, keeping me warm as I found they had laid me down on the rug in the common room. The fingers belonged to Magatha who was kneeling next to me, with my mother and grandfather behind her.

"The lip will need to be sewn," Magatha noted as she pulled at the corner of my mouth.

"I can sell you a lesser healing tonic which should last a month. But he'll still have the scars. I can brew something to remove them over time, but he'll need to take it regularly. Even doing so, it will likely take a year for them to fully fade." As Magatha talked, my mother's hands had drifted to cover her mouth, tears in her eyes, and I worried about just how bad the damage was. Fear wormed its way into my stomach and the baseless worry that my mother wouldn't look at me with the same love found a home.

It was stupid, I knew. But between all the violence, pain, and other dark emotions I had been filled with for the past few hours, I couldn't hold back the little voice that said I was now damaged goods. So, of course, my mother chose that moment to remind me exactly how much I was loved. She scooted down onto the rug, smoothly curling herself around me as I was pulled into her embrace.

"Don't worry about a thing, my sweet boy. You did so well. You were so strong and brave. I am so sorry I wasn't there!" I felt liquid landing on my head and realised she was crying. Everything came back into sharp focus. She wasn't unhappy with my appearance. She, like me, was blaming herself. I saw the sequence of events from her point of view. She had stepped inside for just a moment, leaving me unobserved. Something that had happened plenty of times before. Only this time, I got hurt. Badly.

And she wasn't there to protect me. I didn't hold it against her. No, my enmity was reserved for that blighted bird. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. I turned into her, getting comfy in her warm embrace.

"It's okay, Mum. I'm fine." My words were apparently the signal to open the flood gates as she began crying harder and rocking me. Magatha thankfully decided to move off to the side and give us some privacy as she whispered something to grandpa. My mother and I stayed curled up together until we were interrupted by Cornelius.

"We need to sew the lip if we want it to heal," he explained, eyes more focused on my mother than me. I was guided back to the table and Magatha began talking quietly as she worked. I realised too late that she was doing it to distract me, which seemed a kindness unexpected from the Hedge Witch until I noticed her glances at my mother. Something oily was smeared around my lips, and I jolted in surprise and no small amount of pain.

My mother reached out to hold my hand as the smell of something like cinnamon filled my nose. The area that had been oiled was growing numb quickly, and a moment later I saw the shiny pointed tip of the needle held in Magatha's strong fingers. I braced myself for more pain but felt nothing except a slight tug against my skin as the needle vanished just below my sight. The pulling came again and again and when Magatha was done I could see that the needle was stained red.

My mother filled the space that Magatha vacated, rag once more in her hand and the smell of alcohol replacing the cinnamon scent of the oil. Rather than painful, the alcohol-soaked rag felt cold now as my mother dabbed at my lips. Then I was fed another few drops of the healing potion, wrapped in bandages and carried upstairs. I was asleep before my head even hit my pillow. When I woke up it was late. Or perhaps early. I couldn't tell much except that it was still dark outside my bedroom window.

My mother was nearby, seated in a chair and asleep herself with a blanket draped over her. Climbing out of my bed silently, I activated Muffled Steps. My foot touched the wooden floor, and I didn't hear a thing. Slowly, I crept to the door and then out into the empty hallway. My feet quietly carried me to my mother's room, my aether draining quickly into my only Skill. There was something I had to see.

My mother's room was much like my own, only her window faced out to the western side of the Outpost we called home, while mine faced north. Her bed was sturdy and made up, unslept in except for a missing blanket. A small table and chair rested beneath the window and on that table was a mirror. I climbed up onto the chair and in the darkness, with trepidation filling my heart, turned to see my own reflection. I was a mess.

Dark black string was threaded through the left side of my lower lip, holding the two pieces together. I couldn't see most of the cuts on the rest of my face beneath the bandages. But most wasn't all and what I could see were angry red lines where the crow's talons had carved rivers into my flesh. A couple of tufts of my tarnished copper hair were missing near the front of my head and I wouldn't have been surprised to find there were more towards the back.

My dark green eyes were the only pieces of me that looked unharmed, which only served to remind me of that sharp, dark beak stabbing down and trying to pluck them out. Next, I held up my arms. They were similarly wrapped in bandages, but there were enough small gaps to see the same rends that marred my face were mirrored all up and down my arms. My legs had been thankfully spared with just a few bruises from my fall.

Still, Magatha had said that I would have scars and seeing the state of my body I felt like the Hedge Witch had understated just how many I would have. Anger bloomed in my heart seeing what the crow had wrought, some of it directed at myself. Could I have been more observant? Had I become complacent about the dangers of this world? The answer to the former was a definitive yes, but for the latter, I didn't think so. Wasn't that one of the reasons I worked so hard on my Paths after all?

My thoughts were interrupted by the quiet creak of the door behind me. I turned in a hurry, almost falling off the chair, to find Cornelius framed in the doorway. In the dark it was hard to see his expression, but his shoulders weren't slumped. He moved inside, leaving the door open as he came to join me at the mirror. Now that he was closer I could finally see how his eyes looked resolute.

"Don't worry about these cuts, Bastian. You did well. Exceptionally well. And we'll get potions from Magatha to make the scars fade with time."

"Why did it attack me?" I whispered, hating how small my voice sounded.

"I don't know. But I am going to figure it out. Do you want to talk about it?" he asked. I shook my head. Maybe in the morning I would, but right now I was still wallowing in self pity while my wounds throbbed with dulled pain.

"Want to go back to bed?" Cornelius offered. I shook my head again.

"Come on then. It's still a couple of hours till morning and your mum could use some rest. I'll make us an early breakfast." He picked me up, no strain showing in his arms as he carried me downstairs. The food he made was plain compared to what my mother cooked, but the hard bread toasted in the pan with some butter from the larder and a few mushrooms was enough to fill my belly. We sat, eating in companionable silence, the old man not pressing me to talk.

My mind, finally clear for the first time since the attack, drifted back to what I had felt and seen right before I passed out. The sense of something in the air around the crow as it died, and how I had drawn it in like an inhaled breath. Then the notification. The first steps in my Path of Soulstealing. Was this the legacy of my birth? One of my first Paths, that seemed to only progress from killing living, breathing creatures?

The very thought left me feeling queasy, my breakfast roiling in my stomach at the idea of killing animals to progress. I almost succumbed to a fit of pique and relegated the Path of Soulstealing to the side, removing it from my Path list. Only my damnable curiosity saved it. Sure, killing the crow had progressed the Path, but was that the only way to progress it? With a future as an adventurer still the plan, I would likely have to kill beasts and monsters.

So, hopefully there was a way to progress the Path without turning into some sort of psychopath. I decided it could remain. For now.