Splinter angel book 1, p.28
Splinter Angel: Book 1, page 28
She sat with the last crust of her pastry in hand and focused. Fuck doing math in her head. Ah… she could have reached Level 11, maybe? Something like that. A whole 4 more Levels, taking her past Omda after only a week in this new, crazy world.
Impossible, yet worth thinking about. How far could she go on her own? Maybe a Huntress or a Ranger to back her up and find targets for her?
Rayni had already shown some interest.
Definitely worth thinking about.
As she thought, Ana felt something like a mix of amusement and approval wash over her. The feeling radiated from the Waystone, and she remembered where she was, jerking forward and standing up. Had that “goddess” been listening to her thoughts? Did that count as a prayer to the Wayfarer?
She reached out and touched the thing. “Stay out of my head, would you?” she muttered, though her tone didn’t reflect how offended she felt at the possible intrusion. “I’ll let you know if I have anything I want you to hear.”
In response, Ana got a sense of silent laughter. Guess she’s listening, she thought. By the doors of the temple, the same woman as earlier that day was looking at her with a smile of approval. Ana smiled back. If she knew what Ana had just said to her goddess, she probably wouldn’t look so pleased. But if the goddess didn’t mind, who cared?
Goddess. Ana had been an atheist for most of her life, half out of conviction and half out of spite. And now she was seriously considering that a goddess might be real and might have a personal interest in her.
If it wasn’t for all the other unreal shit around her, she’d be worrying about a brain tumor.
Enough about that. She could worry about what was real and what wasn’t until she gave herself an ulcer, or she could try to do something productive. Without a watch, she didn't know exactly what time it was, but she’d spent enough time off grid to know there were a couple of hours left until sunset.
With no conscious decision, she made her way to Touanne’s. She tried ringing the bell, then entered when she got no answer but found the door unlocked.
“Touanne?” she called, but no one answered. The front was empty, but the door to the back was open and she walked over without stepping through. Going in there without being invited might be too presumptuous, she knew, no matter how friendly the Healer was.
“Touanne, it’s Ana. The door was open,” she called again, waiting for an answer.
She was starting to think that Touanne must have stepped out, and was turning to leave, when she heard an odd choking sound from the back.
“Touanne! Are you okay?” Ana called, but again there was no answer. Just that weird, shuddering, choking sound.
There was no way that she was letting that go. Touanne was important. She was important to the community that Ana was trying to become a part of, and she has made herself important to Ana as a confidante, a source of information and, she could admit to herself, of kindness and comfort.
She liked Touanne, and Touanne was in distress. That was unacceptable.
“I’m coming back there!” she warned, and sped through the door. She checked the laboratory. Empty. Then she went to the small room where they’d left Jancia. The Lumimancer was where they’d left her, in a bed by a window, sleeping peacefully by the look of it.
Touanne was sitting in a corner on the floor with her legs hugged to her chest, looking at Ana with utter despair.
“I’m sorry,” Touanne choked out, a heaving sob shaking her, and a sense of helplessness rolled off her, strong enough that it made Ana stagger back a step and lean against the doorframe.
“I… I didn’t want to be a burden,” the Healer managed. “I’m sorry.”
There was no threat. No one was hurt in a way that Ana could help with. There were just two women, one sick, injured and recovering — hopefully — and the other paralyzed by her own sense of impotence. And Ana didn’t know what to do.
She took a step toward Touanne. It was hard, that first step. The pain coming off the Healer was something that Ana could feel, a cloying thickness in the air that made her want to stop, back up, leave the room, flee the clinic entirely. She was sure now that she had indeed felt Touanne's pain when they had first brought the Healer to see Jancia outside the walls. And while that and the grief that Ana had felt from Tellak in the baths had been unpleasant, this was something else entirely.
It made sense, a detached part of Ana knew. Tellak was some kind of melee fighter, she was sure of that, so she wouldn’t have put as much into increasing her Connection as Touanne. Touanne was a Healer, first and foremost. She had some skill with alchemy, and Ana assumed that she needed some level of Acuity and Dexterity for that, and perhaps other Attributes as well, but Connection was more important than anything. That, more than anything, let Touanne help others, and she was nothing if not a helper.
Ana took another careful step, doing her best to ignore Touannes anguish, and the Healer shook her head. “Don’t,” Touanne pleaded. “I can’t control it. I can see that it’s hurting you and—”
“And it’s killing you to hurt me,” Ana finished for her, coming closer. She knew Touanne well enough to know that. “I can take it. This is nothing.”
It wasn't entirely true. It was fucking awful. She hated the hopelessness, and had to constantly remind herself that it was Touanne’s pain, that it was something she was aware of, not something that she was feeling. But she could take it. She had survived far worse.
“Please,” Touanne whispered as Ana knelt beside her, but she didn’t resist when Ana stuck one arm under her knees, the other around her waist and unceremoniously picked her up, Touanne’s arms almost reflexively going around Ana’s neck.
Being around Jancia didn’t help, Ana was sure of that. It didn’t help Jancia, and it certainly didn’t help Touanne. But Touanne was a martyr by nature, and there was no way that she’d abandon her patient. So, the first step, Ana decided, was simple.
She carried Touanne into the front room and deposited her in one of the two chairs by the table. Or rather, she tried to. She let go of Touanne, but it took a long minute before Touanne let go of her. The Healer’s arms stayed where they were as she silently wept into Ana’s tunic, until she took a few long, shuddering breaths and let go.
“I’m sorry,” Touanne whispered again, as Ana brought the other chair around and sat down facing her.
“Don’t apologize,” Ana said. “It’s not your fault that you can’t help that woman, or that my Connection is high enough for you to affect me. I could've left. Anything I feel now is on me.”
“No!” Touanne insisted. “I should be able to control myself! I’m not some untrained child. I’ve had a Connection above 20 for over a decade. I shouldn't be…” she waved her hand helplessly. “And now I’m wasting your time, making you listen to me whine.”
“Again, I can leave whenever I want. So talk!” Ana tried to be firm but kind. “What’s wrong? Did something happen? I know that it’s about Jancia but you were nowhere near this bad when we left you.”
Touanne bit her lips, looking away. She looked so very fragile, like the slightest shock, the wrong word, could break her.
“Someone came by,” Touanne squeaked out. “Tellak.”
Ana went completely flat. Tellak looked like a physically powerful woman. A fighter.
“Did she hurt you?” Ana asked, and her voice was a promise of barely restrained violence.
Touanne's head whipped around, her hair swirling into her face before bouncing back. “No! No, nothing like that!” she said, grabbing Ana’s hands like she wanted to forcibly keep her from leaving to do something terrible. “She’s my friend. Her and Jancia and… and Medecilia.”
Ah, Ana thought. The missing member.
“She was… not well,” Touanne went on, wiping at the fresh tears that ran from her eyes. “Med… Telly had to burn her. That’s how it is. Seven years together. Resetting and getting their Classes together. And— and then she came here. And Jancia is alive but…”
Touanne shuddered, and a fresh wave of despair rolled off her. “She left, Ana. She was so broken, and she left. And I couldn’t help her. I couldn't leave. I can’t help Jay, and I can't help Telly, and I’m so fucking useless.”
“You’re not useless,” Ana snapped, and Touanne looked at her, surprised at her tone. “I’ve been here all of a week and even I know that. You healed my ribs the first time we met, and asked nothing for it. You fixed up my hands after Tor made me work them raw. And the last few days I’ve seen your potions save three lives, one of them my own. Don’t you dare call yourself useless!”
“I couldn't help them!” Touanne cried, her eyes willing Ana to understand.
“No,” Ana said, a little more gently. “You couldn't. But you can't save everyone. This can't be the first time. How old are you, Touanne? Thirty, forty? Fifty? I’m sorry, but I honestly can’t tell. This can’t be the first time that you failed.”
“It’s not,” Touanne said, slumping in her chair.
“Do you always blame yourself?”
“Who else is there to blame? If I can’t help, what good am I?”
“Again, you’ve saved at least three lives in the few days that I’ve known you. You weren't there, but it’s thanks to you that Messy, Petra, and I are alive. Your failures are nothing compared to the good you’ve done. Even Jancia — no, shut up and listen!” Ana said as Touanne began to protest. “She’s alive, isn’t she? She looked peaceful, from what I saw. Your magic didn’t do anything, but did your potions?”
“She’s… the wounds are gone, yes. She’s recovering. But the crystals are still there, coming out of her skin. I can feel them inside her, too, invading her. On her heart, her lungs, her arteries… and in her brain. And there’s nothing I can do.”
“There’s nothing you can do now. She’s alive. You have time.” Ana smiled wryly. “Where there's life, there’s hope, right?”
Touanne sniffed. “Yes. Maybe. I guess. But Telly—”
“We left Tellak with Petra. She came to the baths while we were there. I won’t lie, she looked rough. But Petra seems to think that she knows what she’s doing.” After a pause, Ana added, “If you want, I can ask her to come here. I think the two of you should talk.”
“I… yes. That would be good,” Touanne said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “And it would be good for Jay if Telly’s here when she wakes up. They’ll need each other.”
“I’ll go find her, then. Can you promise me to stay out of Jancia’s room unless absolutely necessary?”
“... fine. Yes.”
“Alright.” Ana hesitated, then gave Touanne an awkward hug across the table. That was what you were supposed to do when someone was an emotional mess, right?
Ana had guessed right — the elfin woman returned the hug fiercely. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Ana said as she carefully freed herself, and went to find Touanne’s grieving friend.
Chapter twenty-eight
Ana checked the baths first, but the attendants told her that Petra had left with Tellak some time ago. At Petra’s, Mikkel told her that, yes, the two were there, but that they were in the kitchen and “No, please, Miss, you can’t—!”
Ana easily pushed past the kid. He was taller and heavier than her, but that didn’t mean much. In the kitchen, she was met by a wall of heat and the smell of stew bubbling in a huge cauldron, ready hours before the dinner rush. At a small table, Tellak sat with a bowl in front of her, eating mechanically as Petra kept a close eye on her.
“Kaira?” Petra asked, not taking her eyes off the woman in front of her.
“Ana,” Ana corrected her.
“Great. I’ve got two people taking liberties with my privacy,” Petra sighed with no heat in her voice. “What do you need?”
“I was hoping to bring Tellak back to Touanne.”
Tellak’s spoon paused halfway to her mouth, a few drops of liquid spilling back into the bowl before she resumed eating.
“Touanne needs to talk to you, Tellak,” Ana said. “She’s a mess.”
The spoon paused, and resumed.
“Jancia will need you when she wakes.”
The spoon clattered into the bowl, stew spattering the table and the front of Tellak’s shirt.
“You know that she will.”
Tellak looked at Ana, and the woman radiated shame and pain. “How can you expect me to look her in the eye?” she asked hoarsely. “How can you possibly ask that of me?”
“She’ll want you there when she wakes up.”
“She’ll hate me. I failed them. Don’t you see? Jay is crippled. Med is dead. They’ve been friends since childhood, and I let her die. Jay will never forgive me.”
“Alright. Don’t see her. Do you consider Touanne your friend?”
That callous remark was clearly not something Tellak had expected. “Touanne?” she said. “We’re— she’s… yes. We’re friends.”
After only a few weeks, Ana thought. Touanne had been here only a few weeks, but clearly she had that effect on people. “Well, she needs to talk to you. She’s falling apart because of how badly you’re hurting and blames herself. You need to talk to her. Please don’t make me drag you there.”
Forgetting her self-recrimination for a moment, Tellak’s eyebrows beetled in confusion. “You’re Level 6, and you have a social Class,” she stated. Her tone made it clear that she was explaining why something could never happen. The possibility was exactly zero. It was a logical impossibility, something forbidden by the laws of physics and magic, and any attempt would be, quite frankly, sad.
Petra, still sitting across from Tellak, had a look that said that she wasn’t so sure that the laws of probability, physics, and magic applied to Ana, but that she also really didn’t want to see that tested in her kitchen.
“Yeah,” Ana said. “And someone important to me is eating herself alive, partially over you, so I’ll drag you down there bodily if I have to. All 6 Levels of me. You can be miserable together until you talk it out and get over yourselves. Now finish your damn stew. It’s too good to waste.”
“Mikkel made it,” Petra said softly, her tone telling Ana everything she needed to know.
“Well, you shouldn’t waste food. Finish it anyway.”
Too confused and tired to argue, Tallak finished her stew.
Five minutes later, Ana led Tellak through the square, heading for Touanne’s. There was a picket line around the Waystone again, and they had to skirt it. Another delivery from… wherever the crates and barrels came from. “I’m sorry about your friend,” she said. “Touanne told me that you’ve been together for a long time.”
“Seven years,” Tellak said flatly. “Delving for a little over two.”
“Want to talk about what happened?”
“No.”
“Alright.” That was fine with Ana. As long as she’d come along, and helped Touanne let go of some of her unearned guilt, Ana didn’t care what Tellak did or didn’t share with her. She still asked, “Why do you blame yourself?”
“I’m the frontliner,” Tellak said, as if that was all Ana needed to know.
“Did you go down?”
“No.”
“Did you run?”
Tellak’s nostrils flared, and Ana felt a wave of what she could only describe as restrained anger, so tightly bound that it was barely there. Then it was gone, and Tellak said, simply, “No.”
“Did you fuck up and let whatever it was get past you?”
Tellak snapped, loud enough to turn heads as they passed. “There were several of them! Sapients, all of them, revenants and something I couldn’t even Inspect. Some of them had those same damn crystals in their skin as Jay does. Looked human. Too many. I couldn’t block them all off, and they got around me. And Med, she…” The big woman clamped down on something like a hiccup and sniffed once. “She drew them off. One of them got to Jay, a crystal cut through her armor and scratched her, and she was… wild, screaming, took off with half a dozen of the things chasing her. And Med drew them off her while I was tied down, to let her get away.”
They’d stopped at the southern edge of the square. Ana watched silently as Tellak’s jaw clenched, over and over again. “When I found Med, she— they’d— it took a while to… gather her. I could only stay until the pyre was burning. Barely time for a prayer.”
“So she died to save her friend? How is that your fault?”
Tellak shook her head. “It should have been me. I’m the frontliner.”
Those were the last words she spoke until they reached Touanne’s.
Touanne didn’t answer the door. Ana found her sitting on the floor outside of Jancia’s room, her head in her arms. She’d done as Ana had asked, barely, by staying out, but from her red-rimmed, puffy eyes and the stains on her blouse, it was clear that she’d been crying again.
“Come on.” Ana squatted in front of the Healer, offering her a hand. “Tellak’s here, in the front room. Come talk to her.”
“Tellak?” Touanne blinked at Ana, but her confusion cleared quickly and she took Ana’s proffered hand. “Right. Yes. Thank you.”
Tellak was sitting in one of the two chairs in the front room, looking apprehensively at the door to the back.
“Hello again, Telly,” Touanne said as Ana guided her into the other chair. “Thanks for coming.”
“Hi, Touanne. I’m sorry about earlier. For the way I left.”
Ana looked at the two. “Alright. I’m going back to Petra’s. You two, talk. You both need it.”
With that, and both women’s eyes on her, Ana left.
Right. Now what?
She really needed to talk to Messy, the sooner the better. No point in putting it off, so she started making her way back to the square. Not that she knew where Messy lived, or where the jeweler’s where she worked was, but she knew which way the woman had gone and she could probably ask around. Messy’s boss was named Ravi, Remy, something like that…
