Page 6 of A Healer's Wrath

“Treatment?” Siena tapped her quill against her parchment. I sighed. “Immediate isolation, an unguent of garlic, aloe, and myrrh. Some suggest a potion of dried toad to draw out toxins and reduce swelling of the organs.”

Finn shifted in his seat, though I wasn’t sure if it was from the question or my ready explanation.

“Are those the only treatments?” Siena pressed.

She was relentless.

“One might try bloodletting, though I believe that to be a waste of time and blood, almost as useless as a posset.”

Siena leaned forward. “You doubt the efficacy of possets?”

I didn’t mean to laugh. It just flew out. “You think spoiled milk and ale helps illness? It is more likely a recipe for an upset stomach and an angry patient.”

Siena made a mark on her parchment—then another on top of the first.

“Was that an ‘X’ on that question?” I was livid.

She nodded. “You failed to mention theriac, which is a commonly accepted antidote to plague or poison. You also left out prayer, which I am sure our divine brothers would find objectionable.”

“Master!” I shouted loud enough to rouse our drowsy leader.

“Wha—what? Where are we? Arteries? Have we finished—”

“Master,” I said, before Siena could spin a tale, “I challenge the last question, as well as a number of others asked while you were, um, indisposed.”

“Challenge? Questions? Dear girl, really?”

I nodded. “Master Rist, I declare an official challenge.”

His bushy brows furrowed as his lips smacked together a few times and blinked away sleep. “Fine, apprentice. Challenge recorded. Read the questions in—well, in question.”

His lack of formality would’ve been funny if I hadn’t been so angry.

Six of Siena’s questions were stricken despite the fact that I answered four correctly.

Two hours later, with over four hundred questions asked, I had missed a grand total of eight, three of which were Siena’s discarded queries.

“Congratulations, Apprentice Irina. I have never had an apprentice advance so quickly.” Rist beamed as he draped a new white smock adorned with two sky blue bars on one sleeve across my shoulders.

As I slid my arms into the garment and smiled up at Rist, Finn and Siena caught my eye from over his shoulder.

Siena sneered, unable to grant me credit for even a brief moment.

Finn didn’t meet my gaze, as his eyes were fixed on his shoes. I wondered at his reaction until I noted the two bars on his sleeves—despite him being three years my senior.

Six months later, when my first full year came to a close, Colin faced the same firing squad I had encountered. I was allowed to observe, though midway through the questions, I dreamed of being anywhere but in that chamber with my flailing friend. As he answered less than half correctly, Master Rist reclaimed the boy’s smock and ushered him to the front where his parents waited.

I leaned against the cold stone of the hallway as Colin pried himself from his mother’s arms and turned back toward me. As our eyes met, he raised his hand to wave, just as he’d done on my first day—though this time, I saw no joy on his face.

That was the last time I saw my friend.

Chapter four

Irina

My thirteenth summer began as my second year in Master Rist’s apprenticeship trudged along. Time did not move differently; it still felt like wading barefoot through a pond of syrup. Each morning, I would meet him in his study, where he would give me a reading assignment. While he and the others tended patients, I studied alone. Every twenty or thirty minutes, Finn or Siena would appear in the doorway with instructions on which exam rooms needed cleaning. Near the end of each day, if the flow of patients allowed, the Master would return to his study and drill me on whatever lesson I was supposed to learn.

The whole thing felt more like self-study with some indentured servitude mixed in than tutelage.

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