Page 23 of Never Quite Gone

I didn't respond, but my hands lingered on Alexandros's wound longer than healing required. Every touch felt charged with divine purpose, every breath a prayer to gods I didn't dare name.

“The poison runs deep,” Sofia observed, helping me clean the blackened flesh. “It will take more than ordinary healing to draw it out.”

“Then we shall use extraordinary means,” I replied, reaching for herbs I rarely dared to mix. The combination was dangerous—as likely to kill as cure. But something deeper than medical knowledge guided my hands as I worked, something that whispered of destiny and divine will.

“You risk much,” Sofia warned, though she did not move to stop me. “The gods?—”

“The gods led him here,” I said firmly, crushing the sacred herbs with practiced motions. “To my hands, to my healing. I must believe there is purpose in that.”

Alexandros's fever-bright eyes found mine again as I worked. “There is always purpose,” he whispered, words meant for my ears alone. “In every life, in every meeting. The gods know... even if we forget.”

His words sent shivers down my spine, but I forced my hands to remain steady as I applied the poultice to his wound. “Rest now,” I instructed, trying to sound like the healer I was rather than the man I struggled to be. “Let the medicines do their work.”

As unconsciousness claimed him once more, I found myself offering prayers to gods I hadn't known I believed in—not just for healing, but for understanding. For somewhere in the depths of my healer's soul, I knew Alexandros spoke truth I didn't yet comprehend.

Sofia's hand touched my shoulder lightly. “Some healings transform both healer and patient,” she said softly. “The gods do not grant such gifts without purpose.”

I watched Alexandros's chest rise and fall with each precious breath, knowing my life had shifted like the temple's shadows at midday. Whatever the gods had planned, whatever destiny they had woven, it had begun here—with poisoned wounds and fevered truths, with hands that healed and hearts that recognized what they couldn't possibly know.

Night fell over the temple like a goddess's veil, transforming marble columns into silver shadows. The chaos of battle-wounds and dying men gave way to cricket-song and soft groans. My hands remained steady as I worked, though exhaustion pulled at my limbs like lead weights.

Alexandros lay before me, his fever still raging despite my best efforts. The poison's dark lines had begun to recede, but victory remained uncertain as Athena's favor. I dampened a cloth inspring water blessed by morning prayers, my touch gentle as I pressed it to his burning brow.

His eyes opened slowly, green as the sea at dawn. For a heartbeat that felt eternal, we simply looked at each other. The temple seemed to shrink until nothing existed beyond the space between us, as though Chronos himself had paused time's endless march.

“You saved me,” Alexandros whispered, his voice rough as sand yet carrying the weight of prophecy. His hand moved with deliberate weakness to cover mine where it rested against his forehead. “I dreamed of this—of you. Of your hands bringing me back from darkness.”

My breath caught in my chest like a trapped bird. Every instinct honed by years of healing told me to dismiss his words as fever-dreams. But something deeper—something that felt old as the stones beneath us—recognized truth in his delirious certainty.

Sofia's earlier words echoed in my mind: The gods weave strange threads. Perhaps this was one such thread, pulling taut between us with divine purpose.

“I'm just a healer,” I said softly, though the words rang hollow as an empty amphora. Even as I spoke them, I knew they carried only surface truth.

“No,” Alexandros murmured, his fingers tightening weakly around mine. “You're more. I've known you... before this life began.”

The moon climbed higher, painting the temple in shades of silver and shadow. Other healers offered to take my place, to watch over the fevered warrior while I rested. I refused them all, claiming my hands knew this work best. But the truth burned in my chest like sacred fire—I couldn't bear to leave him.

Alexandros's sleep grew restless as night deepened, his dreams pulling strange words from his lips. “Elias,” he called out suddenly. “I've seen you before. Across battlefields. In dreams where time flows like water.”

My heart stumbled against my ribs as I dipped another cloth in cool water. “You're feverish,” I whispered, pressing it to his foreheadeven as my own skin burned with something that had nothing to do with illness. “The poison speaks through you.”

“No.” His eyes opened again, fever-bright but holding clarity that defied his condition. “The poison stripped away the veil. Now I remember... I remember everything.”

“Be still,” I instructed, trying to sound like the healer I was supposed to be. “Save your strength for healing.”

But his hand found mine again, his touch sending sparks through my flesh like Zeus's lightning. “Some truths are worth spending strength to speak,” he said, each word careful and deliberate despite his weakness. “I knew you would be here. The gods themselves showed me your face in dreams.”

I wanted to argue, to explain away his certainty with rational words about fever and delirium. But deep in my healer's soul, where intuition guided my hands through the most difficult cases, I recognized something I didn't dare name.

“The threads of fate are not for mortals to unravel,” I said finally, echoing priestess-wisdom though my voice shook.

“Yet here we are,” Alexandros replied, his smile carrying shadow of some deeper knowing. “Weaving our own pattern despite the gods' designs.”

The night stretched around us like a sacred offering, broken only by the soft sounds of sleeping patients and the eternal song of crickets. I continued my ministrations—checking his wound, applying fresh poultices, monitoring his breathing—but each touch felt charged with meaning beyond mere healing.

“Tell me you don't feel it too,” he whispered as I changed his bandages. “This connection between us. Like something written in the stars themselves.”

My hands stilled against his skin. Truth hovered between us, demanding acknowledgment. “I feel...” I began, then stopped, uncertain how to voice something that defied mortal explanation.

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