Page 94 of Cursed Dreams
“Lie,” Nyla said simply, not looking up from her notes. “You yawn when you’re tired. You don’t chew your quill.”
“You’ve all been watching me too closely,” Thalia grumbled, but there was warmth in her voice. She appreciated their attentiveness, even if it stung to be seen so clearly.
“Well,” Marand said, brushing her ink-stained fingers against her robes, “when someone starts haunting the library like a ghost and barely eats, you start to worry.”
Thalia hesitated, her gaze dropping back to the pages in front of her. The silence hung heavy between them all.
Marand tilted her head. “Maybe you just need a break. Even you can’t study your way out of every problem.”
“Speak for yourself,” Cellen said, flipping a page. “My coping strategy is aggressively annotated notes and inappropriate jokes.”
“Which explains your entire personality,” Nyla added dryly.
Cellen grinned. “And yet, I’m irresistible.”
The group erupted with laughter, and Thalia found herself smiling, really smiling, for the first time in days. The tension coiled in her chest didn’t vanish, but it eased ever so slightly. The warmth of the sun. The voices of her friends. The rustle of wind in the leaves overhead. This was what anchored her, these people, this place, yet here she was, forced to keep them at arm's length. She longed to tell them what was really going on, enlist their help, but how could she even begin to explain it all. This was her burden alone, slowly the familiar loneliness she had been so accustomed to most of her life crept back. Keeping her head down she hoped no one would see the silent tears the rolled down her cheeks.
The scent of poultices and warmed herbs clung to the corridors of the hospital wing. Once Thalia had found it comforting, thesharp clean smells. It had always given her the impression of life, healing and quiet urgency. People were being tended to, soothed, saved. Now she felt numb to it all.
Master Elric stood waiting just inside the ward entrance, his slate-grey robes swept back over one shoulder, his expression as unreadable as ever.
“Ah, good,” he said as Thalia, Cellen, Nyla, and Marand approached. “You’re punctual. Let’s see if you can keep your minds equally sharp today.”
They exchanged looks, each nodding. Thalia straightened her satchel over her shoulder and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. She knew he meant her, her grades had slipped, more and more she was making mistakes.
“This afternoon, we’ll be observing some of our long-term cases,” Elric said as he led them down the hallway. “Some of these patients are stable. Others are not. The key here is consistency and observation. Changes are often subtle. We don’t always need a cure—we need time, wisdom, and enough clarity of mind to know the difference.”
He stopped at the first room, opening the door with a low murmur of permission for them to follow.
The woman inside was lying still beneath thin linens, her skin pallid and faintly glowing with golden specks that pulsed just beneath the surface of her skin.
“Elithen Fever,” Elric explained. “Very rare. Extremely dangerous in its final stage. Miss Veyra here is one of three cases we’ve seen in the last decade.”
Thalia stepped forward, frowning as she studied the faint pulse of light moving beneath the woman’s skin. “Why does the skin glow?”
“A reaction to fae magic,” Marand answered quietly. “Isn’t it?”
“Correct,” Elric said, giving her a brief nod. “This fever consumes the body's connection to magic. In fae, it glows. In humans, it turns their blood dark.”
Cellen grimaced. “That’s… horrifying.”
“It is,” Elric agreed. “And humbling.”
He guided them through the next few patients, each case more complex than the last. A half-fae boy with failing lungs. A human scholar struck speechless by a failed memory-binding spell. A soldier with burns that would not heal, magic tangled too tightly in the scar tissue to allow treatment.
Thalia scribbled notes furiously, her quill scratching against parchment. Every question Elric posed, she turned over in her mind with clinical clarity—it wasn’t just academic anymore. These were lives, people who needed her. As their rounds continued, she began to she alive, too, more than she had in days, as though her focus was finally returning. A cold prickling sensation crawled along the back of her neck. She turned slightly, eyes sweeping the hallway through the open door behind them. No one was there. Nothing out of place, her body tensed, instinct flaring. There it was again. That feeling of a presence. Watching. Waiting. Her chest ached again like a cold blade piercing her.
“Master Elric?” Nyla said, drawing her attention back. “What would you do if the swelling continued causing stress on the other organs?”
Thalia forced her eyes forward again. The boy in question, who looked no older than ten, was pale, but alert, watching them all with wide eyes.
“Elvenstem bark,” she said, voice steady. “Crushed and mixed with warm honey. Applied just below the rib cage. It’ll calm the swelling, reduce the strain.”
Elric turned to her raising a single eyebrow.
“Correct,” he said. “And?”
Thalia swallowed. “If the swelling doesn’t subside, direct magic pressure at the base of the lungs. But only if the patient’s fae magic is cooperative.”
