Page 12 of Bound By Blood
Not torchlight. Not lamp flame.
The walls themselves seem to breathe with a soft, blue-green luminescence that pulses like a heartbeat. Bioluminescent moss covers every surface, creating a constellation of living stars that transforms this prison into something approaching wonder. I've read about such phenomena in my mother's journals, descriptions of deep caves where life shines in perpetual darkness.
"Beautiful, isn't it?"
The voice startles me upright, chains clanking against stone. A woman sits just outside my cell, cross-legged on the cavern floor, her weathered hands working steadily at some kind of weaving. She's older than Drokhan, perhaps sixty winters, with silver-streaked hair braided with what look like dried flowersand small bones. Ritual scars decorate her arms in intricate patterns that mirror the moss's natural growth.
"Who are you?"
"Helka. Keeper of the Grove, Tender of Sacred Waters, Voice of the Deep Earth." She doesn't look up from her work of a complex pattern of plant fibers interwoven with metal threads. "Many titles for an old woman who mostly argues with spirits and grows stubborn herbs."
"A priestess."
"Among other things." Now she looks at me, eyes the color of storm clouds heavy with rain. "The Chief asked me to assess you. Determine if you're worth the food we're feeding you."
My throat tightens. "And what have you determined?"
"That depends." She sets aside her weaving and rises with the fluid grace of someone who's spent decades moving through underground spaces. "Can you truly heal, Lady Eirian Thorne? Or are you simply another noble with delusions of purpose?"
Before I can answer, she produces a key from somewhere within her robes and unlocks my cell. The door swings open with surprising silence—well-maintained hinges that speak of regular use.
"Follow me. Quietly."
The corridor beyond glows with the same living light, moss climbing walls carved smooth by generations of careful hands. We pass other cells, most empty, a few containing sleeping figures I can't quite make out in the ethereal radiance. Our footsteps echo softly, a rhythm that seems to match the moss's gentle pulsing.
"Where are we going?"
"To see if your mother's teachings took root or merely decorated the surface."
The passage opens into a vast chamber that takes my breath away. It's a grotto that feels more like a cathedral, with pillarsof living stone supporting a ceiling lost in luminous shadow. Water trickles down the walls in silver threads, pooling in basins carved with symbols I recognize from ancient texts. The air carries scents of medicinal herbs mixed with earth and time and growing things.
"Welcome to the Grove," Helka says. "Where your people's knowledge meets ours, where healing transcends the boundaries your kind insist on drawing."
In the center of the space, a man lies on a raised stone platform. Even from this distance, I can see he's badly injured with bandages stained with blood, skin pale with fever, breathing shallow and labored. Around him, several figures tend to his wounds with a careful precision of genuine skill.
"Gorak," Helka explains, leading me closer. "Drokhan's lieutenant. Took an arrow through the lung during yesterday's raid. Our healers have done what they can, but..."
She doesn't finish the sentence. She doesn't need to. I can see the problem from twenty paces away with the angle of the bandages, the way his chest moves, the particular pallor of internal bleeding slowly drowning him from within.
"Pneumothorax," I murmur, moving closer despite the guards who step forward threateningly. "The lung's collapsed. Without intervention, he'll die within hours."
"Our thoughts exactly." Helka raises a hand, and the guards reluctantly step back. "Question is, can you save him? And if so, will you?"
This isn't just about healing. It's a test of character, of the principles I claim to hold. Save an enemy warrior who might kill more of my people tomorrow, or let him die and prove that human compassion extends only to human suffering.
What would Mother do?
The answer comes without hesitation. She'd save him. Not because he deserved it, not because it would earn her anything,but because healing knows no borders when life holds these threats.
"I need my supplies. And clean water. Boiled if possible."
"Already prepared." Helka gestures to a stone table where my healer's satchel sits beside basins of steaming water. Someone's been planning this moment, testing whether I'd choose principle over prejudice.
I approach Gorak slowly, hands visible, movements deliberate. The Orc healers around him watch with obvious skepticism, but they don't interfere as I examine his injuries. Up close, the damage is even worse than I'd feared. The arrow penetrated at an angle that missed his heart by inches but caused massive trauma to the lung tissue.
"This will require surgery," I tell Helka quietly. "And there's no guarantee he'll survive the procedure."
"But without it, he certainly won't survive the night."
