18. Nothing Better Than the Devil You Know (Patreon)

6.

Silvah woke up yet she didn’t remember ever going to sleep. She wasn’t in her bedroom from yesterday either. It was too small for that. Too encapsulating. The tiled, white walls and green curtain surrounding her bed made her first guess an infirmary of sorts. Glancing at her arm told her the same.

She was bandaged.

A painful turn of her neck also told her Haku had hurt more than just her elbow last night.

‘I’m coming in,’ a voice she didn’t recognise said.

The blinds were pulled away to reveal a tall man in a lab coat wearing a turtleneck sweater underneath. The sweater was comprised of two different shades. Dark blue and brown. He wore big, round glasses as well.

More than likely, this was the physician Celine had spoken about.

Lo and behold:

‘You were still unconscious last time I saw you. The name’s Thomas Hanks—Hanks is the last name,’ he said, rolling in a small chair and taking in a seat bedside.

‘I’m the head physician at Meteora College. My job is making sure the students of our campus recover in the best way possible from injuries they sustain during practice at our school.’

Doctor Hanks had left the curtain open, so Silvah could see further into the room. Multiple bookcases were placed against walls, together with detailed drawings of the human skeleton, brain, and other organs. However, bigger, and more detailed than any, was a poster in the middle of a meteorite stuck in the earth.

She wondered what that was about.

‘Thank you for taking care of me. Again,’ she said.

‘You’re welcome. I deal with a more obnoxious person every day, so I’m used to it.’

‘Haku said a similar thing.’

‘Met the entire squad already, have you? That’s record time. A full day faster than what Damien managed.’

The name shot inside her head with a pang, and at once she felt guilty for not having asked after him sooner.

‘How is Damien? He was quite…’

‘Damaged? Yeah. He wasn’t doing too good. Fighting off a second grade sorcerer as established as Koushin took a lot out of him.’

So Koushin was renowned? He wasn’t just a random, formidable guard hired by the auction.

‘But,’ Hanks said, ‘He’s stable now. I told him to sleep it off and take it easy on the training until it’s time for departure.’

‘Damien is taking part in the exam as well?’

‘He is. Enough about others, though. How are you? How are your bound spirits?’

‘I’m well, except for some soreness. My spirits…they’re asleep, I think.’

He nodded as if he already knew the information and solely confirmed it.

‘I fixed you up completely. The bones can still be a little sore, though. You should avoid moving them too much for a few days. Especially since my healing has diminishing returns. Knowing Miles, that probably won’t happen, though.’

She raised herself up, groaning.

‘Is he planning something?’

Should it be related to training her, she would accept it with open arms. If yesterday had taught her anything, it was that she was entirely too weak. Every bit would help.

Hanks opened his mouth to speak, when a shift behind him made him snap his mouth shut.

‘I’ll explain the fun myself, thank you,’ Miles said.

He moved towards them to clap Hanks on the shoulder, but the older man jumped from his seat, hands in the air.

‘All yours, champ.’

Miles smiled. He wriggled his fingers in the air, feigning that he was going to touch Dr. Hanks, before lowering his arm and stepping to the side. When the physician was past him, Miles suddenly rushed forwards. He tried to slap Hanks on his back, but his target nimbly dodged his attack.

‘Nice try,’ Hanks said. ‘Go easy on the kid.’

Then Hanks was out the door.

Miles took the seat of the doctor. He was quiet for a moment. Until he brought out a nail file and started shaping his nails.

‘So,’ Miles said. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Decent,’ Silvah said. ‘I think I’ll be out of bed soon.’

Miles bobbed his chin up and down.

‘Now if you would answer my true question,’ he said.

Silvah closed her eyes and sighed.

‘I’m frustrated.’

‘Just frustrated?’

‘Fuming is more like.’

‘Just fuming?’

Silvah’s eyebrows depressed.

‘I’m angry.’

‘Just—’

Silvah half-launched from the bed.

‘I’m fucking livid okay! What do you want me to say?!’

‘I don’t know. What do you want to say?’

‘What do I want to say?!’ Now she fully stepped out of bed, disregarding her wobbly legs. ‘What do I want to say?! My parents were recently murdered. My sister turned into a goddamned ghost. Somehow, someway, I don’t have any memories of any of it. Then I turn up to some auction and get infected by a—’

She waved her arms in the air, looking for the term.

‘Primordial,’ Miles offered.

‘Infected by a Primordial,’ she finished, ‘Which you could’ve stopped!’

She was standing so close that her spittle must’ve landed on most of his face.

‘And now, some dipshit girl wants to tell me—’

She stomped on the floor, and a jolt of heat shot through her thigh. Silvah stood there, panting, her fists balled so hard her nails dug into her skin. She whirled around. A red cloud had corrupted her vision, and the world blurred as she rotated, searching for something. Anything to simply wreck.

An iron grip hooked onto her shoulder. Miles kept her eyes on him.

‘That right there. That’s what you need.’

He held her there, and Silvah caught her breath for a moment. She turned over her palms and stared at herself in horror. Her insides were literally burning up.

‘What’s happening to me?’ she said.

‘Emotions,’ Miles said. He spoke slow, where he gripped her, a cold penetrated into her skin. ‘Are a sorcerer’s fuel. Calm and peace are associated with cele. You are already a master of those. But Rage and anger. Those will be a newfound well of power for you.’

Silvah remained silent as the heat bled out of her.

‘Take a seat,’ he said.

She did.

A minute of quiet, which allowed her heart rate to cool. Only then did Miles start speaking.

‘First, you are not wrong.’

Silvah slowly looked up, confused.

‘I could have stopped the Primordial from infecting you. I knew where it was from the start.’

Silvah’s eyelids drooped. That burst of emotions had made her tired. Tired enough that she didn’t want to speak, but she bit anyway.

‘Then why didn’t you?’ she asked.

Miles leaned back in his chair.

‘Do you remember what I said about Haku yesterday?’

Silvah thought for a moment.

‘That she is depressing to be around?’

‘The other thing.’

‘That she is gloo—’

‘The last thing I said!’

Oh.

‘You said she was selfish.’

He snapped his fingers.

‘Exactly. We live in a world of sorcerers, Silvah. Which means there’s a straightforward answer for everything that happens. The murder of your parents. The kidnapping of your sister. Your memories. Haku telling you no. Even me not saving you or any of those other people in the auction hall from death.’

‘Because of selfishness?’ Silvah said. She was a little incredulous.

Miles nodded.

‘I did not save those people because Celine thought their deaths would lead us to a brighter future. Haku has refused dozens of candidates for the exam since she does not believe any of them to be worth the prestige of our school, despite them being formidable disciples. Your parents were most likely murdered for the Primordial egg, and the perpetrators took your sister for whichever nefarious reasons.’

He leaned forwards.

‘To be a sorcerer, Silvah, is to be selfish. It’s inherent in the definition. Perhaps it goes even deeper, and this is but human nature.’

‘Do you understand?’

‘Yes. I do. My anger is misplaced.’

What did the world care for what she wanted? It was selfish, just like Miles said.

‘No. Not your anger. You have the privilege to be mad. That’s your selfish right. What you lack, is the will to act on your anger. The support beneath the principle that keeps others from running you over.’

‘So, in short,’ she said, scoffing, ‘I need to stay here and train.’

Silvah fell back down on the bed. She was empty. Not just physically but also emotionally.

Miles’s dark forehead flopped into view.

‘One month.’

She frowned.

‘What about it?’

‘Do everything that I say for the next month, and I promise you that you will go on that exam, dragging Haku by her uncombed bed hair if you need to.’

‘That…’

Sounded completely too loose a contract to be signing. He could make her do anything.

Miles rolled his eyes.

‘I’ll only make this offer once. I’ve got places to be.’

She didn’t believe that for a single second. Yet in the end, there was nothing to think about. There was already an unknown devil inside of her. What was making a deal with one more going to do?

They shook on it.

‘Pleasure doing business with you.’ Miles grinned. ‘Now go to sleep. Meet me outside the school gate tomorrow morning half an hour after the second bell.’

She was going to do exactly that. Her nap would leave her with most of the evening, which she would use to go visit Damien. She had to thank him for saving her life.

It’s with those thoughts that she fell asleep.