The older healer patted my arm. "Thank the Everlight for that, child, and your companions for rushing you here so swiftly. But you must rest now." She gave Elfriede a meaningful look. "The patient needs calm."
Elfriede rolled her eyes. "We won't be long." As the healers moved off to tend other patients, she stepped closer to my bedside.
I braced myself for a scolding about the trap or some snide remark, but Elfriede said nothing at first. She simply looked down at me with an unreadable expression. I realized this was the first time I'd ever seen her without her armor or weapons. She was dressed in everyday clothes, smudged with dust and bruised, and almost looked… human.
My gaze drifted to the bandage on her left forearm. A long red stain seeped through—likely a wound from the collapse. "Y-You're hurt," I mumbled.
Elfriede followed my eyes and scoffed. "It's nothing. Focus on yourself." She reached behind her and produced a small leather coin pouch… one that I knew all too well.
My stomach dropped. That was my pouch—my secret hoard of coins I'd guarded so carefully.
Elfriede dangled it by the drawstring and raised an eyebrow. "Looking for this, were you?" she asked coolly.
I realized my hands had been subconsciously patting the bed, searching for my belongings. A flush of panic and anger rushed through me. "Th-that's mine," I stammered. "Please, give it back."
Elfriede's lips curled in a mirthless smile. With deliberate casualness, she loosened the pouch and tipped it. A cascade of gleaming silver coins spilled onto her palm. I counted quickly—ten, twenty… all thirty pieces accounted for.
"Quite the savings," she remarked, almost admiringly. "Thirty silver coins. When exactly did you manage to scrape together this much, hmm?"
I felt heat rising to my face. Two years of degrading labor, of skipped meals, of pocketing every spare copper—laid out in her hand. "It… it doesn't matter. It's mine," I said hoarsely. My heart hammered against my ribs. "I earned that money. I need it—"
Elfriede snapped the pouch shut again and narrowed her eyes. "Need it for what, I wonder?" She sniffed. "Were you planning to buy your freedom, Lucian? Is that it?"
My mouth went dry. I said nothing, but my guilty expression must have given away the truth.
She clicked her tongue and shook her head slowly. "How ungrateful. Skimming off what I paid you, skimping on food and lodging I provided, all to… what, run away from me?" Her tone sharpened with each word. "You should be thanking me on your knees for what I've done for you!"
I saw red. "Th-thanking you?" I sputtered. My hands balled into fists in the sheets. "You're the reason I nearly died! The reason I was cursed and enslaved in the first place! Give me my money, Elfriede—that's my life in that pouch!"