Seren's infirmary was an oasis within an oasis. It was a long, well-lit building constructed around the frame of an old, pre-cataclysm bus.
The seats had been removed, and the interior was lined with shelves holding countless jars of dried herbs, roots, and minerals.
Cots lined one wall, a few of them occupied by sleeping or resting patients. The air was filled with the clean, sharp scents of antiseptic poultices and brewing herbal teas. It was a place of order, cleanliness, and quiet purpose.
"Sit," Seren said, gesturing to a stool. She moved with a practiced efficiency, gathering supplies: a bowl of warm water, clean cloths, and a small stone mortar and pestle.
"Jacob, could you fetch some fresh water and a food ration? Our guest looks like he hasn't eaten a real meal in a week."
"On it," Jacob grunted, giving X a nod before disappearing out the door. He seemed relieved to have a simple, practical task to perform.
Seren began to gently clean the scrapes and cuts on X's arms and face. Her touch was light but firm, her movements precise. "Zarok is not a bad man," she said, her voice soft as she worked.
"He is just… protective. He founded The Well after his own community was destroyed by raiders. He saw what happens when you trust too easily. He carries the weight of every life lost that day."
"He thinks I'm a threat," X stated, not as an accusation, but as a simple fact.
"He thinks anything unknown is a potential threat," Seren corrected gently. "It's how he has kept us all alive. But he is also pragmatic.
He listens to reason. And to Jacob." She paused, dabbing a particularly nasty gash on X's forearm. "And he listens to me."
She took a pinch of a dried, silvery leaf and a crumb of a dark, resinous substance and ground them together in her mortar.
She added a few drops of water, creating a thick, fragrant paste. "This will sting a little," she warned, "but it will prevent infection and help the skin to knit."
As she applied the poultice, X felt that same strange, cool energy flow from her hands. It was more focused this time, sinking into the wound, soothing the inflammation, and dulling the pain to a distant throb.
It was not just the herbs; it was her.
"What you do," X said, watching her with fascination. "That feeling… what is it?"
Seren looked up, a faint, shy smile on her lips. "I don't have a proper name for it. The elders call it 'soothing.' I can feel the… the life energy in things. In people, in plants.
When someone is hurt or sick, their energy is chaotic, frayed. I can help to smooth it out, to guide it back to its natural pattern. It helps the body heal itself." She looked down at her hands.
"I was an orphan, raised here in The Well. I discovered I could do it when I was a child, helping the previous healer with the sick. She said it was a gift."
"It feels like magic," X said.
Seren laughed, a light, musical sound. "Jacob, with his history books, would call it 'rudimentary energy manipulation.' I just call it helping." Her expression grew more serious.
"When I touched you at the gate, I felt your energy. It's… immense. And wild, like a storm contained in a bottle. But the blight, the curse… that feels different. It's a cold, parasitic energy. It drains the life from things, twists it into something ugly. You don't have that. Whatever is inside you, it's not the curse."
Her words were a profound relief, lifting a weight X hadn't even been fully aware of carrying. The fear that he was somehow tainted, a vessel for the very sickness he was running from, had been a dark undercurrent to all his other anxieties.
Jacob returned with a wooden bowl of steaming stew and a cup of fresh, clean water.
The smell was incredible. X realized he was ravenously hungry.
"Thank you," X said, taking the bowl with hands that trembled slightly.
X ate in silence for a few minutes, the simple, hearty food a miracle of flavor and substance. Seren finished bandaging the last of the wounds, then sat on a stool opposite him, watching with a gentle, curious expression.
"The pendant," she said softly. "May I see it?"
X hesitated, then nodded, pulling it out from under his shirt. Seren didn't touch it. She simply held her hand a few inches above it. She closed her eyes, her brow furrowed in concentration.
"It's old," she whispered. "So old. The energy in it is… dormant. Like a sleeping volcano. But it's connected to you. It resonates with the energy inside you. It's like… a key, waiting for the right lock." She opened her eyes, a troubled look on her face.
"There is power in it, yes, but also a great sorrow. A deep, ancient anger. It feels like a prison."
A prison. The word resonated with the journal's talk of a king's soul being trapped.
Before X could ask more, the door to the infirmary swung open and Zarok entered, his scarred face set in its usual grim lines.
"He's fed and patched?" he asked, his tone all business.
"He is," Seren confirmed.
"Good." Zarok turned his attention to X.
"Jacob has told me everything. The stele you found, the journal, the fight with the Ripper, the sandstorm, the canyon. He says you have skills. That you can read the old tongue."
X nodded, unsure where this was going.
"We have something here," Zarok said.
"Something we found years ago, in a ruin to the south. No one has been able to make sense of it. Jacob thought it was a dynastic record of some kind, but the symbols are… off. Corrupted."
He stared at X, his single eye intense. "I want you to look at it. If you can read it, if you can give us some new piece of this puzzle, then maybe you can start earning your keep. If not…"
He left the threat unspoken, but it was perfectly clear.
This was a test. A chance to prove his worth, to move from being a liability to an asset. It was the first real opportunity X had been given, and he seized it.
"Show me," X said.