The healer's house smelled like crushed herbs and hot water.
Lux noticed it before he noticed anything else, as if his mind had latched onto the scent to keep from drowning in everything that had happened. Shelves lined the walls, packed with jars of dried leaves, roots, powders, and pastes. A kettle hissed quietly over a small fire. The air was warm, almost comforting, but Lux could not shake the feeling that comfort here was temporary by nature.
A woman stepped out from a back room, wiping her hands on a cloth.
She was older than Lux expected, hair braided tight and streaked with silver. Her eyes were sharp, not unkind, but too experienced to be easily impressed. She glanced at Kad and Kas first, then at Lasa, then finally at Lux.
Her gaze stopped on the blood.
"Sit," she ordered, pointing to a wooden bench. "And do not drip on my floor more than you already have."
Lux obeyed, lowering himself carefully. His leg trembled as he sat, and the motion sent a fresh spike of pain through his thigh. He clenched his teeth but kept his face still.
The healer moved with quick, practiced steps. She set a bowl of steaming water on a small table, then dropped a bundle of cloth strips beside it. Without asking permission, she grabbed Lux's injured calf and yanked the makeshift bandage loose.
Lux hissed.
The healer clicked her tongue. "You wrapped this like a man who thinks cloth can replace sense."
Lux did not answer.
Kad cleared his throat. "He did it himself. Out there."
"I can see that," the healer said, not looking up. "Hold him still."
Kas stepped closer and placed a firm hand on Lux's shoulder. Lux tensed, instinctively, then forced himself to relax. He did not want to fight. Not here. Not in front of people. Not when he could barely stand.
The healer dipped a cloth in the hot water and pressed it against Lux's calf wound.
Lux sucked in a sharp breath. The heat burned, but it was a clean pain, not the chaotic pain of a blade. The healer scrubbed until the wound looked raw and angry, then poured a thick, dark liquid over it.
Lux jerked. "What is that?"
"Something you can afford because you arrived on Kad's wagon," she said. "It keeps rot away. If you are lucky, you will walk properly in a week. If you are not, you will limp for the rest of your life."
Lux stared at the wound, feeling suddenly light headed.
A week.
In his old life, a week meant meetings and deadlines. Here, a week meant whether your leg stayed attached.
The healer wrapped the calf with clean cloth, tighter than Lux had, and tied it neatly. Then she moved to his thigh, peeling back the leather enough to inspect the cut.
Her eyebrows lifted slightly.
"You were lucky," she said. "If the blade went a finger width deeper, it would have hit something important."
Lux let out a slow breath he had not realized he was holding.
The healer worked quickly. Cleaned. Sealed. Wrapped. Then she moved to his shoulder, where the cloth Lasa had tied was soaked through.
She cut it away and frowned at the slash.
"This one will scar," she said.
Lux almost replied that he did not care, but the truth was he did. Not because he loved his appearance, but because scars were markers. Proof of a life he had never wanted to live, now stamped on his skin.
The healer poured the bitter liquid again. Lux's fingers dug into the edge of the bench.
When she finished, she stepped back and studied him, head tilted.
"You are not from Bracken Vale," she said.
Lux's mouth tightened. "No."
"And you are not a soldier," she continued, eyes narrowed. "You hold a sword like someone who has never held one before."
Lux swallowed.
Kad shifted beside him, uneasy. Lasa hovered near the doorway, clutching her cloak. Kas leaned against the wall, arms crossed, watching everything.
The healer's gaze did not soften. "Yet you killed goblins. Two of them. And Kad says you dropped a brute."
Kad nodded. "I saw it."
Kas grunted agreement.
The healer stared at Lux for a long moment, then made a sound that might have been a sigh.
"Stand," she ordered.
Lux blinked. "What?"
"Stand," she repeated. "Slowly."
Lux braced himself and rose. His leg protested, but it held.
The healer walked around him, studying his posture, the way his weight shifted, the way his shoulders settled despite the wound.
"You should be shaking," she said quietly. "Most men would be."
Lux did not know what to say.
He had been shaking.
On the inside.
The healer stepped closer and grabbed Lux's wrist. Her fingers pressed against his pulse, then moved up his forearm, squeezing muscle as if checking the firmness.
Lux stiffened. "What are you doing?"
"Trying to decide if you are cursed," she said matter of factly.
Kad coughed. "He's not cursed."
The healer glanced at Kad, unimpressed. "You are not the one bleeding."
She released Lux's arm and stared at him again. "Tell me," she said. "When you killed them… what did you feel?"
Silence dropped like a stone.
Lux's throat went dry.
He could lie.
He could say fear, relief, adrenaline.
But her eyes suggested she would know.
Lux hesitated, then spoke carefully. "A surge," he said. "Like… my body got stronger."
Lasa's eyes widened. Kad's jaw tightened slightly. Even Kas's expression shifted, just a fraction.
The healer held Lux's gaze. "How much stronger?"
Lux did not answer immediately, because he did not know how to measure it. He only knew it was real. He only knew it had changed his movements, his balance, his breathing.
"Enough," Lux said finally.
The healer nodded slowly, like she had confirmed something she feared.
"You should not tell that to everyone," she said, voice low. "Not in a village like this."
Lux frowned. "Why?"
"Because people fear what they do not understand," she replied. "And they envy what they want. Both lead to the same thing."
Lux felt a chill in his stomach.
Kad leaned closer. "What do you mean?"
The healer looked at Kad. "Do you remember the stories about the hungry men," she asked.
Kad's face tightened. "Old tales. Mothers scare children with them."
"Old tales survive for a reason," the healer said. "Men who grow too fast. Men who come from nowhere. Men who fight monsters and become monsters."
Lasa swallowed audibly.
Kas scoffed, but his eyes were less confident now. "Fairy stories."
The healer turned her gaze back to Lux. "Are you one of them," she asked quietly.
Lux felt something twist in his chest.
He did not know the answer.
He had been an office worker yesterday. He had been a man who hated boredom and loved routine because it was safe. He had never hurt anyone.
Now his hands remembered the feeling of crushing a goblin's skull against the road. The memory sat in him like a stain that water could not wash away.
Lux looked down at his wrapped wounds, then back at the healer.
"I do not know what I am," Lux said.
The healer studied him for a long moment.
Then she stepped away and reached for a jar on a shelf. "Drink this," she said, pouring a thick herbal mixture into a cup. "It will help you sleep."
Lux took it hesitantly. The smell was bitter and sharp. He drank anyway, swallowing the unpleasant taste.
The healer pointed at the door. "Go," she said. "Kad will take you to the headman. But before you go, listen carefully."
Lux met her eyes.
"If your strength truly grows with killing," she said, "then every fight will tempt you. And every victory will make you more visible. The forest is dangerous, yes. But people can be worse."
Lux's fingers tightened around the empty cup.
"Bracken Vale is small," she continued. "Small places survive by being cautious. That armored man outside, the guard captain, he will not like mysteries."
Lux remembered the way the captain had looked at him, like he was an object that might explode.
Kad shifted his weight. "We will vouch for him."
The healer looked at Kad with something like pity. "You can vouch for his actions," she said. "Not for what he becomes."
Lux felt his pulse quicken.
He set the cup down slowly. "What is the captain's name," Lux asked.
The healer's lips tightened. "Trial," she said. "And he does not forgive easily."
Lux repeated it silently.
Trial.
A name that sounded like a warning.
Kad gestured toward the door. "Come," he said. "Before he gets impatient."
Lux picked up his rusty sword. The weapon felt heavier now, not because his arms were weaker, but because he understood what it represented.
He stepped out of the healer's house into the village square.
The air outside felt colder.
Trial stood near the center, arms crossed, armor catching the light. Several villagers lingered nearby, pretending not to watch while watching anyway.
Trial's eyes locked onto Lux the moment he emerged.
Lux limped forward, trying not to show weakness. His wounds pulled, but he kept moving.
Trial's gaze flicked to Lux's bandages, then to the sword in his hand.
"Lux," Trial said, voice flat. "You will come with me."
Lux stopped a few steps away.
Trial stepped closer until they were face to face. Lux could smell leather oil and steel. Trial's eyes were calm, but his posture carried the certainty of someone who had the right to decide whether Lux belonged here.
"You arrive on a wagon full of survivors," Trial said. "Covered in blood. Armed. With no one in this village knowing where you came from."
Lux held his gaze. "I came from the road."
"That is not an answer," Trial said.
Kad stepped forward. "He saved us," Kad repeated, firmer now.
Trial did not look at Kad. "And that gives him a chance to speak," he said. "Not a right to stay."
Trial leaned in slightly, voice dropping so only Lux could hear.
"There are rules in Bracken Vale," Trial said. "You will tell the truth, or you will leave."
Lux's mouth went dry.
The truth was impossible.
Lux glanced past Trial, toward the village, toward the faces watching him. He saw fear. Curiosity. Suspicion.
And somewhere beneath it, he sensed something worse.
Interest.
Lux realized, in that moment, that surviving goblins might be simpler than surviving people.
He tightened his grip on the sword.
"I will speak," Lux said carefully. "But you will not like what I say."
Trial's eyes narrowed.
"Try me," Trial said.
Kad touched Lux's elbow gently. "The headman's house," he murmured.
Lux nodded once.
Then he followed Trial through the village, limping toward the place where words could decide his fate more than blades ever had.