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Mireia grew alarmed the moment I assumed a posture for spellcasting.
She grabbed my arm, leaning close, and said, “My Lady, you mustn’t.”
“I’m not going to cast Healing.”
“My Lady?” Nurse Eldis inquired.
I pressed my lips together and told her, “She was concerned that I would cast Healing. As you are probably aware, I am a vampire. Unlike most, I happen to be capable of using Healing magic, but it is harmful to my body and my…”
I caught myself just before saying my babies. My pregnancy wasn’t yet public knowledge.
“… health,” I lamely amended to cover myself. “Lady Mireia was concerned that I was about to do so. However…”
I turned toward her and patiently stated, “I was not going to cast a Healing spell. You may rest easy.”
Mireia couldn’t have made it any more clear with her eyes that she didn’t entirely trust me. Am I really that much of a problem child? I know everyone thinks I’m too self-sacrificing, but I do have my babies to worry about.
<You will need quite a lot for this poor soul, My Lady. Fill your pathways with Dark mana first.>
<Fill? I know how to coat my body, when using an element for magic swordsmanship, but what does filling my pathways mean?>
<You have learned the feeling of your Light mana flowing when Mireia was teaching you, My Lady,> Lydia stated. <You merely must keep circulating and drawing without casting the spell until you are at your limit. I will guide you if you have trouble, but you should actually be able to do this easily.>
With her words, I caught a glimpse of the goddess and another woman dressed in extremely old-fashioned Dorian clothing as they taught Lydia in a place I didn’t know. But I also felt a moment of the circulation she meant.
I concentrated upon my channel, summoning the Dark mana into my body which I would need for the spell. I worked at letting it pour through me and continue to travel around, and felt strangely familiar with the process. Did my body remember what my mind did not? I had it coursing through me in no time, in a strangely practiced manner.
<It’s as the goddess said,> Lydia confirmed. <She called it ‘muscle memory’. I do not know the meaning, but it seems to be working.>
“My Lady, what in Heaven are you planning?” Mireia wondered, her confusion very evident.
With a frown, still watching the patient, I scolded, “Hush, I’m concentrating.”
“You have turned… very dark,” she worried.
I could see the back of my hand as I held my fan out, spreading it to face the wounded sergeant. Rather than my usual vampiric complexion, a milky white, I had the appearance of those women who, like Nurse Avel in the first postoperative ward, have inherited the blood of the ancient Dorians who migrated here from the far west.
In other words, my skin was turning deep brown.
“I’ve always considered the women of this color quite beautiful, Mir,” I declared, with a playful quirk of my lips. “Don’t let it bother you.”
Her eyes bugged a little, and her brow creased, but she said nothing further.
<This should be sufficient, My Lady,> Lydia directed. <Now, here is the exact intonation of the spellword. [Regeneration].>
I felt not only the spell casting, but also the magic form that went with it. Which of course, I needed. Simply hearing the word did me no good. As an ‘Elder’, it seemed that I had to feel the spell happening within my Servant’s mind as she spoke the word. But how was Lydia able to show it to me?
<The goddess didn’t explain, and neither do I understand, My Lady. She simply stated that as long as I exist within your body, I can connect to your Servant who possesses this spell, and you should feel it. I will be able to teach you other magic you must learn, by this same method.>
It simultaneously made sense and was a complete mystery. I decided to not mind it and move forward. After a moment to suck up my courage, I summoned the same form I had just felt, while intoning, “[Regeneration]!”
I felt the spell write its form, like a divine cipher, into the Dark mana coursing through my pathways as it redoubled its path again and again. The amazement I had felt had forming my first spell during Captain Sirth’s lesson returned, as I faced the sheer impossibility of the spellcasting that had always been denied me becoming reality.
<Cast the man through the fan onto that unfortunate man’s face, without ending it. Continue to draw more mana to add, until you have reached completion.>
Reached completion? When would that be, Teacher? But I did it, assuming she would tell me.
The Dark mana spread forth from my fan to stream down upon the sergeant’s face.
I saw the first effect, a slight writhing and squirming in his burnt flesh, and then, rather horrifyingly, bits of him began dropping off.
<Do not stop, My Lady!> Lydia warned. <Continue the flow! This is as it should be!>
But I could already feel the magic feedback, and so, I already understood what was happening. The new flesh and skin growing beneath was forcing the burnt tissue and damaged flesh loose from his face. Unlike [Healing], this spell wasn’t following a natural process at all. It was simply drilling into the man to whatever depth it required to find good flesh, even if that flesh were the bone itself, and starting from there to build outward, growing the missing parts of his body anew, casting away the damaged portions.
This looked nothing like [Healing.] It didn’t invigorate the body’s metabolism, accelerating nature’s course to speed the body through its processes. It ignored those processes, opposing nature to cast away what was no longer worthwhile and assemble a replacement for it upon the target. I worried for a moment about where the material was coming from, then realized it was being pulled somehow from the surrounding air and the castoffs.
A memory from one of Mathias’s science lessons came to me. “Almost all mortal flesh is simply air. The gas and vapor composing your breath contains the same building blocks as the material portion of your body.”
Half of my body is mana, so he had to say that unwieldy phrase, ‘the material portion of’ when teaching me. If his student were mortal, I assume he would simply have said, “the same building blocks as your body.”
The spell was gathering some material from elsewhere in the wounded soldier, but most of it was simply air, reforming into flesh. It looked impossible, and yet it was the truth.
Not enough! He still had no nose, nor ears. His eyes were still a mass of horror, that surely hadn’t seen a glimpse of the world since the weapon stuck him.
So this is what she meant by ‘reaching completion’. I clearly hadn’t. I had to suck it in and stay the course, and so I continued. I couldn’t stop until it had all grown as good as new.
“Goddess, what is happening?” Mireia breathed in wonder. Perhaps Rhea would explain it to her. I couldn’t, because I didn’t have the capacity to do anything but concentrate on the spell at that moment.
The knowledge of ‘completion’ turned out to come in the feedback from the spell itself. At last, I felt the magic reach its end, and I allowed the mana flow to stop. The color of the back of my hand returned to a milky white vampiric hue.
When I lowered my fan, the awe I saw in the faces around me was quite embarrassing. But seeing the man’s rugged, strong face, the true face of a veteran sergeant, restored, and witnessing him see through eyes he had lost and touch his fingertips to flesh that had been a horror only minutes ago, made my effort worth it.
I cleared my throat and feigned nonchalance while saying, “I shall look at the next patient now, if it’s alright with you, Nurse. Please prioritize the ones in most immediate danger.”
What expression does a mortal have for the miracle worker upon witnessing a miracle? I suspect I know now. This nurse had surely seen many cases of healers, even healing priestesses like Mireia, doing amazing things, but it seems I had surpassed that.
“Nurse Eldis?” I prompted.
She blinked, then said, “Yes!” and led me to the next burn victim.
Seeing the bandages wrapping the badly burnt mage adventurer who had suffered burns across much of her torso, I apologized to the nurse and asked her to unwrap the patient. She and Mireia began, but Genette almost immediately scolded Mireia and replaced her. Apparently there were limits to what she could watch a young ersatz noblewoman doing.
As I cast the spell, I could hear a commotion growing behind me. Eldis had sent an orderly to fetch a doctor from nearby, and he brought back an entire entourage. I had to just ignore them. This spell required total concentration. I had to rebuild the skin on her arm and down one side of her body, as well as restore much of her breast.
Meanwhile, doctors examined the sergeant while a therapist cast diagnostic strength [Healing] and nurses worked to clean his bed of the nasty aftermath of my magic. It was clear from what I could overhear that nobody had ever seen this particular magic, or any Dark magic form of Healing. There are, in fact, weak imitations of Healing in the Light magic portfolio, just like there is a Light version of Purification. But Dark magic as medicine was unheard of to any of them.
I was not surprised. I had never heard of such a thing, either.
After I had seen the more severe cases, and about half of the rest, Lydia warned, <You mustn’t go much longer, My Lady.>
I had to agree. I could feel my strength flagging. I could also feel the first hints of vampiric hunger, although for some reason it wasn’t coming on as suddenly as it had, the last couple days.
<I seem to be able to manage things for you better now,> Lydia said. <I failed rather dramatically, yesterday. But you should feed soon. I can only do so much, so you need to learn how to manage them yourself. I shall make your next lesson in blood handling.>
This was certainly not the place to nom on Mireia, so we needed to leave. I turned to face the doctors now following along behind me.
“I am reaching the limit of what I can do today, Doctors. I will return tomorrow, provided nothing concerning the duchy comes up to preempt my visit.”
The doctors were barely able to respond. Mostly, they were insistent that they could only pray for such an extraordinary honor, whether tomorrow or whenever, because any assistance from the Lady Heiress was help they could scarcely imagine receiving.
I wanted to disagree with their overblown deference and praise, but I remembered my position and realized I probably had done something pretty extreme for the Lady Heiress, showing up out of the blue to give ordinary medical workers a hand with their work. I simply smiled and curtseyed, and did my best to remind them that these were my precious soldiers whom it was my duty to support.
We returned to the headquarters tent to find they had already moved the triage area. Unfortunately, but as expected, our steam carriage was not in the vacated parking yard.
Colonel Adet was still inside when we entered, and thankfully, he and his staff were clearly functioning at a higher level.
“My Lady!” the colonel declared, coming over to me.
I immediately caught the eye of the lieutenant about to bark ‘attention’ and ordered, “Don’t disturb them. Everyone, remain at ease and continue your work, please.”
The lieutenant’s mouth twisted as I acknowledged his and the colonel’s salutes with a curtsey.
“My Lady Mireia and I have done as much as we can for one day,” I told him. “If possible, we will return tomorrow.”
He gave a businesslike nod and answered, “You have all of our gratitude, Lady Tiana,”
“It seems we need to locate our steam carriage, though.”
“Ah,” he said, then turned to the lieutenant. “Where is that driver?”
“He’s waiting in the map tent, Colonel.”
We were reunited with the driver who had come to tell us where he had parked and found us missing. They had sent him to cool his heels next door. About fifteen minutes later, we were hissing and huffing our way back to the Castle.
It turned out Mireia had been holding back this entire time. As we were sharing a bench in the carriage, she turned towared me after we were on the road with concern in her eyes.
“I remembered, My Lady,” she stated. “Ceria and Chiara told me that you cast a strange spell on the hellspawn instead of Healing. A Dark magic spell that they had never seen you cast before. And none of us have Dark attribute so you didn’t learn it from us. They were certain you had just forced the hellspawn to teach it to you.”
When I didn’t respond, she asked, “My Lady, has your memory returned? Is that how you were able to cast it?”
“No,” I answered. “Or rather, not directly.”
I twisted my mouth, wondering how to explain it to her.
<Have Rhea explain it,> Lydia suggested.
<That’s turning into a crutch.>
<It’s appropriate in this case, I think.>
I sighed. “Mir, ask Rhea about it. She arranged it, and I don’t even know where to start.”
