The woman was nothing like anyone I had ever seen before. Her striking silver hair was wild, barely held together at the back of her head with a thong of fraying leather while the majority of her frizzy locks were escaping its confines and spilling over her shoulders and down her back. Perhaps it had just been from riding as hard and as fast as possible, but generally anyone about to meet royalty, even as an emergency would take a few moments to right their hair to make a good impression. Her face, though obviously aged was relatively smooth with charcoal smudged around her eyes and what appeared to be various glyphs of suns and moon drawn onto the skin under her eyes with the same charcoal. Quite scandalously, her lips were stained a dark berry color, something so bold and unnatural was quite frowned upon and considered unseemly for proper women. Her clothes further added to her eccentricity as they were all made out of tanned animal hides with not a drop of knit or woven cloth thrown in, she looked like she had just walked straight out of living in a forest conducting mysterious rituals for years.

"This is who you have brought to cure our young lord?" my nursemaid said with a shocked expression. Her eyes kept looking up and down the new healer as if she couldn't quite process exactly what she was seeing. "She looks like a... a..."

"Witch? Crone? Heathen?" the wild woman suggested with a knowing smirk on her lips.

"Any of those will do," the nursemaid snapped, "at least you have the decency to know the image you are projecting." She looked intensely at the doctor, her eyes narrowing to mere slits. "I am putting my trust in you right now that you know what you are doing, but I am going to hold you personally responsible if this... woman... ends up being the lord's demise."

"Now my dear you need not let appearances dictate what you think about someone's skills," the doctor soothed. "I have seen Maeve work miracles and heal people from things that should have by every right been their undoing or leave them crippled for life."

"Miracles," the nurse said with a sharp, sarcastic laugh, "that is not the word for what she has done, I am sure of that, but like I said, I will hold you personally responsible. I will ensure that everyone knows exactly what you have done and what darkness you have brought into this castle."

Maeve shook her head and rolled her eyes, though the smirk never left her lips. "It is no worry, Jon, she is not someone who will ever be able to see past what she has already determined me to be." She turned fully to face the nursemaid. "I prefer to be called a wise woman, though I suppose you will neglect to call me that at all now that I have spoken my preference. I shudder to think all the things you will call me when you think my back is turned, women like you are quick to find all sorts of nasty terms as soon as you think I am out of earshot. It is alright though, perhaps you will remember what I do here today on your deathbed and cry out begging for me to come attend you, to save you, and I will remember."

The nurse raised her hands to her chest like she was about to hold them out to push away an attack and instead, placed them over her collar bones and stepped back to put more distance between herself and the wise woman. Her eyes were wide and focused on the wise woman like she was certain that at any moment the woman might leap to maul her like a rabid dog.

"Now, now, we are getting worked up and that is no good for our young lord." The healer stepped between the two women, then positioned himself so that he completely blocked the wise woman from the nursemaid's view. "I think it is time to refresh the water and perhaps find a brand new cloth. This one has been used for a few hours so it is a bit tainted and we want only pure, fresh cloths for our lord. Please, go fetch one that has never been used at all. If a fresh one is not available go buy one from a weaver or have one woven, only the best will help our lord survive. Remember that a used or tainted cloth will only make him worse, in fact, perhaps it would be best if you called for a priest or priestess to come bless the cloth as well to ensure the upmost purity and goodness."

Looking uncertain and still very alarmed, her eyes swept over to me and gave a short nod of her head. Careful not to turn her back on the wise woman, she backed out of the door slowly like the woman might still pounce upon her and pulled the door closed quickly as soon as she was able.

"Oh Maeve," the healer sighed, "you really should know better than to do things like that, it will only cause the rumors to intensify. I really wish you would let be and try to connect with the common folk instead, your skills would save so many more people if they were willing to call upon you and you did not make so many enemies."

"Perhaps I do not want to work with people with such tiny minds who judge before I have even had a chance to speak. You would not understand, you are not like me, you have not walked my path and do not know the trials and tribulations I have endured at the hands of like minded people. I suppose you have never been seriously threatened with a stake and a bonfire before."

"I know, I know, I understand how people can be, but you also do not help the matter by being so ready for a fight all the time."

"If I was not ready to fight I would have rolled over and died a long, long time ago," she sniffed, crossing her lanky arms in front of her chest.

"This is not what we should be focused on," the healer said tiredly, "we have a patient who needs dire mending and I think your skills are specifically required."

The wise woman huffed, but turned towards me, casting an appraising glance over my weak form. Her eyes studied each part of me slowly and intently, moving slowly up my body from the very tips of my toes to the unruly hairs that were standing up straight on the top of my head. After completing a couple slow sweeps, the corners of her lips turned down into a slight frown as her gaze navigated down towards the core of my body. Wordlessly, she reached down and pressed her hand at the base of my rib cage and gingerly pressed down, moving her hand around slowly as if she was looking for someone. I looked towards the healer, who was standing nearby, with confusion, I honestly did not see how any of my symptoms would point towards anything wrong with any organ in that part of my body, but he gave me a reassuring smile and calming gesture with his hands.

"Things are about to go fuzzy for you," she intoned in a very low, serious voice, "please try your hardest to cling on." Without removing her hand, she turned her head to look back at the healer. "Jon, come hold his hand, give him something to keep him connected to living world."

"What are you going to do?" I asked in alarm. My instinct was to struggle away from her hand on me, though it was pointless trying with being half paralyzed.

"Shhh," she hushed, "it is only to help you. It might be scary for a moment, but there is no way for me to know exactly what to do to help you until I know for sure what is ailing you. I promise it will only be a moment."

Before I could protest any further, the healer had taken a firm grasp on my hand and the wise woman had released a stream of power from her hand directly into my abdomen. The power was nothing like what I had felt before, my aunts had swept their own magic over me regularly while I was training to assess me and while uncomfortable and definitely less than pleasant, it was not as sharp and overwhelming as what was flowing into my body. The wise woman's power felt wild and feral, like it was rampaging through my body with no care about what damage it might be causing. I let out a gurgling cry as the shock of the power in my system drove the air from me and caused every nerve in my body to want to fire at once. My body struggled to curl into a protective ball as my skin itched terribly and it felt like my blood was on fire, even the tiniest, finest hairs on my body were hypersensitive making the world feel overwhelming and terrifying. The garbled voice from the deep void of sleep had resurfaced, it's incoherent whispering sounding like it was muttering it's madness right into both of my ears. Though I could not even begin to interpret what it was trying to tell me, the words still clawed at my mind, making me thrash my head side to side to try to get away from it despite it coming from inside of my own head. The more it spoke, the further down I felt dragged and the uncomfortable and painful sensations from the woman's power flowing through my body began to fade and become distant, unimportant, the only important thing was the voice and what it was fervently trying to tell me. Fading down farther, I could distantly tell that the healer was violently squeezing my hand and shaking it to keep me focused on it, but it was no use, I no longer cared, the living world was none of my concern, I only craved the inky nothingness of the welcoming void. I felt the nothingness open to envelope me in it's embrace, the voice reaching a fevered pace and while it still uncomfortable to listen to, it was becoming something that seemed like I could grow used to.

A sharp smack across the face jolted me back from the brink and I gulped in a huge lungful of air, my lungs aching and burning even worse than the time prior. My whole body began to shake, shivering from fear and the residual aftermath of whatever it was that she had done to my body. I could hear them talking amongst themselves and feel them reposition my body, but I couldn't understand any of it, it was like I was under the water and hearing everything happening above the surface. Not being able to see made it worse and despite feeling it was childish, all I could do was whimper in fear to make my distress known.

"You almost lost him," the healer said in a slightly panicked voice, "he was so far gone."

My awareness was being pulled towards the living again, I was starting to be able to make out basic shapes and colors along with my hearing sharpening again.

"It had to be done," the wise woman said confidently, "I was not going to lose him, he simply had to be so far gone for me to fully assess what is happening with him."

"You should have at least warned me."

"If I had you might have fought me about it and lost precious time we could have to heal him," she countered. "Case in point, this very moment you are worrying about what I did or did not tell you instead of what I have figured out and what we need to do to help."

"What is wrong with me?" I managed to ask in a hush, hoarse whisper. My eyesight was good enough now to search around for her face and look at her, urging for an answer.

She stared into my eyes and leaned down close to me, the scent of juniper and something smokey and herbal wafted over me. The scent seemed counter to her wild appearance, I had expected her to smell dirty and musty. Perhaps I had pre-judged her as well without realizing it.

"It is true that your mother was a Yser?"

"Yes," I answered weakly, my eyes finding themselves studying the symbols below her eye. I had been wrong before in my belief that she had drawn them on with the same dark powder she used around her eyes, up close it was obvious that it was actually a permanent part of her skin. I had heard of such a thing done in distant lands, mostly from books about wild and savage kingdoms, any sort of modification to the body was simply not acceptable in refined, civilized kingdoms.

Maeve made a humming sound through her nose. "I had heard the rumors, though when I had caught a glimpse of her when she would walk the fields I had thought it was all idle rumor, she certainly did not look like a Yser. She looked like any other northern with her wild, red hair, I had thought that perhaps she was just one of my own. Though, now that it is confirmed for me, you certainly do look like that family line, I just never thought my eyes would ever lay upon a male Yser."

"What does my mother's family have to do with what is happening to me?"

"Everything," she said with a slight laugh that told me she thought my question was a touch ridiculous, "there is nothing about what is happening to you that is not directly from being a mistaken member of the Yser line."

Mistaken. She somehow not only knew about my family, but also the dark secret about my existence. My heart fell into my stomach as the reality of what that meant blossomed like a diseased flower in my chest. Aela had not made it up as a sick joke or way to control me, it was true. I was a child who had not meant to be and outside of my mother I had been very unwanted and abhorrent to the rest of the family. My blood was tainted with demonic influence and no amount of scrubbing would rid the filthy feeling that coated me. I could not fathom how this could be my reality, it did not seem fair that I had demonic taint and influence from the very beginning of my conception that I would never be able to escape. My very existence would be offensive to anyone who knew and was the direct reason for my mother's constant suffering.

"I see that has disturbed you," she said with more softness and kindness than she had shown as of yet, "perhaps I spoke too freely and you did not know."

"No, I did," I whispered, "I had just hoped it was not true."

Her lips pursed into a frown and lowered herself gently on the bed next to me, taking my hand in hers. "My dear, I cannot deny that you family has a very colorful and sordid reputation, but often times we find it necessary to find our inner strength to define ourselves on our own terms and not by what anyone else believes about who or what we should be. Sometimes we have to learn to rise above the legacy and failings of our family to forge our own, new path. To help you get better I need you to fight that feeling of woe you feel in the pit of your chest right now, if you hold onto that you are going to be further torn apart from the inside until there's no bit of life in you to clutch on to. I want you to find a glimmer of hope that you can be a new chapter, brighter chapter in the Yser line and firmly grab hold of it while I do what I need to."

"What do you need to do?" I was on one hand relieved that she could do something, but after feeling the terror of what she had done to me just minutes prior, I was terrified of what her methods would be.

"Many things," she said vaguely, "starting with some herbal poultices and tonics. Jon, find me a piece of parchment, I need to list several herbs to have servants fetch as quickly as they can. Can the servants read here?"

"Some of them," I answered, "the older ones are more likely, I think my father was not very adamant about teaching the younger ones."

"Just as well," she grunted, "an older woman is more likely to know what all these herbs look like anyway."

The healer produced a folded sheet of parchment from the pouch tied to his waist and the wise woman reached underneath the collar of her hide top, felt around for a moment, then pulled out a stick of charcoal. She smoothed out the parchment on the side table next to my bed and began to write out her list. My vision was still a bit wobbly and most of the long list I couldn't quite make out, but I could make out a few of the herbs as being parsley, lamb's ear, and rosemary. At the end of the list she popped the charcoal back underneath the collar of her top and reached for the servant bell sitting on the table beside me. She rang the bell violently, waited a few seconds, then rang it violently again to indicate the servant to hurry as quickly as they could. Moments later a scared looking Clara burst into the room, wild eyes relaxing slightly as they fell on me and realized I was not in any immediate distress or worse.

"Girl, take this to someone who can read and knows herbs," Maeve commanded while thrusting the list out towards her to collect. "Make sure it is someone who can collect them immediately and in a hurry, no dawdling or the death of your future king will be squarely on your head. That is not blood that you will be able to easily wash off."

Clara's face paled severely and she took the paper, turned and ran out the door, her frantic footsteps echoing down the hallway away from the room.

"At least someone has a decent head on their shoulders," the wise woman muttered, turning her attention to Jon. "I know magic is not a part of your inclinations, but I am going to need your help setting up for a ritual and it just cannot be helped that you are the one who should assist me. I need someone I can trust and I know will not question me while I work.

"I will do whatever you need me to do," he said, "just point me in the direction of what needs to be done."

"As for you, my young lord, I just need you to find that piece of you that wants to be better than your lineage and focus on it, hold tight to it and let it be what helps lead you through the darkness. Most importantly, no matter what happens, do not listen to the voice."

"What?" Fear gripped my chest, how could she know about that? Surely it was just some hallucination while I was dieing.

"Even if it starts to make sense, do not listen. Look at me, Florin." She placed her hands on either side of my head and forced me to look deep into her amber eyes. "If you listen and follow it, it will be the end of you and it will not be a pretty end. I cannot save you from where it wants to take you."

"Where does it want to take me?"

"A place where only the most damned of souls dwell. A place with darkness so thick it chokes and torture so terrible your very soul will burn. Do. Not. Follow. It." Not entertaining any more conversation or questions on the matter, she abruptly stood from the bed and nodded to the healer. "Let's begin, there is no time to waste."