Kiao was never squeamish. Not even as a little girl, and certainly not when she was introduced to the infirmary. The only things that really bothered her were infected wounds. It was more of the smell than how it looked.

She hoped to keep the number of them down that day. Brother Jaron told her that disaster breed sickness. And she would have paid a lot of coin to have him there. As head of the infirmary staff, he could easily organize patients while she saw to him. In fact, he himself had been a traveling healer and had dealt with disaster. She knew giant excursions weren’t the same as a whirlwind, but from his description, they could compare in destruction. And he probably didn’t think something so monumental would happen. However, he knew she could handle it. And handle it alone, if she had to. Xylia wasn’t steady at all.

The girl was like when one of the older priest volunteer for the infirmary. Except they thought it was easy until a band came in that was attacked by a pack of drass beasts and then they would never be seen again after the site of a gapping wound. That was what Kiao expected for Xylia to do. She stood stiffly at her side as Kiao treated the woman with the head injury.

“It’s okay, they’ll find you’re baby,” said Kiao and she hummed while she worked and inserting in the phrase of peace. Kiao could calm a single person down. If she could, she would’ve directed it at Xylia as well. If was one of her stronger phrases, she could direct it at more than one person. The woman’s sobbing died down. Her trembling stopped and Kiao changed phrases to that of healing and examined her head internal. There her skull was intact, no concussion or hematoma. Just a surface wound and Kiao healed that in time to see a man come in carrying a boy.

“Your monk to me to ask you if you needed help, Priestess,” he asked as he deposited the child at her feet.

Kiao was surprised that Soletus would give her a individual who didn’t have a scratch on him. However, he was very pale skinned and bright eyed, as if he had seen something. She could use some muscle, so she pointed to the hearth in the chapel. “I need that lit as well as fresh water, a kettle, a bowl, hot water.”

The man nodded and hurried out.

Xylia gulped by her side and stared at the boy. His blonde hair was hidden by a layer of what Kiao took as muck. He smelled like he had been dunked in manure. He clearly wasn’t one of the children from the schoolhouse.

“Xylia, go to the cart and get my bag, staff, and antiseptic,” she instructed.

She nodded and apeeared relieved to be sent away. Kiao knew this would be rough for someone like her. She wasn’t of age yet. In fact, she was still in that stage of life where she had very little shape to her other than long limbs as most young elves. She was eager to go on their trip even though she almost wasn’t allowed to go. Briar didn’t want her, but her parents insisted they take her to make sure if she could handle being away from home. She wanted to go to High Perch to be with the Sisterhood over the huntresses. Laurel talked Briar into letting her stay for recruitment purposes. She wanted her to stay part of the huntress instead of leaving to become a shieldsister. And she would prove to be a good huntress. She was eager and tried her hardest to be impressive. In fact, she was trying a little too hard doing things that she had no idea what she was doing and causing issues. Briar was ready to beat her and Soletus was the one who had a talk with her before the other huntresses beat her. She could’ve been mistaken for a cherry after he was done talking to her. She had an overt fancy of Soletus and nothing was more embarrassing than getting the attention of someone you liked in the worse possible way.

The man returned with two buckets of water arriving and then he worked on lighting the hearth with a few blocks of peat. Kiao worked on cleaning up the boy as best as she could until Xylia came back and she told her to do it because a line of children from the school house. Soletus came in with a woman protesting in his arms.

“I’m fine, just let me help look after my children,” said what Kiao figure was their teacher.

“She’s not fine,” said Soletus. “Her ankle got scratched up when we pulled her out.”

Kiao looked at her bloodied foot. There appeared to be a splinter in it.

“Just drop her off here,” said Kiao, pointing to the bench closest to her.

Soletus placed her down, and she shooed him away as she started wiping her eyes.

“I didn’t know what to do with the children, so I thought we put them here until a parent and family can claim them,” he told her.

“I can watch them,” said the teacher. “I teach these children most of the day. Keeping an eye on them a little longer is no problem, warden.”

Kiao just nodded to the determined woman. “I will just relax,” she soothed and said to Soletus. “How bad is it?”

“Bad. There are a lot of people missing and a bunch that have been already found–“ he paused and looked at all the children. They all looked at him with large eyes. They appeared to be beyond shaken up. The oldest four were clutching the younger ones and watching very intently. “It’s not good. However, all these brave little ones are fine. Just some scratches. Their teacher kept them safe.”

The woman then started crying. She said something. Kiao couldn’t understand her, but she was certain that the moment hit her.

Kiao gathered her up and hugged her. “It’s okay, you’re safe.”

The children then joined and held their teacher as well.

Soletus rubbed his eyes. “I’ll see if some blankets can be found for them. But it might be a bit,” he said. He gave the children a reassuring smile. They all looked at him thanking him wordlessly.

For someone who wasn’t designed to desire to have children, he was soft towards them. Mien often told her when they visited a town on patrol, children wanted to talk to him and Soletus. Boys liked him because he was strong looking and he took the time to speak to them. The girls like him because he never treated them like pests. He taught them equally.

The children there were the highlight of the day. They were easy to get through. Most of them didn’t have a scratch on them. And they were rather curious of her. They never met a chanter and they and their teacher had questions for her as she examined them. The most injured of them all had a long gash going down their arm because of where they had to be pulled out of the cellar. It gave Kiao some hope. She was a healer, lover of life. While death was part of life, but she rather see someone get well and love than watch them fade away.

As time went by, more and more people were brought in heavily injuried. She had the children go to the side and side around the hearth so they wouldn’t see them. The chapel in all became just a place for shelter, especially the despondent. The worse where the ones where their homes were destroyed along with their families. Sometimes kin or a neighbor would come in and claim them to be taken to another home with them. In fact, once all the children were talken, there was a handful left she took home with her as he house survived. Others just sat along the walls as the benches in the chapel were used place people who needed care or who were treated. One side of the room was for the treated, the other was for those who hadn’t.

Then everyone come running inside when the wind picked up and the thunder shook the walls of the chapel. It turned dark and rained more but no swirling mass of death and destruction joined the shower. Then the huntresses came back from searching the field where they found some elves badly off. Broken bones throughout their body, one was plucked from a tree with a broken back. She had worst of the injuries taken to the back of the chapel. The building was designed just like the one at home. Only there was just a room for a priest conjoined with a living area. It was open with a table that Kiao used to treat patients.

The wisewoman who worked for the town finally arrived and bustled into the back.

“You’ve a lot of minor injuries resting out there,” she said. She was young than the wisewoman she knew, Edithlyn. She was old enough to be her grandmother. No, the woman before her was middle-aged, haggard, covered in dirt and blood.

“I’ve seen them and they are bandaged if they needed it,” said Kiao. She showed Xylia how to do it.

“You should be healing them,” said the woman.

Kiao worked on the person’s arm in front of her and shook her head. “If I heal every minor wound, I’m going to burn out before I heal the severely wounded,” she said and then chanted the phrase of peace to the woman on her table. She could keep her calm, though she couldn’t ease the pain of her mangled arm or her broken ribs.

The wisewoman looked at the woman’s arm. “So you’re going to waste your time on healing wounds like that arm. It’s crushed.”

Kiao wiped her brow with her wrist to clear the sweat and he hair from her face. “I know. her bones are in splinters. I’ve looked. Do you have a bone saw,” said Kiao, looking across the table. Xylia in the corner face washed of all color.

“Do you know how to use one,” she returned.

Kiao leaned on the table and said firmly, as if she were talking to a stubborn first warden. “Look, I’ve amputated before. I’ve seen wounds that I can stick my hand through, limbs ripped off, flesh melting from caustic drass beast venom. And none of those I could heal on my own. I don’t have help here. So, for her to live, her arm needs to go.”

The woman’s brow rose. “What’s you name?”

“Kiao, Sister Kiao if you wish,” she said. “Now about that bone saw?”

The wise woman smiled. “You sound just like a warden. I’m Remora. I’ll get you the saw. And I’ll see how much I can help you.”

That wasn’t the only limb Kiao and Remora had to remove. They removed a leg and hand. She didn’t have much choice. If she had Alder there, the two of them could have put those elves back together. However, she was alone and slowly starting to use too much of herself. She could sustain heal but even that had its limits. The person with the broken back took the longest because mending vertebra and nerves was tedious. It didn’t help that Xylia, in the thick of it had vanished. Kiao didn’t know when she had left. She called her to bring her some clean water so she could wash the blood on her hands, but she wasn’t in the corner anymore. Kiao didn’t have time to find her.

Mayor Hawke was one of the last found alive. Kiao tucked her in a corner and told anyone who wanted to speak to her to wait. She only had a head injury, and a broken collar bone. After that, there was just the dead. Most were pulled from the remains of their homes. Kiao stepped out the breath at one point and just saw bloodied bundles and bodies laid in a row in the streets. Most were adults, older youths, and small children not of school age. Most of them were in their homes at the time when the storm hit. There wasn’t much of a warning as the storm rolled in so fast and not everyone in the town had a cellar. She stepped back into the warm chapel when the child of death got to her and she mended those who she could still.

It was well into the night when she stopped healing. There would be more to do in the morning. Where some wounds couldn’t be completely closed and she would tend to the next day. She was tired. She walked out into the night air with her staff in her hand. It felt heavy. She blew on the light stone, sat on the very top of the staff and it bathed the area in a touch of daylight. Mien imbued the light stone that she sat in the setting on the top of her staff. The other two sockets was a stone imbue with the phrase of healing she made just in case she had a lot of healing to perform. She was tempted to use it that day, but hadn’t. And the last was another one of Mien’s stones. He imbued it with the phrase of protection. It was a one to time use stone. It was enough to protect her if something should happen.

A chill with through her. It was due to the cool night air and also the great deal of death around her that did it. Dead bodies would never stop bothering her, it seemed. She rubbed her tingling hands together. They only felt that way from she touched people and healing them again and again. All she closed her eyes and rubbed her face. All she could see in her mind’s eye was blood viens, bone, and sinew. In her mind’s ear, she heard the roaring of the wind. She thought she could even feel the ground under her trembling.

“Kiao.”

She snapped her head up to see Soletus standing below her. His brow was tugged together in concern. “Do you need to sit,” he asked.

“No, I need food and sleep. Not necessarily in that order,” she told him.

“You need to wash up for that,” he said. “You’re covered in blood.”

Kiao looked down. She didn’t have a smock on, and the dress designed by her mother was indeed covered in blood. She couldn’t tell. The top part of the dress was red. The yellow sleeves had blood on it. Her girdle did as well. She didn’t look long enough at the skirt to see because the world tilted a little. She steadied herself. Another chill, stronger than the first, coursed through her and she started shivering uncontrollably. She wrapped her arms around herself.

Soletus then dropped what he had been carrying around her shoulders.

“Your cloak,” he said. “I assumed you would sleep in the chapel.”

“How thoughtful of you,” she said with a weak smile. “No, it’s full of the injured and the homeless. They need a space to lay their head down more than me. Besides Remora, the town’s wisewoman shooed me out. Said my skin was looking like the color of cream.”

He stepped back to get a good look at her. “She was being generous,” he said, taking her by the hand. His hold felt like a summer day while her hand felt as if it was out in the winter’s chill. “The huntress’s sat up the cart, someplace for you to wash off, and prepared food.”

He led her off towards the road, away from the bodies and the dark homes. When they arrived at the cart, there was a fire, and the canvas they used for privacy hanging from a curved rod attached from the corner of the corner of the cart.

Briar greeting her. “There you are Ko-ko,” she said. “You look awful. But lucky for you, we had foresight and constructed the bathing area.”

She took her hand and let her behind the canvas. There was a basin of water sat up on a small square table with soap. Her sleeping robe and gown were folded on a shelf under it.

“We got this ready for you. We’ll guard against the nosy.”

Kiao bobbed her head and stripped out of her clothing and looked around her in the dark for prying eyes. Not that they could see her completely in the shadows. She left her staff with Briar and used her own phrase of light. She had dim starlights. She wasn’t sure what the constellation they arranged themselves in. She just saw a cluster of three little stars, twinkling weakly. It was enough for her to see her skin, and that was it.

Bathing out in the open as they had wasn’t something she enjoyed. It was the hardest thing she had to deal with on the road. She liked her privacy, as bathing with others made her self-conscious. It was part to do with her time hiding her gender from an order full of men and the other half was due to a particular physical abnormality. It wasn’t a discussion she wanted to have. So she didn’t bath with the huntresses and they never said anything what many would wrongly call prissiness.

She washed, rinsed, and dried off as quickly as she could as it was breezy out there with the and occasional frigid gust. When she walked around the canvas, she found the huntresses all in various states of downtrodden. Xylia looked up at her, then looked away to the flames. Soletus was sitting beside her, speaking to all of them.

“I know it’ll be hard to sleep tonight, but I want you to try,” he said.

Laurel then said. “Easy for you to say. Your use to this.”

Soletus shook his head. “I’ve never seen half a town scrapped from existence. ”

She drew her legs to her chest. “But you knew something was going to happen.”

“I didn’t know anything was going to happen,” he said. “I just felt restless. It’s happened before.”

Kiao then settled down on the other side of him. “Sometimes I wonder, if you were born a chanter, what kind of chanter you would be.”

Soletus shrugged. “I don’t think gut feelings equate to being an insight chanter like Lionel. He probably would’ve saw what was coming.”

Then Xylia spoke in a small voice. “Have you seen a whirlwind before?”

Soletus nodded. “Once in my former band, it was small. I saw a bigger one while in my current band. Papa was on edge. He had our band keep an eye on it in case it changed direction and also above our head because he said another one could pawn nearby. That storm was different. It was gorgeous and terrifying. The clouds were a blueish green. The whirlwind itself was smooth looking and pulled dust in the air. Not what we saw.”

“Why was your pa so worried,” asked Eione.

“A band was sucked up in one.”

Everyone fell silent, and the wind gusted up. The huntresses looked out into the dark. Kiao looked up at the sky. She was greeted by the twinkle of stars.

Helene leaned forward to speak around her sister. “You aren’t unsettled now are you?”

“Not like this morning,” he said, and then added at length. “Something else is bothering me, not the weather.”

That didn’t relax the young woman. She looked at Briar. The young woman looked annoyed. She plucked a clump of dirt from the ground and tossed it at him.

It hit him in the chest.

He looked down dirt spot it left. “Yes child?”

“Can you be less reassuring?”

Soletus glared at her and the sat his attention to the fire feeding it another peat brick. “It’s nothing to be worried about tonight. Maybe in the morning, rest will give everyone, including me, perspective.”

Kiao touched his arm. She couldn’t tell if he was alright or not. He pulled his arm away from her.

“I’m fine,” he assured her. “I’m tired is all.”

Kiao didn’t have her bond partner’s ability to sense when Soletus was lying. He was more than just tired. She was certain it was less of him trying to be tough but more of him trying to not let the death around him bother him. He already had suffered from his own bout of survivor’s guilt from the death of his cousin. Though he displayed a great deal of mental fortitude to be rattled by what he saw. He wasn’t clingy, neither all that irritable at Briar always inspired some exasperation from him. He would also stop eating. Then she realized she hadn’t seen him eat, or anyone else for that matter.

“Have you’ve eaten,” she said to him and then to them all. “Have you all eaten anything?”

The huntresses all looked at each other. The twins shrugged.

“They nibbled on something,” assured Soletus. “Don’t worry about us. I’m worried about you. You’re far too pale and I held snow in my hands that were warmer than you. We don’t need a chanter suffering from burnout.”

Kiao could still heal, though she had reached that point where it no longer would be safe. Her stomach felt hollow again despite her finishing the meal she was given.

“Healing too much is minor compared to the mass of dead bodies around. And that wind,” she said and, as if to remind them of its presence, it lashed at everyone again.

“We should huddle together. It’s going to be cold,” remarked Laurel, pulling her cloak around here.

“Yes, we need to get to sleep. Especially you, Xylia,” said Soletus.

Her eyes went wind. She was still unsettled from what she saw.

“Nothing terrifying. I just need you to go to one of the order’s outposts. It’s about a day and a half ride from here to the west. I want to send a message home about what happened here. This town needs aid.”

Xylia nodded.

“Also, I want you to stay there,” he told her. “We will catch up sooner or later.”

That didn’t surprise Kiao. Briar snapped her attention to him. “Excuse me,” she said.

She was supposed to be the one in charge of the huntresses. Soletus, as a second warden, had the most field experience. He let her do whatever for the most part and would step in if he felt if he needed to.

“Yes Lady Gyrfalcon,” he said.

“I see no reason to send Xylia. You can go since you are familiar with its location,” stated Briar.

“There is also no reason for her to be here,” he said, firming up his voice.

Kiao knew that tone. That was his “don’t question, just listen to me” tone. Something he had when he was younger and now had seemed to perfect under his father’s wing. However, Briar being Briar didn’t seem to heed it.

“Just because we aren’t wardens doesn’t mean you can just shoo one of my girls away because you think she’s weak.”

“If I thought that, then all of you would be heading to that outpost,” he returned. “She doesn’t need to be here and I don’t force people to be where they don’t want to be!”

Xylia then said in a small voice and told Briar. “I’ll go. I don’t mind.”

“See, she’s told you,” he said. “Besides, I can’t go because I was ordered not to leave Kiao’s side. She is my assignment.”

“Duty bound fool,” muttered Briar.

Soletus frowned. “Look Briar, this situation is difficult enough and there are very few things I’m willing to debt right now. This is one of them. She goes, that’s my order.”

Kiao pursed her lips at that finality.

Soletus in many ways was that tod she got to know. In many ways he wasn’t. Those turbulent years were being to wear off. Someone a bit more polished started to come out of that rough skin. Someone who wasn’t afraid to be a leader and make hard decisions. Including making a friend unhappy.

Kiao stepped in. “Briar, he’s right. It would be better if Xylia wasn’t here. This isn’t a situation where we need–“ she stopped herself and tried to think of a word that was kinder than people who weren’t useless. “She not experienced enough,” she decided.

“None of us are. Why are we suddenly not good enough for you either,” she snapped.

“I’m not saying that,” said Kiao. “This has nothing to do with being good enough. It’s capability.”

Xylia then spoke again. “I mean, I’m not incapable of staying here. I just…” she trailed off.

“So are you willing to be by my side tomorrow to help check patients or are you going to slip off again with things get ugly,” said Kiao.

The girl’s face became red.

“Kiao,” clapped out Soletus. She shot him a sharp look, and he returned it.

“We get it. You need someone capable with you. I’ll help you. Briar, you and the huntresses will help whomever you can. No more searching for bodies. I doubt more will be found and I rather the locals handle figuring out who is left.”

“You sure everyone has been found? There was that first woman and her baby that was missing,” asked Kiao.

“I found a bundle not far from the house that woman clawed out from,” said Laurel. “When I found her, she looked like she was sleeping…”

Then the group became morose again.

Kiao looked at the fames before her and started humming and then she started singing in symbol. It was a hymn. She could never remember the words to it. However, she knew how it sounded. It was a funeral song. It was the one that Brother Hickory choose for Brother Oliver’s funeral. It was a very old song. Born long ago and not mournful at all. It was the celebration of a life. He sang it then, because he said he didn’t want to be sad over his death. She sang it then, because she didn’t want everyone around her to be sad.