Green flames formed a circle that wrapped around the top of Sigmund’s skull. The flames sunk into the man’s skin, forming a circlet that was impossible to remove.

Sigmund bowed his head in submission as he knelt in front of me. His body was still leaking flames as his many injuries slowly began to close.

My own body screamed in pain as blood poured from the slash across my chest. The new injury aggravated the internal injuries that had been troubling me recently, causing my breaths to come out as ragged hisses. I maneuvered my flames to stop the worst of the bleeding but it would take days before I could completely heal an injury like this unless I was willing to use my final trump card. Unwilling to give up any of my increase in strength, I decided to simply put up with the pain for now and let the injury heal slowly.

I looked down at the kneeling form of Sigmund with irritation and grit my teeth. “This circlet of flames is my assurance that you will keep your word. Should you ever attempt to break free of my control again, it will destroy your brain and I will make sure it never recovers. You will become nothing more than a mindless zombie. All of your memories and all of your skill will be lost forever.”

“Yes, my lady,” Sigmund replied before standing up with the sound of metal bones popping back into place, “You have nothing to worry about from me. I am a man of my word. I will serve you faithfully without fighting your control.”

I nodded in satisfaction. “In return, except for killing or injuring someone, you are free to act as you wish so long as it does not interfere with one of my commands. If you wish to fight or teach, you may do so. Your main duty is to keep my family safe. So long as it does not endanger them, do as you please.”

“Thank you, my lady,” Sigmund said with a formal salute before moving off to the side.

As soon as I stepped away, my mom ran up to me in a panic. “Wren, are you alright? That cut looks deep. We need to get you treated as soon as possible.”

“I am fine mom,” I protested as she began to check my injury with great concern, “My talent can heal injuries quickly. There will not even be a scar in a few days. See, it has already stopped bleeding.”

“Still, I would feel better if we had your injures treated properly.”

“I can help with that,” Charly said as he ran over, “I know what to do.”

“No stitches, they will only slow down my talent’s healing,” I said with a relenting sigh. I knew I would not be able to get away from their concern now, nor did I really want to.

“Of course not,” Chary replied as he examined the wound, “Actually, there is something I want to test if you will let me. After reading the books in Svend’s library, I think I might be able to create a glyph that can close wounds and treat afflictions. It is something I have been working on for a while but I have not had an opportunity to test it yet.”

“You want to use me to experiment?” I asked with a grimace.

“Absolutely not,” my mom said firmly.

“Please, mom, I know what I am doing. I have studied all the theories. It will work. Plus, with Wren’s ability to heal herself, if something did go wrong it would not be too big of a problem… I think.”

My mom immediately went into overprotective mode as she prepared to chastise Charly. However, my response turned her fiery gaze in my direction.

“I agree,” I replied. A grin started to form as an idea popped into my head. “However, in exchange, you have to help me experiment with one of my talents.”

“You two cannot be serious,” My mom growled, “What if something goes wrong?”

“It is ok, Mom. Like Charly said I can fix any mistakes with my self-healing and I will only use my talent on Charly to create a positive effect, as I did for the soldiers in the blood mist.”

My mom bit her lip, hesitating for a few seconds before relenting with a sigh. “Fine, but you must both be careful. If anything seems wrong, stop immediately. Understand?”

“We will,” I replied with an affirmative nod.

“I need to go get a few things. I will meet you inside,” Charly said as he ran off excitedly.

I nodded and left Sigmund outside to lick his wounds as I walked towards the inside of Dragon’s Nest, stopping for only a moment to drag Donte inside with me. “You are coming too. The remnant’s ability to observe everything inside might catch something we miss.”

“Wait, you are not going to experiment on me too, are you?” Donte protested.

“Obviously, I am.”

“You said you would never use that power on me!”

“I said I would not use it on you without telling you first. Not that I wouldn’t do it,” I replied as I pulled on Donte’s arm, dragging him through the door.

“I don’t remember that!” Donte cried out.

“Too bad,” I replied with a grin, “This is punishment.”

“Punishment for what?”

“I don’t know but I bet if I ask Mare, she will tell me all sorts of things you have done.”

Donte paled and the walls of the grand hall began pulsing faster. It did not take much imagination to know that Mare was laughing and I started to wonder if there really was something I should ask Mare about.

I led Donte into one of the side training rooms. A few minutes later, Charly returned with an armful of supplies, including a bottle of red ink and a brush.

Still feeling the pain from my new injury, we decided to let Charly try his healing glyph first. At Charly’s insistence, I grabbed a towel to cover my chest and removed my shirt so that he could examine the deep laceration stretching from the top of my shoulder all the way down to the bottom of my ribs.

Using a clean cloth, Charly carefully cleaned and disinfected the wound. The disinfectant alcohol stung but the pain was not any worse than what my body had felt for days now. I was able to get through the entire process without making a sound. All the while, I was impressed by the skill Charly displayed.

It was clear that Charly had been taking his practice seriously. I knew he had treated many soldiers ever since we started our journey and even had an opportunity to learn under a professional army medic but up until now, I had not realized just how much Charly had improved. Though he was still a little hesitant compared to many of the medics I had seen throughout my lifetime, each of Charly’s movements was precise and not any worse than any of those so-called professionals.

After the cut was cleaned and disinfected, Charly opened the bottle of red ink. A smell similar to copper filled the room and I did not have to guess what that ink might have been made from.

Charly dipped a small brush into the ink as he looked at me. “I need you to be perfectly still for this next part. If the glyph is not perfect, it could cause… complications.”

Realizing that Charly wanted to draw the glyph directly onto my skin, I began to hesitate. “This is not going to dissolve my skin or something like that when the glyph is activated, right?”

“It… shouldn’t,” Charly replied hesitantly, "The books I read detailed a similar process. I am only tweeking it a bit."

I grit my teeth and closed my eyes. “Just do it,” I said, completely prepared to activate my lifesaving technique the moment something went wrong.

The ink felt cold against my bare skin and the small brush tickled as it drew a complicated pattern that only Charly understood. I had learned much about glyphs recently but I still understood nothing of what Charly was drawing. However, the glyph Charly drew reminded me much more of the ones Irene used than the glyphs I had learned.

After several minutes of trying not to laugh at the light touch of the ink brush, the glyph was complete. Charly re-examined his work several times before nodding in satisfaction.

“Alright, I am going to start. Are you ready?” Charly asked as he placed his hand on the glyph.

I nodded silently and held my breath in anticipation. There was a brief moment of pause before I felt a shock of electricity follow the pattern painted onto my skin. The glyph lit up with a brilliant orange light.

Immediately, pain tore through my body, worse than any I had ever felt, worse than the pain I had felt when I was sick, worse than I had felt when I was tortured in one of my previous lives. It was an agony that ripped at my nerves. As if my skin was being flayed from my body.

A blood-curdling scream rang through the small training room. It took a moment for my mind to recognize that it was my own voice.

“Charly, make it stop! You are hurting her!” Donte screamed.

“I… I’m trying,” Charly replied in a panic.

I could not hear what the boys were saying as I writhed on the floor in anguish. Instinctually, I reached out towards the green flames in my body and activated my innate talent. Flames began to fill the room, forcing both Charly and Donte back as a brilliant green wing of fire sprouted from my left shoulder blade. However, no feathers shattered. There was no injury to heal, only pain.

Several seconds felt like an eternity, but the pain did begin to fade. My voice hoarse from the screaming and my breathing ragged, I fell silent.

“Wren, are… are you ok?” Charly asked as he hesitantly stepped forward.

Without replying, I reached out and slapped Charly as hard as I could. Unfortunately, with my body still weak from the tremors of agony, it was more like a light pat than a slap.

I glared at Charly angrily as I tried to calm my breathing and calm the spasming muscles across my body.

“Charly,” I said slowly with a hoarse voice, “Is your glyph designed to treat just cuts or all maladies?”

“Umm, well, I designed it to treat anything afflicting the body negatively,” Charly squeaked as he stepped back in fear at my furious gaze, “Was that bad?”

Not saying a word, I balled my hand into a fist and threw a punch at Charly. Regrettably, I was still too weak and tripped mid-punch, tumbling back to the ground without even being able to touch Charly. Too exhausted to get back up, I rolled over. Looking down I saw the large cut was completely gone. Not even a scar remained, so Charly’s experiment was not a complete failure.

I sighed and closed my eyes, wanting nothing more than to sleep right now. “Charly, my body is still afflicted with the disease that nearly killed me. My flames can heal any damage done faster than it is created, but it is still there, in each and every cell. Your stupid glyph tried to purge that disease. By extension, it tried to kill me. If it had not run out of energy, it would have succeeded.”

Charly paled as he knelt beside me. “I am so sorry Wren. I did not even think about that. It had been so long since you had shown any symptoms, I thought you were cured.”

“It is not your fault Charly. I agreed to the experiment. I will be fine. Just give me a few minutes to rest.”

Charly nodded and I took a few deep breaths. With my eyes closed, I began to cycle the green flames through my body and checked for any other damage.

Surprisingly, Charly’s glyph had done more good than I expected. It was not worth the agony I had experienced, but much of the damage done when I jumped into the half-formed portal to fight Irene was actually mended. It did not fix the underlying problems, but I would be able to move and train my body again without the constant pain I had felt for the past week or so. At least I had not suffered all that for nothing.

My eyes shot open as I looked at Charly and Donte against the far wall, waiting patiently for me. I gave the two a wicked grin as I forced myself off the floor. “You two better get ready, because now it is my turn to do an ‘experiment’.”

Donte raised his hands in protest. “Wait, Wren, I was not the one that messed up!”

“Too late,” I replied as the flame in my right eye activated.