Collapsing to his knees, Eli closed his eyes against the blinding lights as the growing pain in his chest quickly eclipsed the pounding that had exploded in his head. His body involuntarily curled forward and groaned at the burning fire inside him. Placing his hands where he felt the searing agony, he pushed back with his healing energy, sending the strongest pulse he could muster. As if in response, the crushing and searing force increased as if someone was trying to rip out his core. He fought back, barely hesitating as he imagined pumping up his mana and health regen again, aware that they’d already been running high, but he was desperate to end his suffering. He didn’t bother trying to see what was happening inside his body but focused on trying to breathe through the pain and discomfort. Almost sobbing with relief as the pain lessened, his breathing came under control even as his energy continued to cycle through his body’s tissues and heal his torn system.

He became conscious of a new feeling, a new sense, that tugged at his awareness. There was almost a lightweight feeling in his eyes, and he brought his hands up to explore his face and head but didn’t find any wounds. There was a bit of blood dribbling from his mouth, but he wiped it away and winced at the sharp pain from where he’d bitten the side of his tongue. The pain in his chest was only just subsiding while his headache continued thumping away with the same ache, and he opened his eyes slowly, but the bright light had vanished. Still on his knees, since he didn’t entirely trust his balance, he leaned his head against the side of Wybert’s bed while taking a few deep breaths to calm his racing heart.

“Eli?” Dara said from right next to him as he felt her palm against his back. “What’s wrong? Is there anything I can do?”

Her touch startled him, surprised by the contact after being lost within his world of painful agony. As the waves of throbbing pain continued to recede, he turned to her, trying on a small smile. “Yeah, don’t worry. I got this,” he replied, injecting what confidence he could muster into his words. Her eyes widened as she leaned away at first, but a moment later, a tiny smile of encouragement broke free from the worry and fear, changing her expression to a fragile hope.

He paused, noticing that a new filter had descended over his eyes, adding a new dimension to his vision. There was a light blue glow within Dara’s body now, but it was far more diffuse than the bright little pebble and colored channels he saw with Manasight like she had a fuzzy-colored cloud of mist gathered under her skin. There was a feeling to it that he couldn’t quite grasp, like a half-remembered dream, but he filed that thought away for later.

Sitting back on his heels, Eli looked at Wybert and noticed a similar cloud within his body, only with swirling bits of yellow and purple colors. Looking more closely, he saw a slight edge to the structure as if more defined, forming almost a shell just under the skin. Guessing that he was looking at Wybert’s aura, he studied the two colors that whirled around each other like two competing storms. If the surface area was any indication, purple seemed to be winning as the yellow hue slowly dissolved. There were also strange filaments of the same color purple within the biggest patches that waved in the air almost randomly but didn’t seem to be doing anything else.

He wondered at the colors’ meaning. The yellow almost matched the color of Wybert’s core but was a more golden color, while the purple was a new one for him. Guessing it might be the poison Wybert’s status had mentioned, it still didn’t explain the strange matching tendrils or why the mana in the room acted so strangely.

Following his hunch, he focused on how Wybert’s aura felt, trying to understand how to help with the ongoing battle. He started by pushing some of his energy into the fuzzy shell, the energy following Eli’s intentions as a tiny filament of white color reached out and touched the edge of the aura. The area his power touched darkened like a bruise, and the yellow weakened as the nearby purple energy surged.

He stopped and chewed on a lip, trying to think through the problem. There was a clear goal in his mind, to have only the yellow color left around the shell, but how did he accomplish that? He couldn’t seem to attack it directly without making it worse, so what if he tried attacking through the purple tendrils instead?

Focusing on the purple bits of thickened smoke waving in the air, he saw how they extended out about a meter in every direction, one end attached to the fuzzy shell. They even extended downward, passing through the bed, creating a loose covering of small purple streamers of energy smoke around Wybert’s body. Somehow, they reminded him of mana and how the tiny glowing lights could also pass through solid objects as if they both existed in another dimension.

Deciding on the direct approach again, Eli imagined crushing the purple streamer closest to him by grabbing it near the base but without touching Wybert’s aura shell. At the same time, he concentrated on taking just a small piece of his energy and shaping it into scissors with the purple streamer between the two blades. He couldn’t see the mana blades with his new vision active, so he imagined them with just his thought and will. There was a tiny thump within his chest, and a small flash went off in his eyes just before the purple tendril suddenly shook before dissolving into smoke that dissipated into the air. The base of the purple tendril near the aura disappeared, leaving a hole that quickly filled with yellow energy.

Excited by the reaction, Eli started snipping the purple threads one at a time but was careful not to rush since he still felt like he was stumbling around in the dark here, and Wybert’s life was on the line. Instead, he tried to stick with what had worked and destroyed a few more but had to pause as a wave of exhaustion hit. Catching himself with a hand on the edge of the bed, he took a few deep breaths as the dizziness passed. Frustration rose up, and he almost smacked the bed with anger, knowing he needed more energy but didn’t know how to get it.

A tiny breeze tickled his face, which was strange since he hadn’t seen any open windows earlier. He looked around the room, but nothing had changed. Toggling Manasight, his eyes widened as his mouth went slack. A whirlwind of chaotic multicolored hues swirled into a storm along the ceiling as small bits of energy sparked like lightning. The storm sped up at the center just as a funnel rapidly formed above his head. A rush of vitality, like a shot of adrenaline, pumped into him as the breeze picked up into a wind swirling around the room. He squinted against the dust and debris suddenly filling the room as the storm grew overhead but turned at hearing a moan behind him that barely carried over the racket. Snapping his attention back to the bed, Wybert struggled weakly atop the blood-soaked sheet.

Eli shoved away thoughts of the mysterious storm and brought his new vision back to find that the purple color had progressed somewhat while he’d been distracted. Still, a smile tugged at his lips since he now had a solid plan and the energy to accomplish it. A welling bubble of wonder and happiness almost moved him to tears, realizing that he’d be able to save Wybert, and he couldn’t help imagining what else he could do, who else he could save with this power.

With renewed vigor tempered by cautious deliberation, he continued his efforts and cut away more of the purple corruption. Though brute force wasn’t the most elegant solution, he could only marvel at how his power hunted down and destroyed the purple streamers. As the last tendrils dissolved into smoke, he focused on Wybert’s aura as the yellow color absorbed the last of the purple. In moments, the shell firmed into a solid yellow glow without a hint of the previous invader.

Smiling, Eli toggled Lifesight. Without the purple substance to fight him, it was almost effortless as Wybert’s body responded and his wounds healed. Following his old strategy, waves of energy pulsed through his patient and slowly wove through the injured tissues, just like when he'd healed Dara. Each time the white energy passed, the wounds improved a bit more. He wasn’t sure how long it took, but he fell back onto his ass when finished.

“Wow, dang. That was tough, but Wybert should be okay now.” Eli noticed the deafening silence and looked at everyone standing around, but he couldn’t interpret their expressions as they stared at him. “What? Do I have some schmutz on my face?” he said with a grin.

***

Dara was upset as the group entered her father’s room. She’d been worried about him since her kidnapping, concerned that something would have happened in her absence. After all, if her uncle Duarte would harm her, preposterous as the idea was, what would stop him from going after his brother? It had taken all of her self-control not to run ahead earlier when she’d heard of the attack, but her father’s guards would have stopped even her during a lockdown.

She paused at seeing her father covered in bandages with blood soaking through in a few places. With ashen, sweat-soaked skin, he lay almost still - only the rise and fall as he took in each struggled breath showed that he still lived. His skin looked much older than his previously smooth, healthy skin, with deep wrinkles and an almost grey sallow color. She’d seen him hurt before. He was a warrior, after all, and the Wolf of the North. But this was so different; he was dying and only Eli, with his lopsided grin, stood between her father and death.

As Gifted Slana’s two assistants bowed themselves away from her and Ghlan, Eli’s eyes flashed with the same liquid white light she’d almost grown used to in their travels. For the others in the room, it had to be like seeing a legend step out of the pages of some ancient saga and the two assistants backed up right to the wall. Tanca and Ghlan moved towards the bed, but she gestured quickly, and the two settled down, though their hands didn’t stray far from their house blades.

Eli frowned as his white eyes looked up at the ceiling and around the room, but he didn’t say anything. After a few moments, his dark green eyes reappeared though his frown remained. He stepped up to the bed, placed one hand on her father’s shoulder, and closed his eyes as if concentrating. Minutes passed, and he stood there frozen, almost a statue. He stood there frozen for minutes, almost a statue.

Ghlan shifted toward the end of the bed, and she sent him another warning look promising dire consequences if he interfered, and he simply nodded as if in acknowledgment.

Nodding in return, she looked back to find Eli again looking around with his white eyes before his gaze shifted upwards. Staring at seemingly nothing, he started to look around at the rest of the ceiling as if confused. A moment later, with a deepening frown, he focused on her father again as his white eyes moved back and forth over the various injuries. Beads of sweat sprouted along his forehead, and his frown shifted into a painful wince as he sucked in air through clenched teeth, but his eyes never left her father.

Dara jumped when Eli moaned and collapsed to his knees, barely catching himself on the edge of the bed. She stepped closer to help, but he curled forward and away as if hurt while his hands grasped at his chest. His teeth still clenched, he let out small sounds of pain and gasps of air.

Kneeling next to him, she placed a hand on his back as he breathed through a grimace. There was a palpable heat under her hand like he was suffering from a horrible fever, and she leaned closer in concern. “Eli?” she whispered. “What’s wrong? Is there anything I can do?” He was clearly in pain, yet concern for her father warred with concern for her good friend.

Eli glanced up in surprise, as if only just realizing that she was there. In a flash, his lopsided grin blossomed, though with a hint of some pain around his eyes. “Yeah, don’t worry. I got this,” he said with a nod before looking back at her father.

She almost gasped when Eli’s eyes flared with a new multicolored light as if he’d captured a rainbow in his gaze but then vanished, and his normal eyes reappeared. She nodded as she tried on a smile, stepping back to give Eli space to work his magic. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing – or what she’d already experienced personally over the past week. Grand healing on this level could be found in the capital but rarely anywhere else. Powerful healers were always in demand, and they naturally moved to Galdish for the best wealth and resources.

Eli’s face cleared as he leaned back on his knees, wiped the sweat away, and shook his hands a few times before flexing his fingers. He leaned forward with a firm look and laid his hand on her father’s shoulder, and his body stilled again as his eyes scanned back and forth, seeing something only he could see while minutes passed with no change.

There was a shift in the room as if a window had opened, and she looked around in confusion. In moments, the slight breeze grew into a steady wind and her hair whipped around her head while loose papers on a side table were sucked into the air currents with other dust and debris as if a wind spirit had been birthed within the room. Her father suddenly moaned as a slightly hazy yellow oval surrounded him, continuing to brighten until she had to shut her eyes and turn away from the brightness.

The wind cut off, and the papers slowly settled back to the floor as she turned around to find Eli leaning against the bed, and his deep breaths couldn’t hide his smile while he looked over her father again. Feeling a surge of hope, she watched as he leaned forward again with more energy while his eyes moved across the wounds.

Time passed slowly, and she might have thought Eli a statue if not for his moving eyes and clenched hands shaking on the edge of the bed. Her worry suddenly grew when the shaking moved up his arms until his whole body quivered. She stepped closer to help, but he fell back onto his backside and sat there momentarily as if surprised to find himself on the ground.

“Wow, dang,” Eli said as he took deep breaths and stretched his legs out in front of him. “That was tough, but Wybert should be okay now.” He rubbed his thighs a few times while looking around before his eyes finally settled on Dara. His big goofy grin blossomed even as his eyes seemed to twinkle. “What? Do I have some dirt on my face?”