The Healer and Her God

Chapter 9 The Healer's Solitude

The sanctuary was quiet that night. Too quiet.

The sound of the world outside—the rustling wind through temple trees, the drip of water from stone basins—usually soothed Eria’s heart. Tonight, it only sharpened the silence she carried within. She sat cross-legged on the woven mat at the center of her chamber, hands resting lightly on her knees, the faint glow of her healing fire pulsing beneath her skin. It should have been comforting, but the warmth burned strangely tonight, as though her own gift were restless.

She closed her eyes, attempting the old mantra of balance, but Kaelen’s voice kept threading through her thoughts. His laugh, low and unguarded when he forgot himself. The way his eyes lingered too long when he believed she wasn’t looking. The almost-touch of his hand when he passed her the cup at dinner.

Her lips parted, breath uneven. “I swore… I swore I would not falter.”

The candle flames wavered as though the room itself questioned her promise.

Eria rose abruptly, pacing. Her tails, never hidden even in human form, flicked and curled with agitation. The gold-tipped fur shimmered faintly in the lantern light, betraying every tremor of her restraint. No matter how tightly she wrapped her healer’s robes around herself, no matter how often she whispered vows of duty, her body remembered Kaelen’s nearness.

Her ears twitched at the faint creak of temple wood, and she froze, pulse quickening. The night guard? A servant? Or him?

The door did not open. No one came. Still, she felt the weight of his presence. Always—always—like a shadow stitched to her soul. The god-king was not here, yet she could sense him in the marrow of her bones, in the restless hum beneath her skin.

Eria pressed her palms to her face. “This is madness,” she whispered, her voice hoarse. “He is not mine to want.”

But even as the words left her, the memory of his hand brushing hers in the corridor burned hotter than fire.

She turned sharply toward the altar. The carved stone fox at its center, ancient guardian of her line, gazed back with eyes that seemed to glimmer in the candlelight. Eria bowed her head, kneeling before it. “Guide me,” she prayed, voice trembling. “Tell me how to hold to my oath when my soul… when my body betrays me.”

Silence.

Or perhaps not silence—perhaps only her own heart, thundering so loudly she could not hear anything else.

A sudden breeze slipped through the latticed window, scattering the candles’ flames into wild flutters. Her tails stilled. Her ears tilted forward. Somewhere in the darkness beyond the walls, she swore she heard his voice murmur her name.

She gripped the stone lip of the altar, nails biting into it. She should ignore it. She should. Yet when she finally laid down to rest, pulling the thin blanket over her trembling form, her lips shaped a confession meant for no one but the night itself:

“Kaelen.”

The sound of his name on her tongue undid the fragile barrier she had built, and sleep came slowly, tangled with forbidden longing.