A Dark and Deadly Beauty

The Healer’s Heart

It was her own reflection in one of the Sanctuary’s many windows that made Jacinde pause.

Her pale hand suspended above the knob of the crimson door, her shoulders squared and serious. The thick, woolen cloak hung around her body like a swath of comfort, and made her shrinking body seem fuller, heartier.

Pink had returned to her cheeks, and her golden cat eyes looked more alert then they had in weeks. Her hair lay in two long plaits down her back, a freshly laundered ivory hair scarf capping her clean locks to protect it from cold and grime. So neat, so wholesome.

She looked like herself…or at least a glimmer of the sparkling Lady Jacinde whose laughter used to echo like silver bells throughout the courtyard and palace. Perhaps she wasn’t sparkling right now, but for the first time since her lover had been hauled away in chains and exiled, she felt vital.

A pang of hunger, and a gurgle from her stomach made Jacinde regret her single, meager mouthful of porridge and the few sips of weak, bitter tea she managed to eat for breakfast. The melancholy that haunted her like a ghost had also stolen her interest in food, leaving her picking bird-sized bites of the blandest offerings from the trays brought to her room by the Guild staff. Jacinde couldn’t remember the last time she felt true hunger, or cravings for any of the decadent meals that were prepared nightly in the Healing Guild’s well-stocked kitchen.

But now, her appetite made an appearance.

Perhaps she could grab some extra bread and honey from the Sanctuary’s cooks and join Colm in his room for breakfast before her rounds. Perhaps she could even join her father for supper this evening, and not worry about his concerned eyes watching her barely fill her spoon and take the tiniest sips of soup.

A small, shallow smile tugged at her lips,but in a moment vanished. A tight coldness bloomed in her chest, shame for what she had done to steal this hour of normalcy robbed her of this brief moment of contentment.

The vellum envelope of henbane seeds she had stolen from the Guild storeroom burned against her skin, a testament to Jacinde’s desperation and weakness.

She had broken one of the sacred vows that she had sworn as a healer. After months of sleeplessness and night terrors, hours using hours spent staring into the darkness alone-she had broken and done the unthinkable, medicating herself with a drug so potent it was only used to sedate a patient for surgery or ease the passing of a dying fay.

Of course,she had tried other remedies first. Hot tea, exercise, reading children’s stories before bed. But still, each night her heart raced with the memory of Thierrus’ cursed sword slicing through Faren, her brain filled with Emilia’s screams as her husband bled out on the floor, and the numb horror in Thierrus’ eyes -eyes Jacinde had stared into only one night before as they made wine-drunk love on the carpet under his desk- as he was led to the dungeons in irons.

The guilt of that day would follow her forever, and no amount of lavender tea or nonsense rhymes about goats would erase it.

So she put the henbane seeds between her teeth and crushed them into a paste, and floated away on a tide of delirium as sleep finally, finally took her.

And here she was, ashamed but rested. With a building full of folk needing her healing hands to mend their broken bodies.

And Colm, the man who she owed her worthless life to, would be waiting for her. His gentle smile and kind eyes would greet her and she would have to pray he couldn’t see into the empty well of her heart.

He was such a tender man, and he stirred at the ashes of Jacinde’s ruined heart until she could almost erase the pain of her sadness for a few blessed moments.

The sweetness in his voice and his sincerity in the way he spoke would fall on her battered soul like rain, and she would have to fight the urge to climb into be beside him and cling to his beautifully scarred body until the world fell away until it was just her and him and nothing.

Maybe in another life,she thought, and shook the idea from her head.

Jacinde didn’t have another life, and there was work to do. Burns to heal and bandages to roll, blisters to drain and poultices to make. So she tucked away thoughts of Colm, and the dread of the coming night where she would once again chew the henbane to bring about sleep, and she opened the door to the Sanctuary to begin her rounds.