Incense hung thick in the air, my bedroom having been converted to some dark and mysterious ritual chamber over the past hour or so. It seemed almost counter productive to me as the heady, cloying sent of exotic woods and herbs created a warm, comforting environment and it was difficult to resist the urge to close my eyes and lounge for even the briefest of moments. The wise woman had come prepared with a knapsack full of all sorts of candles, incense, scented oils, and various bits of decoration that she was hanging in carefully chosen spots all around my room, including carved wooden symbols that I could not even begin to recognize. Standing on her tiptoes, careful not to lose her balance and topple over on top of me, she hung two recently harvested boughs of pine on the wall directly above my head, their scent clean and fresh, cutting through the smokey, heady scents already filling the room.

"That should do," she murmured, slowly turning around the room to check the placement of all the items, "now the girl and Jon just need to return and we will be ready. Hopefully she in particular took to heart my insistence that time is of the essence."

"When she does return, what will happen?" I asked. I considered if it was perhaps better to not know ahead of time, sometimes the dread of a situation occurring was worse than actually going through it, but the anxiety of the unknown was too much, my mind wanted to fabricate all sorts of terrible things that might befall me.

She gave me an appraising look, as if she was not sure how much she should divulge ahead of time. "First I will make a simple poultice to place on your abdomen, then I will brew a potion for you to drink, and once you do we will begin a ritual to heal your wounds. If all goes right, you will then get a good, restful night of sleep and be much back to yourself by morning."

I gave her a wan, half-smile, it was glaringly obvious that she was leaving out much in an effort not to scare me. However the fact that she felt the need to shield me from what was going to happen scared me most of all. Now I wanted to know everything so that I could steady myself and prepare for the worst.

"I should have figured that a Yser would not be satisfied with a glazed over answer," she said with a light laugh. "Do you truly want to know? I think it might be somewhat better for you to simply be healed then move on and forget this happened. The less you know, the less worry you will have."

"No, I think now that I know there is something to worry about, I will worry all the more for not knowing," I replied.

She gave a nod as if she expected the answer and sat on the edge of the bed next to me, placing a hand back on the spot where she had injected her magic into me earlier. "Your awakened magical abilities reside in a place within you that defies any physical reality, but the unknowable potential coalesces about here and here is where the creature of the void claws to drag you down."

The hairs on my entire body stood on end and my stomach felt sick. "Creature of the void?"

"It has attached itself to you, called to you by the dark influence of your blood and your suffering. At least I assume you have suffered a great deal recently, that is what most often calls these kinds of dark, vile creatures. It would have caught onto your scent very strongly at the first hint of your anguish, their kind adores to revel in dark bloodlines."

"By suffering, do you mean the beatings at the hand of my aunt?" I had not known great suffering before their arrival.

"Has that been the greatest suffering of your life?"

"Yes, very much so," I answered, "but my aunt told me that it was my fate. That I was blessed by the divine to follow the path of the martyr, that to unlock my true power suffering must be experienced and endured. She insisted that the divine would shower blessing upon me for accepting my path and that only good would light my way after the process was complete and I would no longer know suffering. She also told me to minimize telling people what was happening to me if questioned about it, that sharing my suffering with anyone would only stray me from the true path of the martyr."

The wise woman let out a shrill chuckle and rolled her eyes, crossing her arms across her chest. While she looked amused by what I had been told, there was also a worry in her eyes that belied there was a great danger in what I had been exposed to. "I assume this aunt is a Yser from your mother's side?"

"She is, and a cleric in the Great Church."

"Ah, that makes it all a bit more muddled and a bit more clear at the same time," she said with a click of her tongue. "I suppose that someone with demonic blood might be inclined to believe that attracting such a dark entity to enhance power might be an overall positive as long as it is kept at bay, however I find it hard to believe that someone from the Church, especially someone of a high rank, would think it was a very good or pious thing to do. The path of the martyr... it certainly sounds like she likely knew exactly what she was trying to achieve in you and surely she has enough magical prowess at that level to understand the implications. If you were not already aware, I do not think your aunt cares for you much at all, or at best sees you as someone expendable."

I let out a long sigh. "That does not come as a surprise. I was never under the impression that she ever cared what my fate ends up being as long as I serve the purpose she wants me to in the end, I have always had the sense that our familial connection means nothing to her. I think she has always just intended to use me as a puppet for the Church."

"The Church or for herself?" There was a smile tickling at her lips though she was trying to keep a straight face. "That is something that is often very clouded for people with any real power in that particular organization."

"She seems very pious," I offered with a shrug of my shoulders. Why I was defending her on even the lowest of levels was baffling to me, yet I felt a small tug in my chest to do so. Perhaps I still valued her as family even if the same had never been extended to me from her.

"Yes, they all do, do they not? Members of the Church pride themselves on large displays of pageantry of their pious ways, whether those flashy shows of devotion have any truth to them or not... well that is an entirely different thing." She cocked her head to the side and bit her bottom lip slightly like an idea had just dawned into existence in her mind. "I am just now realizing that you have just said that your aunt, a Yser, is a cleric in the Great Church. That is very, very interesting news, I would have never dreamed that anyone in the Church leadership would allow a demon blooded to join their ranks and certainly since it has happened despite that, I find it very peculiar that it has not made the gossip rounds with the peasants. I am in and out of peasant homes all the time and very few of them are tight lipped, I am certain I should have heard about this long ago. Your family is very famously whispered in hushed voices in many different stories and rumors about dark witches in a nearby, but mysterious kingdom."

Taking a moment to think over what I had been taught about in regards to the Church and their beliefs, it suddenly seemed strange to me as well. I had fully accepted that she was a righteous and pious woman in tune with the divine and a model member of the Church because that had been what was presented to me, but by their own teachings both of them should have been seen as abhorrent and unfit to be in any position of power or even spoken to at all. In fact, the Church, if they knew about my bloodline, which I was beginning to suspect they must, should have shunned me from even having a chance at the throne if they truly had a grip on it. They would see me as permanently tainted and should have cast me aside for their own, more pious candidate, so the fact they did not outright made me feel very uneasy. I already figured there was a lot of political movement going on that I was being prevented from having input with, but this felt deeper and darker. Combined with my new knowledge about their tendency to hide things away from each other in ridiculous ways, my eyes were beginning to open in regards to how much I thought I knew and how much had been intentionally kept from me and everyone else.

"I suppose it is a deep secret," she mused, a slight smirk on her lips, "fitting, they have so many other secrets. I am not actually sure why I felt any surprise at all, many people of the Church who hold any power are exactly the type of people to break bread with demons while condemning a peasant woman to an eternity of suffering for having a child out of wedlock. It is about power and appearances, not saving souls or following the path of the light." Her eyes suddenly opened a bit wider and a look of discomfort crossing her features. "I may have let me mouth spill my inner thoughts without thinking, my lord, forgive me if you adhere to the Church and their teachings. I had not stop to consider if perhaps you might find my lack of belief and scathing opinion of them offensive."

I shrugged and inclined my head towards her. "I do not know what I believe, but I do not think I am very inclined to be offended by someone talking negative about them. They have not been a very bright spot in my life as of late."

"Ah, I suppose that is true, I am bad at biting my tongue sometimes, it is easy to get me worked up given certain topics. This has often lead to me fleeing a kingdom or having to talk my way out of a dungeon or worse. Anyway, regardless of my personal feelings on the matter, a member of the Church should never have encouraged you to attract such a creature into yourself, it goes against the very basic tenements of their faith and, quite frankly, should go against any decent person's morals."

"That bad?" I asked with a scared groan. I already knew the answer, I had heard the creature's insane ramblings inside my ears and all but felt it's rancid breath on the back of my neck. Whatever it was, it's intentions were anything but pure.

"Unfortunately so," she admitted. "It is not a demon, something that even a demon would think twice about dealing with. There are things that are not of this world or any world that resembles our own. I have never seen one personally, but I have seen what they do to people, they consume them from the inside, gnawing away at their souls until there is nothing but a fleshy husk that remains. If the person afflicted is lucky they pass away quickly, if not, well, they are little more than an animated corpse, crying out pitifully for their humanity to return to them. Nothing I have ever done has ever helped them besides a merciful knife slid across their throats."

My heart skipped a beat in sheer terror, perhaps the wise woman had been right in her initial assessment that it might be best for me to not know what was happening to me. "You can get rid of it though, right?!" My voice was unusually high pitched with panic strangling my usual calm tones.

"That is what I am going to try to do," she said, placing a soothing hand on mine and giving it a firm, reassuring squeeze. "It seems it has recently broken through, have you heard it speak to you before in your dreams?"

"No, no, not at all," I said, "it didn't happen until I used my power on my own for the first time."

She raised an eyebrow and a smile alighted on her lips. "Ah so the son of Yser has come into discovering what your powers can do. May I ask what they are?" It was a bit comforting that she was so willing to change the subject.

"I am not really sure, I was just learning to expand them and explore them while she was here. Now that she is gone I have been left with the injuries she has caused me on the path of the martyr and there was something about the power inside me that made me realize that I could divert it into my injuries and perhaps help, so I did. I healed my legs and for a bit it was like I was perfectly healthy again."

Realization poured over her features and she gave a firm nod of her head. "Ah so you did not know your own strength. This is a common issue with people first flexing their magical muscles, they often over do the first time they try their power's full extent and injure themselves in the process. Hopefully we can get your legs healed once we are done with the creature in your core, you have probably shredded the muscles with the magic trying to clumsily knit them together."

"This will not be permanent?" I asked hopefully.

"I should hope not, though I will not go so far as make an assured promise, sometimes people do end up destroying their bodies on accident, but you are young and have a good chance of recovering."

Before I could worry too much on the lack of a promise that I would be alright, the door to my bed chamber opened and the healer entered the room wearing the dark green robe the wise woman had sent him off to put on. He was also freshly scrubbed clean, his skin pink from rubbing a cloth vigorously over his arms and face by her request. In his right hand was a large woven basket filled to the brim with various herbs and flowers, something in the basket was so aromatic on its own that its cloying, floral scent was able to pierce through the incense musk clouding the room.

"I found the girl on my way back," he explained, placing the basket on my desk, "I told her to wait at the end of the hallway and shoo away anyone who dares try to come disturb us. She has promised that everything on the list is in the basket."

The wise woman gave my hand one last squeeze then rose to check the basket, pulling out each bundle and inspecting it quickly before setting it aside and moving on to the next. "I will need to find the girl and compliment her on her thoroughness, it looks like everything is here. We are able to begin now and with no time to lose. Jon, are you prepared?"

"Of course."

"This is going to be a complicated process," she said in a very serious voice, "I cannot tell you exactly what is going to happen before it does or the process will be spoiled, but I need you to understand that this is not something to agree to lightly."

"I have always been willing to help you before, Maeve, I trust you."

"If so, then while I prepare the poultice and elixir, I need you to take the jar of honey from my bag and apply a thin layer to your torso under your robe then take these lavender flowers, crush them in your hand, then adhere them to the honey."

The healer looked a little confused by the request, but took the offered bundle of purple flowers and retrieved the jar from the wise woman's bag. "This is one of the stranger starts to a ritual that I have done with you."

"This is only the beginning, I hope you keep remembering just how much you trust me."