Healing the Broken

As Arjun read through Bahara’s book of memoirs, I gathered the vixa, archet, and a variety of other fruits. If trading my life wasn’t enough for the other children’s then maybe the enchanted fruit would persuade Leer. Arjun had created a new half mask with some black fabric in the cave that had belong to Bahara.
“Where is Leer located,” I asked as Arjun and I mounted two horse that Arjun had captured from the goblins. “So I know what pathway to take to lead us closest there.”
“Neflexon, but. Leers not there, only part of his clan. The ones we need to do trade with.”
I was confused. I was there when Neflexion kingdom had been burned down by Leer. “But it was destroyed.”
“Exactly, Leer built a passage under it.”
That’s why no one could find him or his clan. “How did you know?” I asked, directing my horse in the pathway out of the forest as Arjun followed me.
“I was in formed by my mentor. Only a few people know about its existence. Even prisoners are blind folded when they are taken there.”
“But you’ve told me where it is,” I said as Arjun rode beside me. We exit through the portal out of the forest. The Neflexon kingdom was twenty miles away.
“Well, not many people are willingly to be sold to them. I gave you a chance to be free,” he said, and stared at with genuinely curious and confused. “Why didn’t you take it?”
“I already told you. There are innocent children that were taken that I need to get back. One of them is a part of my family.”
“But I said I would rescue them for you,” he said. “Yet you still want to risk your life.”
“I can’t take any chances. Besides, Leer would have found me sooner or later, anyway. I’ve just been fortunate to avoid being capture until now. And even if you released me, he will just find me again. Now I have a question to ask you. How? How did you end up selling people?”
“I needed to make a living. I didn’t start that way I use to only steal and sell objects, but then my mentor train me to hunt down people. Important people, thieves, bandits, and the list goes on.” He said and stare at me. “I hear everything you’re saying, but people have risked their lives to save your life just for you to throw it away.”
I ignored him and rode my horse, I was tired of his bickering.
He commanded his horse to speed up and blocked my horse from prancing forward.
I sighed. “Arjun, I’m sorry. But you can’t persuade me, I know what I need to do.”
He stared at me sternly. “My mother, she was killed by bandits wasn’t she?”
I remorsefully nodded my head. “They wanted to sell me to Leer, and she helped stop them”
“Then you understand why it’s hard for me to do this. I hated my mom because I thought she abandon me because I was cursed with my illness. I been looking for her so I could confront her only to find out that she died trying to find a way to save me. Now I am a bandit, and doing what she tried to protect you from. Like you said, the vixa didn’t heal me so why did she protect you. Let’s eat, and while, please tell me what you know about her, and then we will continue our journey.”
I nodded my head. He did deserve to hear what happened to his mother.
We both sat on a rock and ate some of the fruit we had gathered. I explained to Arjun how Bahara had turn into a nymph and was trapped to live in the forest forever because she had eaten a forbidden fruit, and if she left the forest she would die. I told him how she left to save it to save Danj from the bandits. I also explain how she gave us vixa to take to her ill child, and died trying to protecting us from the bandits. And how I didn’t know we were supposed to deliver the vixa to him until I was twelve. Kye decided to tell me why Bahara had sacrifice her life for me and Danj. He said it was because I would heal people and maybe Bahara’s son.
“She might have known,” I said, gazing apologetically Arjun. “That you wouldn’t be able to save me with the vixa.”
“I understand now,” he said, and gazed through my eyes with much determination. “Don’t let him have you.”
“What?” I nearly drop the fruit I was eating.
“Tronzey,” he said. “My mother might have been a flawed seer, but she was a seer, and she saved you. For a reason you don’t know, and it wasn’t to save my life.”
I stared at him with my mouth agape he had said my name before but this time he used my full name. “Who told you my name?”
“I was ordered to capture you, knowing your name is the least of your concern.”
A terrible realization hit me. “How did you find out about me?”
“My mentor was informed by villagers and soldiers in your land. There are many spies among the army of your land that inform not only bandits but also Leer.”
A pain shot through my chest. So there were soldiers deceiving my homeland. No wonder there were so many casualties in the units; someone was deceiving them.
Arjun gazed at me as I wondered in deep thought. “The children you want to save, may not be safe even after you trade your life for them,” he said.
“There are traders and spies everywhere,” I said to myself, distraught, and stared into empty space. No one was safe at home. They were all in danger.
Arjun moved closer to me. He put his hand on my shoulder. “I can save the children without having to trade you.”
I realized his determination. I thought it was because he didn’t want his mother to die in vain, but it seemed to be something else as well. “Arjun, I know there is something you’re not telling what is it? Why are you so persuaded to protect me?”
“When you first told me my mother saved you. I envied you. My mother wrote about you,” He said, his eyes filled with shame. “Zey, she didn’t save you to save me, she hoped you would save my life and others lives but you’re also supposed to saved—”
Arjun grunted and reached for the diseased side of his face. He cupped it in his hands and fell to his knees.”
“Arjun,” I kneeled down beside him. “What is it?”
He screamed out, and pulled off the cloth covering the right side of his face. The dark-purple veins seemed to bulge and squirm beneath his skin. Not only were the veins extending across his face, but they were also multiplying. The red and blue blemishes were deepening. His infected eye pupil ricocheted to one corner to the other. Somehow the infection on his face was spreading. I rush to get my bag of fruit and handed to him. Barely able to reach out, he took the fruit and bit into its meat then drop it to the ground. This time he grunted louder. I couldn’t believe my eyes, the infection was spreading faster. It was as if the fruit had intensified his disease. This was no ordinary disease. This was a parasitic disease. It was feeding off the vixa fruit like a tick that latches itself to a host and sucked its blood. I had never seen a disease like this before. Bahara did say her son had a rare disease. Something that couldn’t be cured, but could only be kept from spreading.
I didn’t know what to do. If the fruit couldn’t save him what could I do? I was a medicine alchemist, but I had not reach the level of study to cure something like this?
Arjun stop screaming. He just began trembling as his chest heaved as he struggled to breathe through his mouth and nose. In the distant I heard the mumbling of a different language. As I was about get up and get help, Arjun grasp my arm.
“Don’t go,” he murmured, I could hear the pain in his voice. “It’s the black widows.”
“Then what do I do,” I asked kneeling over him, my hands were shaking.
“You can’t do anything,” he said, then grunted in pain. “If I’m right this pain will subside, but until then I won’t be able to move. You have to leave. If they find you, they will take you to Leer.”
“And if they find you here,” I asked.
He didn’t answer me. “Go,” he said. His body was beginning to convulse. “I’ll keep them distracted.”
Tears begin to fill in my eyes. I could see in his eyes that he knew he would be killed. Two days ago he was trying to abduct and sell me, and now he wanted to protect me. I didn’t understand.
“If you’re going to sacrifice your life for me,” I said, my tears begin to spill from my eyes. “Then tell me why.”
“You’re important,” he said. “More important than I. You save lives, and I take them. So spare your tears for someone who deserves them.”
I shook my head. “We can both get out of here some way. We can hide.”
He grunted out loud and shook his head. “They’ll find us. Just please, go,” he pleaded in a soft voice, and then lost conscious.
I didn’t understand my reasoning, but I couldn’t leave him for dead. Maybe it was because he was Bahara’s son, or because he had save me countless times. Or maybe because I felt like I was still supposed to heal him some way. It was probably all of it. I dragged him behind a log away from anyone’s sight. The people voices accelerated toward us. I peeped to see that Arjun was right. These people were the Black Widows. I stay as low as I could behind the log with Arjun. I nearly screamed when a crow swooped down and perched itself on the log. Its white eyes peered at me as if it was trying to drill them through me. It then turned its neck toward the Black Widows and cawed. They all turned toward me.
One of them shouted something, and started for us. I dashed into the forest as far away from Arjun as I could. I wasn’t sure if they saw would they either make him a prisoner or kill him. I didn’t know which way to go. There weren’t any villages that I knew that were close enough to the ruins of the Neflexion kingdom.
“Stop now, and there won’t be any casualties,” a woman’s voice called, the same Black Widows woman’s voice that was going to trade with me on the bridge.
I kept running. A sharp pain pierce through my leg, and I screamed, falling to the ground. I tried to keep going, crawling backwards as I dragged my leg that was penetrated with a dagger.
The woman in the black suit and mask approached me. Thirty others in black suits were behind her. She slipped off the mask part of her black suit and let it hang like a cloak. She had dark, straight, sleek hair. Her eyes were narrow and almond shaped. I remembered her. I hadn’t seen her in almost a decade and her face had gain wrinkles. She was the escort who tried to kill me when I was six, because I bore the mark of Leer. She had been sent to prison for trying to kill me and burning the house down of the people she worked for. I never knew her name.
"Hello Tronzey,” she said. “How fortunate was it for us to meet when I was just about to trade the children. Now we can trade you too.”
“Zey,” Taun called my name. He was being held with the other children with the other bandits. He struggled against the grip of one the bandits, constraining him.
She approached me and snatched the bag of fruit hanging from my back. She rummage through it, and threw a vix fruit to me.
“Heal yourself, but if you try to escape,” she said. “I will kill the boy. Now let’s go see your father.”
Dread festered inside of me. We would all be sold.