Heir of the Fog

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Defying the Cycle

Minutes ago, I'd stood over a pile of dead beasts, calling death part of the world's rules—natural, brutal, unavoidable. Now, staring at Meris wasting away on this creaky cot, that conviction felt hollow. I was a hypocrite, and I knew it.

My human side was winning out, loud and stubborn. Fear clawed at me—fear of losing her, of knowing if I'd taken a few more weeks to get here, I'd have found an empty bed. The healers gave her weeks, maybe less, each one laced with pain. That thought alone made my stomach twist. I couldn't just watch her fade.

The beast in me, the part forged by the fog said otherwise. Let her go. Her time's up. Death's the cycle, and fighting it breaks the rules. It was cold, unyielding, like the fog itself. But my human side pushed back harder, yelling that I had to do something, anything, to keep her here, even if just for a little longer. The two parts scraped against each other, a mess of jagged edges in my head.

That split wasn't new. The mind library patched me together—beast and human forced to fit, but it hurt, like bones grinding out of joint. I felt in control one second, unraveling the next, my thoughts slipping between both sides. Slowly, though, the human part took over, firm and steady. I couldn't shake it off.

Sure, I was a hypocrite. I'd killed beasts in the fog without blinking, judged their deaths as nothing, but here I was, ready to claw at the world to save Meris, to save the starving people inside these wards. The contradiction stared me down, and I didn't flinch. Logic could rot—I didn't care.

Meris had stood by me when no one else did. She'd dragged me out of alleys, shared her scraps. I owed her more than a lifetime could pay back. "Kara, analyze her condition," I said aloud, not bothering to hide it. "Tell me what you can figure out."

Jharim and Elina swapped quick, confused looks—Kara's voice was mine alone to hear, but they stayed quiet, sensing I wasn't messing around.

[Kara]

[Place your hand over her chest and assess the rhythm.]

I slid my hand over her sternum, gentle but sure. Her pulse flickered under my fingers—weak, uneven, like a stuttering drum. I leaned in, letting my fog-sharpened senses stretch out. Her breaths came shallow, ragged, barely lifting her chest. We ran through it step by step—pulse, breathing, the faint heat of her skin, until Kara pieced it together.

[Kara]

[Individual "Meris" shows congenital heart defects, likely from malnutrition in early growth. Her heartbeat's irregular—electrolyte imbalances, low potassium and magnesium. Combined with an underdeveloped heart structure, sometimes called 'Small Heart Syndrome,' it's choking her circulation. Without treatment, organ failure's coming fast.]

They couldn't hear Kara, but her words lined up with what they'd said—her heart was failing. I turned to Jharim and Elina, keeping my voice steady. "What've you been doing to fix her?"

Elina frowned, thrown off. "Fix her? You mean heal her?" She shook her head. "Not much can be done. We're just easing the pain. Hawthorn concoctions to steady her heart a bit—that's it."

[Kara]

[Without surgery, they're right—little can be done beyond slowing it down. Hawthorn's smart; it strengthens the heart, steadies the beat. Also, Licorice Root could help with potassium, but it won't change her fate.]

Kara's herb knowledge was solid, as always, but it didn't change the core problem. Surgery was beyond us, something the old Araksiun might've managed with their machines and advanced doctors.

Maybe there was a district with medical facilities, a place where people still had knowledge of the old medicine. But we had no such thing here, and I knew the neighboring districts didn't either.

But I had something they didn't—Life Magic. The problem was, I barely understood it, and neither did Kara. She was built to read my senses—sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, wired deep into my brain. She could feel mana's presence, its hum against my skin, but beyond that? Nothing. She didn't have the tools to break it down, to tell me how it flowed or bent. I'd figured out scraps on my own—will could steer free mana, shape it crude and clumsy, but that was it.

Could I fix her heart with that alone? Reshape its structure, patch the flaws? I didn't know, and Meris wasn't a test dummy. My hands clenched at my sides—I wouldn't let her die, not like this. I cared too much, debt or not, to just stand there. But I wasn't ready to gamble blind with magic. There was another way, something I'd kept for a reason.

I couldn't fix her heart—not fully, not yet, but I could momentarily fix her. I reached out with Life Magic, feeling mana hum beyond me, alive and warm, the way I'd grown used to in the fog. My hand hovered over her chest, her weak, stuttering heartbeat pulsing against my palm. I focused, straining to sense her electrolyte levels, potassium, magnesium—comparing them to my own, guessing what a healthy rhythm should be. Slowly, I willed the mana to steady her, nudging her system back into balance, even if just for now.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Then I turned to her heart itself—the myocardium, thin and overworked from years of strain. I pushed the mana in, easing the muscle, smoothing its frantic effort. My breath came hard by the end, hands shaking from the focus. This wasn't like tossing mana around, every move had to be exact, or I'd lose her. Meris being the one under my hands made it worse, my nerves fraying with every second. But it worked. Her breathing evened out, steady and deep. It wasn't a cure, the defects would creep back, but this reprieve was all I'd aimed for.

"What'd you do?" Elina asked, leaning close to Meris, her voice sharp with hope. "She's breathing normally again."

"She's still bad off," I said, wiping sweat from my brow. "I just gave her some relief for now." Elina's face lit up, then dimmed as my words sank in, Meris wasn't healed, not yet. Her only daughter, after all these years, still hung on a thread.

I looked between her and Jharim, their hollow cheeks and bony frames nagging at me. "Why are you like this? Did the rations stop?"

Jharim shifted, his voice rough but steady. "Not stopped, just cut back. Grain's scarce—battery shortages hit food production hard. And since the advanced class ended, we've been scraping by on district allowance."

I'd forgotten the class wasn't permanent, Elina's pay from teaching it had kept them afloat once. Before I could respond, Jharim went on. "It's not just us. Meris isn't the only kid without an allowance. We've been helping a few, most of what we get goes to them. Living off rations alone's gotten tough."

It made sense, and I should've seen it coming. They'd fed me when I was a kid on the streets, patched me up out of kindness. Helping others was who they were, even when it left them starving. I hadn't noticed how bad things had gotten out here, stuck in the district's center.

"Don't worry," I said, forcing my voice clear as Meris stirred, her eyes cracking open. "Things'll get better soon." She blinked, groggy, and mumbled for water—too out of it to clock me standing there. I didn't mind. Instead, I pulled out something I'd held onto, the second silvery apple from the Life Tree. I'd been lucky not to eat it back then.

I handed it to Elina. "Make her eat this."

She turned it over in her hands, frowning at its odd sheen. "What is it?"

"An apple from a Life Tree," I said.

Elina sucked in a breath, eyes wide. Life Trees were legends—tales of adventurers chasing their fruit to heal kings or defy death. Everyone knew the stories, even if they'd never seen one. Jharim leaned in, staring, his thin fingers twitching like he wanted to touch it. Elina didn't grab it right away. She hesitated, turning it over in her hands, the silvery sheen catching the dim light. Her brows furrowed, a mix of awe and doubt flickering across her face. "This is… real?" she asked, voice low, almost afraid to hope. She glanced at Meris, still and pale on the cot, then back at me, waiting.

"Yeah," I said, nodding. "It's real. She needs to eat it—now."

Elina exhaled sharp, like she'd been holding it too long, and gave a small nod. Normally, she'd have picked it apart—studied every inch, puzzled over what made it special, probably come up empty since it was related to mana. But not now. Her hands shook as she broke off a piece, soft and careful, and brought it to Meris' lips. "Come on, sweetie," she murmured, nudging her awake. Meris stirred, groggy, chewing slow as Elina fed her bite by bite, the silvery fruit vanishing bit by bit.

Color seeped back into Meris' cheeks—pale gray warming to a faint pink, her shallow breaths deepening. But it went further. A surge of Life Magic flowed through her, pure and controlled, guided by a single will. I stiffened, caught off guard. Was it the Life Tree reaching across the fog? Or the fruit itself? It moved deliberate and steady, like it had a plan—not wild, not corrupt. Meris had no core, no way to shape mana herself, so it stayed focused, one will running the show.

It zeroed in on her heart first—the thin, warped muscle stunted by years of hunger. Pain flickered across her face as the mana sank in. I could feel it working, thickening the myocardium layer by layer, reinforcing the walls too weak to push blood right. It stretched the cramped chambers; Small Heart Syndrome had choked them small and smoothed the valves, forcing them into a steady beat.

Her chest heaved, a sharp gasp escaping as it adjusted the rhythm I'd only patched, making it strong, not just stable. Then it spread—mending brittle ribs, easing lungs scarred by short breaths. It broke to rebuild, tearing flaws apart before stitching them whole. Elina's gaze shot to me, wide with fear, but Jharim gripped her arm, giving a tight nod. The old stories always warned of this, pain came with the healing.

It dragged on for minutes, her quiet whimpers cutting the air, until it finally settled. Meris went still, but alive, more alive than I'd seen her. Her face filled out a touch, a little weight settling back in, her breaths deep and even. She didn't wake, but she was safe. I muttered a thanks under my breath to the Life Tree—for the fruit, for her.

Guilt tugged at me, though—I'd bent a rule. The beast in me, shaped by the fog, said I should've let the world's brutality run its course, let the cycle of life and death play out. My human side argued I'd just saved a friend, nothing more. Both were true, and I got that now—breaking the rule didn't blur it; it sharpened it. I'd defied the first law of the cycle, and it felt like the world noticed.

Then it hit—a strange will, not mine, not the apple's or the Tree's. It slipped through the ward, faint but sharp, brushing the fading mana left in Meris from the healing. In an instant, less than a second, it clashed with the apple's will and won, bending the last traces to its pull.

It reminded me of the bridge, that flicker when beasts twisted under something dark—corruption. The mana submitted, then vanished, leaving nothing behind, no sign of what it'd done. My gut clenched, a cold certainty settling in, this was tied to my defiance, a punishment for rejecting the cycle's rules.

I'd broken the rules, and something out there answered.