SIXTY TWO

SIXTY TWO
CIARA’S POV
The healer's chambers smelled like dried herbs and something else I couldn't place. Something old and earthy. She sat across from me at a wooden table worn smooth by countless hands. My own hands trembled in my lap.
"What I did back there," I started, then stopped. The words felt thick in my throat. "That wasn't healing."
She nodded slowly. "No. It wasn't."
"Then what was it?"
The healer was quiet for a long moment. She stared at her hands, turning them over like she was seeing them for the first time. When she finally looked up, her eyes held a weight I'd never noticed before.
"The rot," she said simply.
"The rot?"
"There is a time to heal and a time to destroy." Her voice carried the cadence of old wisdom, like she was reciting something passed down through generations. "Once upon a time, healers were just as sought after as any other gifted ones. The witch hunts of ages old did not only affect witches. They affected the delicate ones and us as well."
I frowned. "But witches had their spells. Delicates had their... whatever they do. What power could we have? Our gift is to fix the broken and stitch the ruined."
A sad smile crossed her face. "The goddess understood this question long before you asked it. She showed us that just like the moon reflects the light of the sun, it was always going to have its dark side." The healer reached across the table and took one of my hands in both of hers. "We are connected to the source which lets us heal. We are also connected to the rot which lets us wither and decay."
My stomach dropped. "Both?"
"Your connection to the source is intimately deep. That makes you one of the most powerful healers that will walk our world." Her grip tightened on my hand. "In that light, your connection to the rot will be just as infinitely deep. Given what you did to two sentinels and you weren't even trying."
The memory hit me like a punch. The sentinel's screams. His hand blackening and peeling away. Noah's shocked face as his fingers turned dark.
"Why wouldn't you tell me?" The question came out sharper than I meant it to.
She released my hand and reached for a small pot on the table. Inside was an unbloomed flower, its petals still tightly closed. She cupped it gently in her palms.
Her hands began to glow with that familiar blue light. I watched the flower respond, petals unfurling like it was waking from sleep. It bloomed fully in her hands, beautiful and perfect.
Then her hands changed. The blue light shifted to red, angry and pulsing. The flower began to wilt. Its petals turned brown, then black. Within seconds, it crumbled to dust between her fingers.
"This must be a terrifying gift to hold," she said, brushing the remains from her palms. "Because you are flesh first."
I stared at the empty space where the flower had been. "You can do it too."
"On a much smaller scale." She looked at me with something like pity. "A lot of us healers find it hard to hold relationships because of this gift. The fear of hurting someone you love, of losing control at the wrong moment."
My chest tightened. "Then why—"
"You have a mate." Her words cut through my rising panic. "Was I going to deny you something that would make you happy because of a little fear?"
She reached for my hand again, holding it carefully. "The goddess gave you all three. A mate. The source. The rot. Because you can handle it."
"Can I?" The words tumbled out before I could stop them. "Can I handle it? I didn't want to kill Noah back there. I just wanted to get him off me." My voice cracked. "I need control of this gift. Soon. To help myself and the people I love, not put them in danger."
The healer shook her head. "Since you stopped fighting it, the source is yours and you are it. The rot protected you because your body thought you needed it." She squeezed my hand. "My connection to the rot is infinitely tiny compared to yours. But you could have killed them in seconds. You didn't do that. Your body also knew you didn't want them dead."
I thought about that moment in the ring. The cold spreading through me, the world turning red. But she was right. Even lost in whatever trance had taken me, some part of me had held back.
"I want to be able to have my visions at will," I said suddenly. "It might help someone."
The healer smiled. "So do it. Want it enough."
She placed her hand over mine. I closed my eyes and reached for that part of myself that saw beyond the present. It had always come unbidden before, triggered by touch or strong emotion. But now I called for it deliberately.
Want it enough, she'd said.
I thought about Darragh. About the pain in his voice when he told me about his father. About Noah's brutal training and the academy waiting ahead of us. About all the things I didn't know but needed to.
My hand grew warm, then cold. The familiar blue light flickered to life under my skin. The world around me shifted, and suddenly I wasn't in the healer's chambers anymore.
This was different than I usually had. I expected a vision about the healer. But it was nothing like that.
I was somewhere else. Somewhere darker.
Blood on cement. A gun shot exploding. Screaming that echoed off high walls. The smell of death and something burning. Pain, so much pain it made my teeth ache. And through it all, a voice I knew but couldn't place, calling my name over and over.
The sight was familiar.
The vision shattered like glass. I jerked back to myself, gasping. My hand was normal again, no light, no glow. Just skin and bone and the lingering chill of what I'd seen.
"What did you see, Luna Ciara?"
I looked up at the healer. Her face was expectant, hopeful even.
I shook my head. "Nothing."
It was a lie. The vision had been vivid, terrible, and completely clear. But I couldn't tell her what I'd seen. Couldn't describe the blood and the screaming and the voice calling my name in that dark place.
Because the voice had been Darragh's. And in the vision, he'd been the one covered in blood, after taking a bullet meant for me. A bullet that was fired none other than a O’Donoghue. Whether it was Ronan or Ewan, I could not really tell. But I did catch the tattoo of the Brotherhood of Fir. Which meant it was going to happen during time at the academy or after it. One of them or both of them was going to join the brotherhood. One of them was going to kill Darragh.
The healer studied my face for a long moment. I tried to keep my expression neutral, but I could tell she didn't believe me.
"Visions can be tricky things," she said finally. "Sometimes they show us what will be. Sometimes what might be. And sometimes they show us our deepest fears dressed up as prophecy."
"How do you tell the difference?"
"You don't. Not until it's too late." She stood and moved to one of her herb cabinets. "The gift of sight is perhaps the cruelest of all gifts. Knowledge without context. Truth without timing."
I watched her gather small bottles and pouches, her movements precise and practiced. "Have you ever had visions?"
"No. That gift skipped me entirely." She glanced back at me. "I'm grateful for it. Some knowledge is too heavy to carry."
But I was already carrying it. The image of Darragh covered in blood burned behind my eyes. I could still hear his voice calling my name, desperate and broken.
"Will you teach me to control the rot?" I asked.
She turned fully to face me. "Do you think you're ready?"
I thought about the sentinel's ruined hand. About Noah's blackened fingers. About the power that had felt so natural, so right, even as it destroyed everything it touched.
"I don't have a choice."
She nodded slowly. "No. I suppose you don't."
The healer returned to the table with an armful of supplies. Herbs I didn't recognize, crystals that caught the light strangely, and a small silver knife with symbols carved into its handle.
"The first lesson," she said, arranging everything carefully, "is learning to call it without anger. The rot responds to emotion, but it feeds on rage. If you can summon it in calm, you can control it in chaos."
I looked at the knife, at the herbs, at her hands already beginning to glow with soft blue light.
"What if I hurt you?"
She smiled, and for the first time since I'd known her, it reached her eyes. "Luna Ciara, I've been working with dangerous gifts longer than you've been alive. Trust me when I say I know how to protect myself."
I nodded and placed my hands flat on the table. "Teach me."