ATASHA’S POV


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    I had been hiding my ability ever since I first discovered it by ident years ago. I always believed that if anyone ever found out, I would be persecuted, feared, or worse, decapitated. I never expected that one day, someone would actually be relieved, happy even, to know that I could heal. It made me wonder if they had ever questioned how I came to have such an ability in the first ce.


    It didn’t take long to understand the source of their reaction. “My husband…” Katya said, her voice strained. “On the first night of the tide, a bat–like creature bit him. After that, his body began rotting from the inside.”


    Ramona quickly added, “But that wasn’t the only problem. Somehow, whatever he had spread to others. Within a short time, more men showed the same signs of infection.”


    Ramona continued. “We tried to iste him,” she said, her hands twisting in front of her. “But it was toote. Within hours, three more soldiers showed the same symptoms. It started with a single wound, norger than a coin. By the next night, the infection had spread over their entire bodies.”


    They pulled back the nket covering one of the men. The smell hit first. It was rancid, like spoiled meat left in the sun. The wound itself was worse. The skin around the bite had ckened, split open in jagged lines, and thick pus oozed from the cracks.


    Patches of flesh sloughed off with the slightest movement, wet and stringy, sticking to the fabric beneath him. His veins stood out, dark and swollen, webbing up his arms and neck like they were filled with tar. Where the rot had reached his chest, the skin bubbled and sagged, as if it was melting from the inside.


    I fought the urge to recoil and looked <i>at </i>Mendez.


    “I’ve tried everything,” he admitted, his voice tight. “Salves, fire to sear the wound, herbs for infection. Nothing slowed it. I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s not a normal rot, it spreads as if it’s feeding off them. And this tide…” His jaw tightened. “This tide isn’t like thest. Everything is worse. The bites arerger, tearing out chunks of flesh instead of piercing. The beasts move faster, hit harder. It’s like they’ve been strengthened somehow.”


    He shook his head, frustration etched into his features. “We were prepared for what the tide usually brings, but this, this is something new. Something we don’t have the tools to fight.”


    I nodded then I approached Katya’s husband. Katya’s husbandy propped against a bundle of furs, but calling him a man felt wrong. The infection had changed him so much he hardly looked human anymore. His skin was gray and sagging, eaten away in patches where the rot had consumed the muscle beneath.


    One eye was swollen shut, the other clouded with a yellow film that made it look lifeless. His lips were cracked, the flesh around them peeling. The stench of decay clung to him, heavy enough to sting the back of my throat. But he wasn’t dead,


    I knelt beside him and pressed my palm against his chest. His ribs shifted under my touch, brittle and uneven<b>, </b>as if his bones themselves were starting to give way. Closing my eyes, I let my focus sink beneath the


    surface.


    Almost immediately, I felt it. The bite hadn’t just injured him, it had delivered something alive. The poison


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    was active, threading through his blood, spreading like roots, forcing the body to rot and carry the infection further. Its goal wasn’t to kill quickly. It wanted to multiply. To use him to create more like it.


    I drew in a steady breath and pushed my healing into him. At first, it resisted, thrashing against me like something trying to hold its ground. But the harder it fought, the deeper I pressed, burning through the corruption piece by piece until it broke apart.


    Under my hand, the change was instant. The ckened veins began to lighten, the swelling around his throat eased, and the bubbling rot across his chest smoothed over with new flesh. The pus dried, the cracks sealed, and the sagging skin tightened until color slowly returned. By the time I lifted my hand, only scars remained where the wounds had been.


    Katya’s gasp was sharp enough to echo in the room. Her eyes filled with tears as she pressed both hands to her mouth, unable to believe what she was seeing. Ramona stumbled back a step, her eyes wide, ncing between me and the healed man like she couldn’t decide if she was dreaming.


    Then Katya dropped to her knees, clutching her husband’s arm. “He–he’s warm,” she said, her voice shaking. “He’s breathing normally.”


    Her husband groaned faintly, his one good eye fluttering open. It wasn’t clouded anymore. He looked exhausted, but alive. Alive when just moments ago, he had looked like a corpse rotting from the inside out.


    Tears spilled down Katya’s face as she held him close, whispering his name over and over while Ramona pressed a hand to her chest, her face breaking into a smile that carried both shock and relief.


    Even Mendez, who had seen enough horrors to be hardened, looked stunned. His lips parted as he muttered under his breath, “By the Goddess… it’s gone.”


    I moved from one soldier to the next, repeating the same process. Each body carried the same poison, the same spreading rot that fought against me like it wanted to survive. One by one, I burned it out, sealing wounds that had eaten too deep, smoothing flesh back over bones that should have been exposed. Their breathing steadied, their skin regained color, and the hopelessness in the room slowly shifted into stunned relief.


    By the time I reached thest man, sweat was sliding down my back and my hands were trembling. Still, I pressed my palm against his chest and forced my focus into him. The poison here was stronger, as though it had been feeding longer, but I pushed harder until it broke apart just the same. His body stilled, his rattled breathing eased, and thest trace of rot faded into scars.


    The moment it ended, something else struck me.


    A weight pressed down on me without warning. It wasn’t the usual drain of healing. This was heavier, darker, like something unseen had reached out and hooked itself into me, tugging at my chest. My lungs struggled to draw air. My vision blurred.


    I didn’t realize my eyes had watered until a tear slid down my cheek.


    I opened my eyes too fast, the room tilting as the floor seemed to shift under me. My knees gave way, but before I hit the ground, a firm grip caught me. Strong arms steadied me, pulling me against a chest that


    radiated heat.


    Cassian.


    8:17 Fri, Sep 19 …


    <b>92 </b>


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    I hadn’t even heard him enter. I didn’t know how long he had been standing there, watching. None of it mattered because the heaviness in my chest grew worse. My body refused to listen, and to my own shock, more tears slipped free, spilling down my face unchecked.


    It was as if something inside me had been stirred, something I couldn’t control or push back. My breaths came uneven, and the harder I tried to stop it, the more the tears came.


    Seeing this, Cassian’s arm tightened around me.


    What in the goddess’s name is happening to me?