Meka and I realized, almost at the same time, that neither of us had any idea where we were actually headed.

  The Guildhall was not massive, but it was large enough to lose your sense of direction if you only ever moved through a handful of familiar corridors. We had done exactly that. The place opened out in branching halls and intersecting walkways, stone and arch and torchlight repeating until everything began to blur together. We stood there for a moment, turning in slow circles, each of us quietly reassessing our confidence and coming to the same uncomfortable conclusion.

  Meka shifted her weight and tested the stone beneath us, tapping lightly with one hoof and then stilling herself to listen. She waited longer than I expected, head tilted, ears angling as if she were trying to catch something just beyond reach. Finally, she frowned. “Nothing,” she said. “No movement I can feel.”

  “Well,” I said, exhaling slowly, “that answers that.”

  With no better plan and no desire to wander aimlessly until we made things worse, we decided to see if we could find Myrda, ideally in the crafting hall. If she was there, we would have direction, or at least someone who knew where direction was supposed to be. If she was not, then the plan would fail outright and we would be left with the only remaining option, more training.

  I was not convinced that was a good idea.

  I still had not really rested. The fury that had carried me through the day, that sharp edge that had kept me upright and focused, was finally burning out. Without it, exhaustion rushed in to fill the space it left behind, heavy and insistent. If I had not been so wound tight earlier, I was fairly certain sleep would have taken me hours ago without asking permission. It had been a long day, longer than most, and my body was well past ready to crash.

  What I had wanted had been simple. I wanted Meka to be near healers while they worked, not because healing itself was rare, but because its structure was different the regular magic. Every guildhall had access to healing in one form or another, even if that usually meant potions, salves, bone-setting, or sending someone back to a proper healing hall in the city when things became serious.

  There were also practitioners who sat somewhere adjacent to that space. Druids, herbalists, and nature-aligned casters practiced a slower kind of healing, regenerative rather than restorative, coaxing the body to repair itself instead of forcing it into wholeness. That kind of work was something I intended to study in the future, when I eventually shaped my own regeneration mark. It was closer to my understanding of magic, and closer to what I believed could be safely emulated.

  Healing magic itself followed a different shape. Divine healing was not learned in the way wizardry was learned. It behaved less like a discipline and more like a asking for permission, something that moved through the practitioner rather than being shaped by them. The god of healing was simply the most prolific source of that permission, not the only one.

  Other gods overlapped the domain in smaller, more limited ways. Water could knit and cleanse. Light could stabilize and preserve. Even darkness, in its own way, could seal and quiet what should have been fatal. None of those gods offered healing as freely or as consistently as the god of healing, but the capacity existed across several divine domains.

  Divine healing followed rules only the gods understood. Devotion did not mean morality. It did not mean kindness. It meant whatever a god decided it meant at that moment. The favor could be given, withdrawn, or never offered at all.

  There were wizards born with mana aligned toward healing, and that was something else entirely. Healing mana could be studied, refined, and repurposed. Anything that could teach you how to stitch a wound could also teach you how to make one. That made it powerful, flexible, and dangerous in equal measure. Many of those biomancers still joined the healing guild, but the source of their power was their own mana, not a god’s allowance.

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  Divine healing did not work that way. Its structure was tighter, more constrained. It resisted weaponization, because its limits were imposed externally. What could be done depended on the god’s continued consent, and that consent was a private, fickle contract between deity and mortal. It could be granted in the final breath of a dying person and vanish just as quickly, leaving no trace behind.

  If Meka could stand close enough to feel those differences, to sense where divine healing refused manipulation and where natural regeneration flowed more freely, there might be overlap she could learn from. Even fragments of that understanding would have been valuable, enough to give shape to the next step instead of guessing in the dark.

  Divine magic was still something I did not fully understand. Wizardry followed rules, even when they were complex or hidden. Divine power answered to something else entirely. That uncertainty was part of why I wanted her to experience it firsthand, rather than relying on my explanations alone.

  One of the greatest healers of my time had not been a divine caster at all, but a shadowmancer. He began by studying plagues, pestilence, and the slow, cruel ways disease hollowed people out. He did it out of spite at first. His son had died to a rat-borne sickness back when he was still a farmer, before he understood that his magic was a tool rather than a curse. The village decided otherwise. They called him the plague bringer. They cast him out after his children died, after his crops failed, after everything he had was taken from him.

  So he learned the thing that destroyed him. Once he understood it, he learned how to unmake it. Disease after disease fell to the same magic that had once been blamed for their spread. In the end, people remembered him as a hero. He remembered himself as a broken father who could only make sure others did not suffer the same loss. Magic gave and took in equal measure, just like life did. Enzo the Black turned the poison he had feared his entire life into a healing salve.

  My thoughts just kept drifting in and out of the past and the present. It was very obvious that my body could not go on for much longer. With the way things were going, it started to look like I would need her help just to get back to the bunk room before I collapsed where I stood.

  I leaned heavily on my staff as we walked, gripping it with both hands and letting it take more of my weight than I cared to admit. That was one thing staffs were undeniably good for. When your legs were done and your body refused to cooperate, they made excellent supports, steady and uncomplaining, and I was grateful for it with every step.

  I decided that I could not make it. The realization arrived quietly, without drama, settling into my bones with the same certainty as the exhaustion itself. I stopped walking and leaned harder on my staff, breathing through the dull sway in my vision.

  “I’m done,” I said, after a moment. “I’m not going to make it there.”

  Meka turned back to me at once, concern flickering across her face. I shook my head before she could speak. “You should still go,” I told her. “Visit the healers. Tell them what you are, a botanomancer, and pay attention to how they work. If they know what they’re doing, they’ll understand why that matters to you. Anyone competent would see the value in teaching someone who can grow herbs, shape poultices, and eventually cultivate plants aligned with regeneration.”

  She studied me for a few seconds longer, then nodded.

  We had only taken a few more steps before my legs finally gave out. I did not fall far. Meka caught me without ceremony, one arm hooking around my back as if she had been expecting it, and then she simply lifted me over her shoulder. The world tilted abruptly, torchlight swinging past my vision as she adjusted her grip and started back the way we had come.

  She carried me straight to the bunk room and set me down with surprising care, easing me onto the mattress and adjusting my position until I was lying comfortably rather than collapsed. The moment my weight left her shoulder, my body went slack, every remaining bit of tension draining away.

  She stayed. She sat beside me and sang softly, a simple lullaby in a quiet voice. It was clearly a song that had been sung to her many times when she was young, worn smooth by repetition and memory.

  She sang, “Sleep now softly, sleep now sweetheart. I see you, you see me. I am never far. You will be in my heart. I will be close. I am just a dream away. Now rest my darling, and soon we will play.”

  The words blurred together as sleep took me, warmth and safety folding in around the sound. I did not hear the rest of the verses.