Atoms- Darkling X Aethra Kuznetsov

The Slap

Aethra sat on her bed shivering slightly. A bruise was forming on her wrist, and her head hurt from being banged on the wall. She could go to a healer to get rid of it, but then that would lead to a lot of questions. What excuse could she give?

'Amelia, I fell down the stairs and hurt myself'

No

'Amelia, I hurt myself when I was half asleep and I don't even remember what happened'

No

'Amelia, I hurt myself during practice'

No, they hadn't even had practice since then

'I hurt myself the night I was stabbed. You didn't realize because your attention was on the bigger wound'

Nope, she would have definitely noticed

She knew what to do-

She would go to Amelia with a sheepish smile and say 'I hit myself. It hurts, can you heal it?' Yes, that was it.(No it wasn't)

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THE NEXT MORNING-

Amelia stared at the woman in front of her suspiciously.

"How did you get hurt"

Aethra panicked-

"I fell down the stairs"

Immediately Amelia's expression turned disapproving."If you come to me again within the next month, then I won't heal you and I won't let the other healers heal you either," she said sternly to Aethra after healing her

"That's not fair! You know I fall a lot!"

"Then learn to be more careful," the older woman said, her tone implying that the conversation was over.

Aethra opened her mouth to speak but Amelia walked away before she could say anything

Huffing, Aethra went back to her room mumbling about how Amelia would heal her if she was losing too much blood anyway

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Aethra had promised Zoya that she would practice fighting with her in the afternoon. So, after lunch, she was standing in the middle of the training arena with her daggers in the air. They were going to practice with powers and weapons together. Aethra knew it would be a mess the minute Zoya asked.

They were not supposed to hurt each other, but neither of them would complain if they lost a few drops of blood.

Aethra was rather sleepy at the time, so we can safely say she didn't perform to the best of her abilities.

Her daggers were circling Zoya, not hurting her, but cutting her clothes. Aethra knew that her friend was wearing armor inside, just as she was, so she wasn't that worried about hurting Zoya.

At one point, Zoya's shredded clothes were lying in a heap at her feet and the girl was looking extremely annoyed.

"Aethra! focus! You're just playing around!"

With that Zoya began to push her harder. Successfully dodging everything, Aethra smiled victoriously at Zoya. But that wasn't the end, Zoya, thinking that Aethra would block it, slashed at her arm.

But Aethra wasn't fast enough and the knife cut a deep gash on her upper arm.

"Ouchhh!" she hissed, watching the cut begin to bleed