sanctuary | on hold indefinitely

nine | mercy

Twelve hours: that was how long it had taken for Devan to come anywhere close to finding the coordinates her father had given her—after four trains, a three hour nap on a park bench in the middle of God knows where, a bus and now, currently, a two hour walk through what felt like the majority of the Yorkshire countryside. Her muscles ached, both from the discomfort of sitting on cramped public transport and the fact that she hadn't stopped moving in two days. The sun was rising, though she couldn't see it through the grey clouds lingering heavily above her. The only way she had noticed was because her path was no longer illuminated by the sickly orange glow of the street lamps and every so often, a car passed by her.

There was nothing to indicate that she was heading in even remotely the right direction. All around her was green, just like in Llandudno, only this green was deeper, damper, darker. The hills rolled in infinite waves, broken up only by old, grey stone walls and cattle. She had ripped her tights climbing over barbed wire fences and wooden gates had given her splinters in her palms. She could only imagine how she looked to the cars passing by. 

She tried to keep away from the roads where she could, sneaking through farms and fields running parallel in the hopes she would not be spotted. Her sister wouldn't come here in a million years, even if Filix was looking for her, and she felt safe at least in that.

It was colder than she remembered it being yesterday, the promise of autumn stinging her cheeks. Her hands were numb, the wind cutting through her clothes, her hair a tangled mess that she dreaded brushing. What had seemed like a good idea now felt like a mistake, but she was almost there and the regret was not strong enough to pull her back to the fires and corpses waiting for her somewhere else.

Somewhere down the road, the open fields were swapped for wild, untouched woods that concealed her from the outside world and sheltered her from the rain that was beginning to fall. Thorny underbrush clawed at her ankles as she trudged further in, following her father's instructions all the while. She hadn't let go of the note he had given her since she had left Llandudno, and now the corners were creased, the writing smudged slightly.

She stumbled as she came to an uneven dip in the soil, righting herself before realising what it was she had fallen over: the sinewy legs of a deer. The creature lay on its side in front of her, hidden slightly by a shrub, its body shrouded by the shadows of the trees. Its torso heaved up and down in jolts, a sign that it was still alive— she would have been sure it was already dead otherwise, for it was motionless and covered in blood. Some of it had dried on the leaves around it, but the crimson substance was still seeping from a large gash below its ribs like a gushing river. It was close enough to the road still that it had probably been hit by a car. She could smell the rotting and knew already that its death was inevitable.

"Sorry, Bambi," she murmured quietly. At the sound of her voice, it started, its legs writhing as though it had forgotten it was lay down and was trying to run away. She went to continue her journey, but something stopped her and made her turn back. The way the deer was looking at her, with round, pleading eyes; the way it was still breathing, still suffering; the weight of the blue cracks in her irises and what they meant.

"Don't look at me like that," she ordered, folding her directions and putting them in her pocket. The rain dripped onto her face from the leaves above her, and she could feel it soaking into her socks, now, too.

The deer blinked. It seemed to have calmed down or resigned itself to its fate. Devan wasn't sure which. She sighed and knelt beside it, the mud soiling her clothes. It followed every movement she made with a steady, unsettling gaze.

"You think I'm a Healer, don't you?" She realised as she said it that it was probably true. Animals had a way of knowing about them; it was why Farah had re-homed her cat two days after adopting it. It had covered her in scratches and had tried to escape at least four times, wanting nothing to do with her. "I'm not."

Its round, brown eyes filled with something she couldn't decipher. Hesitantly, she placed a hand on its shoulder. Instead of tensing, the deer relaxed, its eyes closing for a moment. A sharp breath escaped Devan, a fleeting rush of something she had never felt before flooding her veins and causing her fingers to shake. A heaviness settled in her chest, and then, when she didn't take her hand away, a dull ache. She knew, somehow, that the pain was not hers.

"Alright, Bambi," she said, her voice barely above a whisper, not because she feared anyone hearing her, but because she was so taken aback. "Since you asked nicely, I'll see what I can do. Don't tell anyone, though."

She peeled her backpack off her shoulders slowly so as not to frighten the deer again, rooting around past her change of clothes to the crystals she kept in a small pocket at the bottom. The black stone was cool and smooth on her palm as she pulled it out: an obsidian, a mirror to the inner self. It was the same stone that Devan had been drawing her power from for years. Just holding it made her skin prickle with electricity.

She placed the stone on the deer's wound gently, cupping her hands around it. The blood stained her fingertips and she looked away, trying to ignore the metallic, rancid smell of decay that she knew would probably not leave her for days.

A breeze whipped through her again as she found the words without having to think too much about them. It was as though they had been bubbling inside of her from the moment she had met eyes with the deer, and as they echoed in her mind in the form of her own voice, a breath of relief came with them.

"Vulnus sanandum est;

Lenire dolorem suum."

Heal the wound, ease its pain. Her eyes fluttered shut as she repeated the chant.

"Vulnus sanandum est;

Lenire dolorem suum."

She could feel something rising in her chest where the deer's pain had been a moment ago. The obsidian was growing hot in her hands. Her brows knitted together as she focused her concentration, imagining the deer's pelt knitting itself back together, the bones under it straightening themselves.

"Vulnus sanandum est;

Lenire dolorem suum."

The obsidian erupted into fire in her hands, blistering her skin as she dropped it and leapt away from the hot flames.

"No," she whispered, her back pressed against the rough bark of the tree as she watched the flames spread. The deer was consumed by them in an instant, along with the foliage surrounding its body. Soon, the whole woods would be alight. She shot up, feeling the heat reach her again. Her eyes stung from both the smoke and the brightness of the fire.

"Exstinguo," she demanded desperately. 

"Exstinguo!" she repeated when the flames only wavered and grew. The smoke was choking her and she suppressed a cough, covering her face with the sleeve of her jacket. "Exstinguo!"

They obeyed only when she screamed the order at the top of her lungs, ebbing until there was nothing but the orange glow of embers and charred remains. She breathed a sigh of relief until she saw the deer. It was still alive, still looking at her, but now its russet pelt had been replaced by raw, bloody burns that covered the entirety of its body. It lay in a black and bloody mess of scorched foliage. She had made it worse.

The deer's eyes, glassy and distant, begged for mercy. She swallowed, bending down again but this time not daring to touch it. "I told you I wasn't a healer," she said quietly. Then, in the deadly silence of the woods, her hoarse voice bouncing off the trees, she chanted, "Mortem."

Death. It was the only mercy that Devan had left.