Awakener's Guide to Climbing the Tower

The northern checkpoint’s infirmary had not been built for comfort. It had once been little more than a rough storage room, and even after someone cleared the crates away, the walls still seemed to lean inward. Rows of narrow cots filled nearly every space, leaving healers to turn sideways whenever they passed one another. Damp cloaks hung from iron nails along the walls. Buckets of red-stained water waited beside overturned crates, their surfaces clouded with scraps of cloth and diluted blood.

The smell of crushed herbs hung thick in the room, sharp enough to sting the back of Misha’s throat. It did little to hide the older scent trapped beneath it, the blood that had soaked too far into the wooden floorboards to ever be scrubbed out.

Someone groaned behind a hanging curtain, and another soldier near the entrance began coughing, each breath scraping harder than the last, until a healer hurried over with a wooden bowl and helped him sit forward.

Near the center of the room, Hiiro sat shirtless on the edge of a cot while the checkpoint doctor wrapped another layer of bandage around his ribs. Most of the shallow cuts had closed after the System processed his level gains from the floor quest, but the deeper wounds remained. His shoulder had been stitched, one ankle rested on a folded blanket, swollen enough.

Hiiro watched with growing concern. His fingers tightened around the edge of the mattress when the doctor drew the cloth around his body again.

"That one feels tighter than the last," he muttered, forcing the words through clenched teeth.

Astrid sat on a stool beside him, her back straight despite the bandage wrapped from her right palm to halfway up her forearm. The tips of her fingers remained pale from mana overuse, and a faint reddish line circled the skin where the Hobgoblin Commander’s chain had cut through her sleeve.

She had worn the same calm irritation since the moment they dragged Hiiro through the checkpoint gates.

"It is tighter than the last," Astrid said, watching the doctor’s hands rather than Hiiro’s face.

The doctor pulled the bandage again, making the boy hiss, his shoulders lifted around a shallow breath before he tried to straighten. "My ribs need room to breathe."

"Your ribs tried to leave your body." Her eyes dropped to the cloth circling his waist, then she turned toward the doctor and gave a small nod. "Tighter."

Hiiro’s head snapped toward her. "Whose side are you on?"

Her expression did not change when she met his gaze. "The side that prefers your organs inside you."

"That sounded almost caring."

"It was medical advice."

The doctor’s mouth twitched.

Misha saw it. She also noticed the way Astrid’s fingers tightened against her sleeve whenever Hiiro flinched. The boy was not better, he kept glancing at the red-head before pretending he had only been looking for the cup of water beside the cot. Neither of them seemed aware that they were being obvious.

Sighing, she remained near the foot of the cot with her arms folded across her chest. She had already scolded him after the floor quest ended. She had scolded him while Caius helped him limp through the checkpoint gates, again while two soldiers lowered him onto a stretcher, and once more when he claimed that being thrown into a tree had been part of the plan.

Hiiro had returned with enough bruises to make his skin resemble badly painted armor. Misha still had not decided whether to praise him or strangle him for surviving that long. At the moment, strangling him seemed unnecessary. The bandages were doing a respectable job of it.

"If you hadn’t called the Commander ugly," Astrid said, watching the healer knot the cloth, "it might have gone easier on you."

Hiiro turned toward her, his face pulling into offended disbelief. "It was ugly. He started it."

The red-head stared blankly at him, the doctor paused with the knot half-formed, and Misha slowly turned her head to him.

Hiiro’s eyes moved between the three women and lifted one hand in defense. "With its face."

Astrid reached out, took the loose end of the bandage from the doctor, and pulled. Hiiro folded forward with a strangled sound. The doctor looked away quickly, though her shoulders shook once.

"Sit still," Astrid said, wearing the innocent expression of someone who had not just tightened the cloth herself.

Hiiro made a wounded noise and nearly slid from the cot. She caught his good shoulder before he could fall, her hand settled against his skin, steadying him while he breathed through the pain.

He glanced sideways, his eyes dropped at the hand resting on his shoulder. His mouth opened but nothing came out.

Astrid seemed to notice where she had touched him at the same moment. Her hand withdrew too fast, brushing against the edge of his bandage before she reached for the cup of water beside the bed.

"Drink..." She pushed it toward him without meeting his eyes.

Hiiro accepted it with both hands. For once, he did not argue.

Misha released another slow breath through her nose. Those two were going to become another problem. She could already feel it.

Around them, healers continued moving from cot to cot. Some soldiers slept beneath thin blankets. Others stared at the ceiling without blinking, their faces gray with exhaustion. Others stared at the ceiling without blinking while bandages were changed around them.

Misha looked away. She had reached Hiiro in time and Astrid had survived all thanks to Caius finding them on time. All of that should have been enough.

Her arms tightened across her chest. If she was a second late,none of it would have mattered. One second spent looking in the wrong direction, or one root catching beneath her boot, or maybe even one moment of hesitation before taking Caius’s hand, the broken spear would have come down and Hiiro would have stopped talking.

The thought left the infirmary too quiet, even with the coughing soldiers and rustle of bandages around her.

"Misha."

Caius’ voice pulled her back.

He approached from the entrance carrying two wooden cups. Someone had given him clean clothes, though the borrowed shirt sat too loosely across his shoulders and the sleeves had been folded twice. His blond hair remained damp from washing away the blood and dirt.

He moved through the infirmary without getting in anyone’s way. A healer turned with a basin, and Caius shifted before she saw him. A soldier lowered one leg from a cot, and Caius stepped around it without breaking pace.

Misha watched him cross the room. There were moments when he moved like someone far older than eighteen, simply familiar with places like this.

Caius stopped beside her and held out one cup.

"Before you ask," he said, glancing at her folded arms, "I did not poison it."

Misha looked at the drink, steam curled from the dark surface. Then she looked at him.

His expression remained composed. Only the faint shift near his mouth suggested he already knew what she was thinking. "I knew you were going to stare at it."

Misha considered asking how he knew but he would probably give her one of those careful answers that sounded honest while avoiding the actual question. She accepted the cup instead. The drink smelled bitter enough to be medicinal.

She took a cautious sip, it tasted worse. Her face tightened. "Are you sure this isn’t poisoned?"

Caius raised his own cup. "You swallowed it."

"That doesn’t answer the question."

One corner of his mouth moved, not enough to become a full smile. "You’re still standing."

"Some poisons take time."

He took a drink instead of answering.

Misha rolled her eyes and turned toward Hiiro again. The doctor had moved to his shoulder now, cleaning the wound before applying a salve. Hiiro’s face had gone pale beneath the bruises, though he continued pretending nothing was wrong. The act lasted for only a few seconds and his entire face twisted.

"The checkpoint doctor says he’ll recover," Caius said beside her.

Misha stared into her cup. "Eventually."

"He said a few days."

"He also said ’assuming he stays still.’"

Hiiro lifted one hand and pointed toward them. The motion immediately tugged at his shoulder, making his expression tighten.

"I can hear both of you!"

Caius glanced at him. "That is usually a good sign."

"I’m being discussed like a difficult patient."

Astrid took the water cup from Hiiro before it slipped from his fingers. Her face remained calm as she placed it back on the table. "You are a difficult patient."

Misha rubbed one thumb against the side of her wooden cup.

Most healers she had seen so far possessed only weak restorative abilities, enough to slow bleeding, dull pain, or help flesh close cleanly. Very few could repair shattered bones or restore someone who had lost too much blood. Most still relied on herbs, careful stitching, and potions.

Even the checkpoint used healing potions sparingly. Misha had watched the doctors carry two sealed bottles past Hiiro without opening them. They had gone to soldiers whose breaths were already failing. The supply was limited. They could not waste one on someone whose injuries would heal with time. The logic made sense.

Apparently, finding a truly capable healer was not easy. Even House Faust’s wealth had only bought Elyes healers skilled enough to keep him alive.

They did not have a healer in their party. That fact had sat at the back of her mind since they entered the forest, but it felt heavier inside the infirmary.

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