Shadows Over Arcadia Chapter 57: 56. A Leg Up

Read chapter 57 of Shadows Over Arcadia by Zacheas on NovelPedia.

I am Ren Drakemore, age 9, second prince of the Kingdom of Arcadia—and I am currently on a quest to gain power and influence in the Kingdom of Hyperion. https://shadowsoverarcadia.com/api/storage/objects/uploads/94d9f12d-768f-4ec3-a12d-51b487be4617 “Gawh!” Maribel growls, crossing her arms in frustration as she flops back onto the wooden stool. “Why is this so hard?” “I don’t know…” I groan, rubbing my temple. The two of us are seated in one of the manor’s rooms, now furnished as a treatment room. Our first patient—a thin, dark-skinned woman who had been suffering from the withering—now leaves in good health thanks to my magic. “Thank you again!” she calls as she exits the room. For the brief moment the door is open, the soft rumble of conversation from the front of the store reaches my ears with greater clarity. “It’s either one silver for the potion or one vial of blood for healing,” I hear Willow explaining to a customer at the service counter. As someone very familiar with the mask she wears, I recognize the tone in her voice—this might be the first time she’s sounded genuinely excited. It’s our third day living in the apothecary. On the first day, we were visited by a handful of nobles and their retainers who had early knowledge of our new shop. Yesterday brought a broader mix of people as word began to spread. Willow volunteered to manage the service counter—partly because it gave her the perfect excuse to indulge herself. Many of the commoners who’ve come through the doors haven’t had even a single silver coin to their name. Willow’s ingenious solution was to pose as a practitioner of blood magic and allow them to pay with blood instead. So those without coin are either treated by her at the counter or sent to one of the treatment rooms—where Maribel and I handle the cases. Well… where I treat the patients, while Envy and I attempt to teach Maribel. “It’s not fair…” Maribel grumbles. “You make it look so easy.” I turn back to her with a sigh. “You need to relax. Only when your mind is still can your senses sharpen.” I repeat Lady Muara’s instructions—the same ones that helped me a year ago. “You keep saying that,” Maribel mutters, rolling her eyes. “That’s what my teacher said,” I shrug. “It worked for me.” “Yeah, well, I’m not you,” she snaps. “Envy can cast the diagnostic spell for me—that’s not the problem. I just have no idea what I’m even looking at!” “Like, what even is a mitochondria?” she adds, exasperated. “It’s the powerhouse of the cell.” “What does that even mean? Just because you tell me what things are called doesn’t mean I understand what they do , or how to fix them.” “You need to be patient. No one learns healing magic in a day.” I suddenly gain a deeper respect for Lady Muara. Teaching is hard—somehow even more exhausting than healing people all day. “No one is forcing you to do this, you know,” I say, groaning in frustration. “I’m doing this for me,” Maribel snaps back. “I don’t want to be dependent on anyone else for healing ever again.” You don’t know how much she’s been through—how much she’s suffered—because healing was out of her reach. It’s— The door opens, interrupting Envy and flooding the room with the bustle of the shop. Our eyes are drawn to an elderly man in commoner’s clothes—but I hardly register his features. My attention is immediately consumed by the shiny thing attached to his right leg, metallic from the knee down. “Oh, I got this one,” Maribel says confidently, as the door swings shut behind him. “He’s lost a leg.” “Don’t be ridiculous,” says the man attached to the strange appendage, sidling over to the medical bed. “I lost this leg to Nullrot during the war. There’s no healing a limb taken by that curse.” “He has a fever.” “Sir, could you please take a seat and put your leg up here?” I ask, patting the bed. “Uh... okay, but why?” he replies, sounding confused. I lean in close to examine the prosthetic. I’ve read about devices like this, but I’ve never seen one in person. My finge