"Are we close?" Asked Ea.
"Even better. I think this is the place."
Ea followed Yiran's steps up to a secluded shrine, tucked away at the edge of the Amasurian mountains. In the distance was a deep canyon that separated Raeha from Amasu's little corner of the world.
"It's pretty quiet. Do you think those men at the inn were lying after all?"
Yiran shook his head. "It looks really well kept. Someone has to be taking care of this place right?"
"I suppose there's only one way to find out right?" Ea carefully made his way up the stairs and stood next to Yiran in front of the doors. "Hello? Is anyone there?"
Nothing but silence followed. Yiran looked around some more, his eyes catching a small rope that hung next to the stairs. It looked to be connected to a small bell that was hung above them. He reached out and tugged on it gently. A soft chime came from the bell followed by the doors to the shrine sliding open. There was no one behind the doors but the candles that lit one by one as the light drifted inside from the entryway were enough to let Yiran know that they were being allowed inside.
"Looks like we can go in now."
Yiran helped Ea over the threshold and they made their way inside. The scent of sandalwood rose in the air as they entered. The pair stopped at a thin, red curtain when a voice called out to them.
"Hmm...what unfamiliar faces. What business do you have here today travellers?"
The smoke from the burning incense curled into the shape of foxes. The ghostly skulk of foxes circled Ea and Yiran as if to assess them.
"We heard about this place from some men while we were resting in an inn not too far from here. My friend here was injured some time ago. After hearing about your blessings we thought it might be worth the visit," explained Yiran.
The foxes drifted closer to Ea, observing him intently before swiftly diving behind the curtain. Approaching footfalls ghosted over the wooden floor of the shrine and stopped before the curtains that separated them. The curtain was drawn to the side, revealing a young man in traditional Amasurian garb.
"Well, you've come to the right place. Follow me."
The pair were led to a table, where Ea was made to sit down and remove his bandages.
"So what's the story? I don't get many folks from outside of Amasu visiting here."
Yiran finished removing Ea's bandages and gave the man a weary smile. "My name's Yiran, this is my friend Ea. We've...just been drifting for a while now. Nothing special."
"Ea? Like that Solarian prince? News from other countries normally takes a while to travel this far. The shrine servants like to gather information from wherever they can so I heard about his exile pretty early on."
The smoke from a nearby candle swirled into another fox at the mention of the shrine's servants. It drifted around the man, smiling impishly before vanishing. The silence that followed the man's question made him quite nervous. Part of him regretted bringing it up to begin with.
"What's your name sir?" asked Ea.
"Oh, you can call me Koteru."
"I suppose if you've already heard the story then you know how I injured my eyes. Yiran convinced me to visit you to see if it was at all possible to heal my eyes but I understand if having me here is off-putting."
"It's not off-putting at all."Koteru pulled out some tools and began prepping them. "I'm not sure I can return your eyes to how they were before but I can definitely restore them to a certain extent." When Koteru examined his eyes, a brief flicker of recognition hit him. "Whoever treated them is very skilled. They managed to reduce a lot of the damage done. I imagine this level of healing would have been difficult to achieve without magic."
Yiran nodded. "It was. I helped where I could until he could get treated in Solaria. The court physician's apprentice, Yukimi and the previous Empress' friend Bellany are the ones who fixed him up."
The familiarity Koteru felt earlier suddenly made sense. "Oh! Bellany is my mother!"
Ea smiled weakly. "Is that so? I suppose we can be certain I'm in good hands then."
Koteru chuckled. "My magic works a little differently than my mother's but I can assure you it's just as powerful. People who come for blessings normally have a specific script they'd like for me to use. Do you have any words in mind?"
Ea shook his head. "I'll leave that to you."
•~•~•~•~•~•~•
December • 9 • xxxx
Isabelle paced back and forth, hovering next to the unconscious girl. "Is she any better?"
"Much better," replied Yukimi. "Here, take a look." she showed Isabelle a small, circular device. In the center was a rotating sphere that contained a drop of the girl's blood that Yukimi had drawn when they came in. The device pulsed in a faint golden glow as it synced to the pulsing of the girl's root shi. "When you initially brought her here, its rhythm was much more irregular. It looks like she had overexerted herself. The pattern it was beating in was slightly concerning though. When she wakes up we'll have to determine if she has any other health conditions."
Egan poked his head over her shoulder to examine it as well. "That's new. I've never seen you guys use that before."
"Tobi helped make it and Ri-is helped with the alchemy. After the incident with the Empress, I did some research. I wanted to know if there was a way to tell the extent of the damage done to a person's shi to avoid there being another situation where we just had to watch someone...well...wither. Seimei mentioned that the Empress had received medical training in her younger days so I assumed her library would have some useful information."
Yukimi grabbed a document from her desk and showed it to them. "I found some information on Arunian medicine. One document described an alchemical device that could detect patterns of shi if it was close enough to a person whose blood it contained. It looked like it was an incomplete document written by the Empress' father. I don't know much about him but I am aware that he was skilled with magic so most of the groundwork was already there. I just made a few adjustments to it."
Isabelle scanned over Salem's signature at the bottom of the document. "How does it work exactly?"
Yukimi pointed to a chart on the page. "This device detects fluctuations in the pattern of a person's root shi. King Salem did list some common patterns in various illnesses that it can detect like heart problems, colds, stress, anxiety and so on. I've been testing it out lately and so far it's been useful in logging baselines for the pattern of an individual's root shi when they're healthy. I'm...well it's been a little more difficult in finding people with damaged roots or corrupted shi to research. The device seems to easily be influenced if there are stronger sources of shi near it."
"Li's corrupted minions are everywhere. Maybe I can bring one back for you to experiment on."
Egan raised an eyebrow at Isabelle's statement. "I don't know about that. Maybe treating people as experiments isn't the best idea?"
Isabelle scoffed. "So what? They're the ones attacking us. They should get a taste of their own medicine."
Egan sighed in frustration. "Is that how you see this? If we acted like that we'd be no better than Li. Our job is to protect the people affected by this war."
"You want to protect them? Li and her forces are nothing more than pests that need to be exterminated."
Yukimi looked between the two as they bickered. As far as she knew, they had never really argued before, so she was unsure of whether or not she should step in and stop them. Luckily for her, she wouldn't have to deliberate much longer. Glancing over at the girl on the bed, Yukimi caught the brief flutter of her eyes as she began to stir.
"Oh! You're awake!"
Yukimi's exclamation silenced Isabelle and Egan and drew their attention to the girl. She squinted, opening her eyes slowly.
"W-Where am I?"86Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDJn9AzompY
