Chapter 1: Bloody Interruption
The air in Willow’s apothecary shop always tasted of old paper and potential. Zuzana breathed it in, the familiar scents of drying chamomile, crushed valerian root, and something ozone-sharp that Willow would never name grounding her even as her mind raced ahead. She wiped a dusty glass vial with her sleeve, her reflection in the greenish glass showing wide, restless eyes and a smudge of soil on her freckled cheek.
“Another month of this, Willow, and I swear I’ll start composting myself just for something to do,” Zuzana said, sliding the vial onto a crowded shelf. “I can recite every property of mooncap mushrooms in my sleep. I can purify river water with a whisper and three pinches of salt. I want to use it.”
From behind a tottering stack of leather-bound grimoires, Willow made a noncommittal hum. Her gnarled hands never paused as they measured out flakes of dried dragon’s bane onto a scale. “Knowledge isn’t a prize to be spent, girl. It’s a wall to keep the darkness out. The forest beyond the village wall isn’t a storybook. It eats eager redheads for breakfast.”
“I’m not asking for a storybook!” Zuzana’s voice echoed off the jars of pickled shadows and luminous moth wings. “I’m asking for a chance to see if any of this,” she gestured wildly at the chaotic, wonderful room, “actually works outside of this room.”
Before Willow could reply, the shop door exploded inward.
Not a metaphor. The wooden planks, reinforced with iron sigils, shattered into a shower of splinters as a figure stumbled through, carrying a second, smaller form. The crisp, dangerous scent of pine and iron flooded the herbal haze, followed immediately by the coppery reek of blood.
Zuzana froze for a heartbeat, taking in the scene. The one standing was a woman—a knight, by the look of her battered plate armor—tall and muscular, her blonde hair matted with sweat and something dark. Her face was all harsh angles and grim determination, pale under streaks of grime. In her arms she held a woman in dark, slashed robes, soaked through with blood that wasn't all her own. Monster blood had a particular, oily sheen to it.
“Healer,” the knight gasped, her voice gravelly with exhaustion. “Now.”
Willow was already moving, her earlier frailty gone. “Back room. Zuzana, clear the table. Bring the yarrow salve, the golden thread, and the black glass bottle from the high shelf. Move!”
Zuzana moved, her body responding before her mind could catch up. She swept jars and mortar bowls off the large central worktable with a crash, ignoring the mess. The wounded woman—a witch, her robes suggested—was laid gently on the scarred wood. She was short and curvaceous, her face ashen. A deep, ugly gash crossed her collarbone, weeping red.
“Astrid,” the wounded witch whispered, her eyes fluttering open. They were a startling, clear green, glazed with pain but holding a wicked light. “Told you… the cute ones are always in the backwoods villages.” She tried a grin that turned into a wince.
“Quiet, Briar,” the knight, Astrid, commanded, but her hands were surprisingly gentle as she helped Willow cut away the blood-soaked fabric.
Zuzana returned with the supplies, her heart hammering against her ribs. This was real. This was blood and urgency and the thing she’d been craving. She watched Willow’s hands, steady and sure, as she cleaned the wound. The injury was bad, deep enough to show a hint of bone, and pulsed with an unhealthy, faint purple tinge.
“Claw mark,” Willow muttered. “Blight-wolf. The wound is septic with its rot. Standard poultices won’t draw it out.”
“Can you fix her?” Astrid’s question was blunt, stripped bare.
“I can,” Zuzana heard herself say. Both older women looked at her. Astrid’s gaze was pure, icy doubt. Briar’s was curious, pained amusement. Willow’s was a silent assessment. Zuzana swallowed. “The Slumber-Spruce resin. You distilled it last harvest for necrotic toxins. Applied with a binding of purified sun-moss. It’ll draw the blight and knit the flesh clean.”
A moment of silence stretched, broken only by Briar’s ragged breathing. Willow gave a slow, single nod. “Do it.”
Her trust was a physical force. Zuzana’s hands trembled for only a second before discipline took over. She worked quickly, mixing the viscous amber resin with the fibrous green moss. Her world narrowed to the wound, to the precision of her movements. As she packed the poultice into the gash, she whispered the minor incantation for cleansing, the words feeling alive on her tongue for the first time outside of practice. A faint silver light emanated from her fingertips, and the sickly purple tinge at the wound’s edges receded, pulled into the moss which blackened and crisped.
Briar let out a long, shuddering sigh. Some of the terrible tension left her body. “Well,” she breathed, her voice a thread stronger. “Aren’t you full of surprises, Red?”
Astrid watched, her jaw tight. The suspicion in her eyes had softened a fraction, replaced by a weary, calculating scrutiny. “You have training.”
“I’m the apothecary’s apprentice,” Zuzana said, meeting her gaze. She didn’t look away.
“She’s better than an apprentice,” Willow said, washing her hands in a basin. “She has a gift. The magic listens to her.”
Briar tried to sit up, wobbled, and let Astrid push her gently back down. “See? Gifted. And she didn’t faint at the sight of gore. A keeper.” She winked at Zuzana, who felt a flush creep up her neck.
Astrid ignored her. Her focus was on Willow. “We were ambushed two miles into the Deepwood. Our third… didn’t make it. We recovered the compass, but the artifact site is deeper still. We need a healer. A competent one.”
Willow’s face closed like a door. “No. My apprentice is not some caravan mercenary for you to drag into monster-infested shadows.”
“Willow, please—” Zuzana started.
“You don’t know what you’re asking for, child! Look at them!” Willow’s voice cracked. “This is what waits out there!”
“I see a knight who carried her friend miles to save her,” Zuzana said, her voice low but fierce. “I see a witch who cracked jokes while bleeding out. I see people doing something. And I see a blight-wolf injury I just cured. What’s the point of knowing how if I never get to do?”
The room was quiet. Briar watched with keen interest. Astrid studied Zuzana’s face, then her hands, as if appraising a weapon.
“We leave at first light,” Astrid said finally, the words directed at Willow but her eyes locked on Zuzana. “With or without supplemental aid. The artifact we seek cannot fall into other hands. A healer would increase our odds of survival significantly. She would be compensated.”
It wasn’t an invitation. It was a tactical assessment.
Zuzana turned to her mentor. The anger in Willow’s eyes had faded into a deep, resonant fear. It was the look of someone who had seen too much darkness to willingly let light walk into it. Zuzana reached out and took Willow’s wrinkled hand. “You taught me how to mend. Now let me learn what I’m mending against. Let me learn why it matters.”
Willow looked from Zuzana’s determined face to Briar’s slowly colouring one, to Astrid’s unyielding stance. She sagged, the fight leaving her. It was a surrender, and it hurt more than a shout.
“Go pack,” Willow whispered, pulling her hand away. “Take the silverwood salve. And the jar on my nightstand. The one with the black wax seal.”
Zuzana knew what was in that jar. Her own experimental concoction. A strength-growth acceleration tincture, untested. A spark of something reckless and hungry flared in her chest.
Briar grinned, a real one this time, though it was weak. “Welcome to the party, Red.”
Astrid merely gave a short, sharp nod. “Dawn. The north gate. Be ready to move. And,” she added, her tone leaving no room for negotiation, “try to keep up.”
As Zuzana hurried to the back to gather her things, the smell of blood and broken wood still hanging in the air, she felt the four walls of the shop, of her whole life, finally fall away. Ahead was only the dark of the forest, and the glint of a knight’s armor, and the beginning of everything.