Maud made her way from the surgical tent with her eyes at her feet, taking long, deep breaths. The surgeries with Father Paul, the Infirmarian, had gotten less invasive over the course of the last few days. Less dire. Less chances of them dying during them. Today, so far, had been one of the better days, but she knew better than to let herself get her hopes up. There were still plenty to go. She was glad to have a break.

  Some of the wounded waiting for beds in the tents, laying with their heads on logs set in lines on the ground with folded coats or bags of leaves and softer debris as pillows, looked up to her with smiles and affectionate greetings. She grinned as warmly back, but tried not to look. Most of their faces still had tell-tale signs of what they endured in the battle. If this was the horror of after a battle, what could possibly have been the horrors during it? But then, she always reminded herself, in moments like this, of the miracles she witnessed because of it, too.

  She had seen what Draka could do as a Paladin through prayer. She had seen him ask for God to heal her shakiness and, though he didn’t ask or even know about it, her colorblindness. She had seen how God had healed her mother and father after they were nearly killed through Draka. Now she knew, having watched the Paladins Portis, Tilly, and Enya moving through the worst of the injured—who they called the urgents—also could do the same. But she had never heard of or known what Clerics did. And it was amazing. They, too, were instruments of miracles.

  A Cleric was always at their sides when they did surgeries, always ready to do their part if things didn’t quite go the way they wanted or if something just wasn’t right.

  Her first day, she didn’t inject enough essence of poppy into their patient as Father Paul had asked, and the patient had began convulsing while a staple was being pressed into an artery. The man’s heart stopped. Maud’s knees had buckled her into Father Paul’s arms and he moved her out of Cleric Fleurie’s way, then went back to finish stapling before he, too, moved aside. That was when she saw something she never expected.

  Cleric Fleurie prayed, held one hand above the man and mouthed a prayer with closed eyes. Bright blue light formed around her hands and then, like a tornado, twisted down to the man’s chest. The man arched his back and took a breath. The Cleric didn’t collapse or look tired or exhausted. She only stepped aside and let Father Paul step back to continue his work with Maud following once she was able to stop gaping. That was one of more times than Maud could count that she watched a Cleric resurrect patients that way.

  “A Paladin, because they have the Holy Spirit within them and, with that, when given God’s grace to do so,” Father Paul had explained to her while he was watching over her incision on a patient, “they heal our urgents because it is thorough, almost as if Christ himself were, because they are warriors of the soul. Clerics, are warriors of the flesh. They stop bleeding, but we still need to stitch. They can turn away infections, but we still need to wash the wound after—right there, and hook it at the end…good—and, it is very rare, but not impossible for Paladins to resurrect. Clerics do so with God’s permission as one of their primary purposes. I imagine it is God’s way of preventing the Enemy from filling ranks prematurely.”

  While she set the scalpel in the bowl of alcohol, he reached behind her to grab the tweezers they needed to pull the arrowhead out. The patient was lying still from the injection she had given him before the surgery.

  He continued when he turned back, “Clerics are more numerous than Paladins by ten fold and are always accompanied by a hundred or more Monastic Knights. That’s why we have so many of them and only three Paladins. Well, four once the Prince wakes.”

  The thought had occurred to her then and struck her again as she was walking towards the smell of Leta’s cooking. What happened if Clerics and their knights fought demons? Father Paul’s answer terrified her. Ma never told her about what happened down at the river, what happened to the men who tried to save her. Just that they died. That they tried and were slaughtered.

  “An army of a million Clerics would be destroyed in a matter of minutes against a single demon without a Paladin,” he said, piercing her eyes with a heaviness in his stare. “Or, more likely, become a newly formed unit within the Enemy’s legions twice as quickly.” And he had returned to his work as if what he said wasn’t the most terrifying thing she had ever heard in her life.

  She already knew from the wafting smoke that it needed a little more salt and probably should have been boiling with orange peels throughout the morning. That was how Draka liked it most.

  Her eyes began to water. She thought about checking on him. After stitching his chest and back, after helping Father Paul drain his lungs, staple his windpipe, staple arteries, drain his lungs again, stitch him again, and more draining, more stitching, more transfusions…Maud had grown numb to the process with the other patients. They were nothing but strings, fabric, pots, and ingredients, to her afterwards.

  That was when she saw the big white horse standing at the tables with her head over his shoulders. And, for the first time in nearly a week, Maud smiled. “Draka!”

  Vigora took a step back with jumping nods of her dish-faced head as Maud rushed with her arms wide. Draka twisted toward her over the end of the bench seat of the table and winced through his smile as he tried to push himself onto his feet.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  She didn’t let him. She met him where he sat, leaning over his lap with her arms across his neck—careful not to touch where she had stitched so many times—and under his arm on the other side so she could feel his warm hand on her back. Her cheek brushed along the side that wasn’t burned and oily from the salve.

  “I missed you,” she said into his ear. She couldn’t hug him tight enough.

  He nodded as answer, squeezing her back. It wasn’t as long as she wanted. It probably never could have been. His arm fell from her back and she straightened, brushing her forehead as if her hair wasn’t in a neat bun in the back of her head. He was beaming up at her with glistening eyes.

  She pursed her brows at the burns on his face. They were webbed scars from his cheek bones, back, curving around his ear and around the back of his head. Most of his hair was gone on that side. She frowned at it and leaned over him to get a closer look. He tilted his head without even a sigh of complaint.

  “It’s better than it was, but I think this might be permanent,” Maud winced, lifting bits of hair that hung from where the fire missed. “Maybe not, though. I can see some stubble between the worst bits. You always had your hair long, might be able to hide it.” She straightened, “How’s your arm?”

  Draka didn’t bother trying to lift it. He just looked down at it and blinked. Then nodded at her with thankful sadness.

  “It’ll get better if you don’t do anything stupid like go bow hunting or something.”

  That, Draka answered with a glare. Then a nod, as if to say, ‘I deserve that.’

  Maud sat on the bench across from him and turned to watch her aunt and cousins filling bowls and handing out small cups of water.

  “She’s definitely put too much garlic in it. Can’t wait to have that being blown in my face while I’m sewing stitches,” she shook her head. She turned back to Draka with an affectionate grin, “It’s good to see you awake. You can’t be out for too long, though.” She pointed, “Those burns will get burnt again if you don’t get them covered before too long. And tell your nurse to give you a break from the salve until tonight. Just keep it clean and covered lightly when you go back in.”

  Draka gave her a confused look.

  “I’ll remind you before we go back in,” she chuckled. Then, “I’m part of the Infirmarian’s staff.” She held up her hands with a wide, toothy smile that was hinged on sarcasm. “Steadiest hands they’ve ever seen. I make perfect incisions. Ma has been acting as your—Regent, I believe they call her. We arrived a day or two after the battle with a few others. Ma had—you’ll never believe it—Balian organize a labor party of three hundred that got here, I think, two days after that.” She pointed at the Palais, “They’ve been working on clearing that out and also been helping give out food from fish trains.”

  Draka nodded, looking around him. His gaze stopped on Vigora.

  Maud chuckled sardonically, then shot him the closest thing to her mother’s meanest glare. “Oh, I have a few words about that one. First of all, the only reason you’re not being thumped on behalf of the both of us is because someone already did it! Second, there’s a stableman with about twenty stitches and a bandaged knee you owe an apology. And third,” she leaned back, throwing her hands in angered confusion onto the table, “What in the plowing rivers were you thinking? You were going to send us to Lord Taggerty in the Holy Lands? It was bad enough that I had my hands in your chest every hour praying that you didn’t die and wondering why the other Paladins couldn’t heal you. Then Vigora comes without a rider and that letter. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

  Draka didn’t move except to turn his eyes up and to the side as if trying to reason his way through all of it. He motioned with his hands and made a face.

  “Well, we’re safer with you alive, you holy idiot.” Maud pinched her lips to one side with her tongue in her cheek and crossed her arms at him. “And that’s another thing. ‘Your Affectionate Protector’? What are you? My dog?”

  Once again, he tried to reason with hand motions.

  Maud shook her face. “Just admit it, Draka. For all that is holy,” her face softened at him as she reached across the table, flapping her fingers for him to grab, which he did with a hesitant grin, “I know that you’re trying to be appropriate. But, I think we’re past that. The next time I get a letter from you, it better say, ‘Love, Second Pa,’ or ‘With Love from your Guardian,’ or anything, but it better have ‘love’ in there somewhere. It hurt when it wasn’t there.” She squeezed his hand before letting go and straightening to stand, “I’m going to go get in line. Make sure you finish your bowl. Don’t take too long, you need to stay out of the sun and it’s about to hit those burns.”

  She crossed around the table and kissed his forehead. “Dumb barbarian Prince,” She scoffed playfully at him. “If you’re gone before I get back, I’ll check on you later. Love you.”

  Draka put a hand over his heart when he looked up to watch her leave for the line.