Void System: Every Heroine Makes Me Stronger

The key turned. Tressa pulled the door open before the man outside could strike it again. She drew the key free and pushed it into her apron pocket.

He stood in the passage with both hands braced on his knees. "The litter’s in the main room. He isn’t breathing."

Tressa moved.

Severin followed her through the short passage. She took the turn too quickly, caught the wall for one step, then corrected her stride. The soreness beneath her dress slowed her only that much.

The main room smelled of boiled cloth, old blood, and the thin stew waiting near the stove. A litter lay beside the passage wall. Three villagers crowded around it. Behind the clean screen on the opposite side, the driver from the cart gave a rough but steady breath.

A different man lay on the litter.

His arms had fallen loose beside him. Wet food stained one corner of his mouth. His chest did not rise.

"Move back," Tressa said.

The villagers gave her room. She dropped beside the litter, pressed two fingers beneath the man’s jaw, then leaned close to his mouth.

"Pulse. Roll him toward me. Not flat."

One helper reached for the man’s shoulders. Another caught his hips. Tressa guided the head and opened his mouth.

"Clean cloth."

A folded strip landed in her hand. She wrapped it around two fingers and cleared what she could see. The man gave one thin rasp. His throat worked once, but the next breath did not come.

Tressa looked at Severin.

"His breathing. Hold it now."

Severin knelt beside her and put his palm high against the man’s chest, near the shoulder. He fixed the living target in his mind, then the failing process.

Crisis Hold.

The copied pattern answered at once.

A small pull passed through his Core Essence. The Void replaced it before the absence could settle. Beneath his palm, the man’s failed rhythm stopped sliding farther away.

A shallow breath scraped into him. The ribs lifted beneath Severin’s palm and fell again at the same weak depth.

Tressa was already working.

"Keep his hips there. Shoulder lower. You, hold the cloth ready."

The helpers obeyed. She turned the man’s face farther to the side and swept his mouth again. More wet matter came free. The next held breath rattled around something still lodged deeper.

The Skill held the failing breath. It gave Severin no sense of where the blockage lay or how to clear it. That remained Tressa’s work.

One helper started to lift the man’s head.

"Leave it lower," Tressa said. "Keep his face toward the cloth."

The helper corrected his grip. Tressa braced one palm below the shoulder blade and struck the upper back with the heel of her other hand. Once. Again, harder.

The man’s body jerked against the villagers holding him. A thicker mass spilled across the cloth at his mouth.

"Clear it," Tressa said.

The helper pulled the cloth away. Tressa replaced it with a clean fold and checked the mouth with her fingers. Another breath passed under Severin’s hold, rough but less obstructed.

"Head lower. Only a little."

They adjusted him.

The room had gone quiet except for the driver’s breathing behind the screen and the weak sounds coming from the litter. A woman near the stove clutched a blanket to her chest. She watched Severin’s hand as though she expected light or blood, but nothing marked the Skill’s work.

She pressed the upper back once more. A wet cough broke from the man. Air moved through his throat with a cleaner sound.

"Good," Tressa said. "Keep him there."

The last breath the Skill owed came shallow but unobstructed.

Then the pattern released.

Severin kept his palm in place without feeding it again.

For half a heartbeat, the man’s chest stayed still.

He coughed.

The cough folded him weakly toward the litter. A breath followed it, uneven and entirely his own.

Tressa watched his mouth, face set.

Another breath came. Tressa kept two fingers beneath his jaw through a third, watching the hollow above his collarbone each time it moved. The sounds remained rough, but they no longer stopped.

"Blanket over him, not under his face," she said. "Nothing to drink. If he tries to sit, stop him."

The woman by the stove hurried forward with the blanket. Tressa kept the worker on his side and checked the pulse again. It remained quick beneath her fingers, but it no longer faltered between breaths. His eyelids moved, but he did not open them.

"Can he hear us?" one of the men asked.

"Maybe. That doesn’t mean he can answer." Tressa touched the worker’s cheek. "Stay with him. Watch his mouth and chest. Call me if either changes."

"How long was he working?" Tressa asked.

"Since before midday," the first watcher said. "He kept saying he could finish one more load."

Tressa looked down at the limp man. "Then he does no work tomorrow. If he wakes and argues, send for me."

The helper who had fetched them stared at Severin. "What did you do?"

"Bought her time."

Tressa glanced up once. "And now he needs watching."

If the worker recovered, Mereford kept another pair of hands and another witness. Severin had spent almost nothing to preserve both.

Tressa shifted her weight as she rose. The first attempt pulled at the soreness beneath her dress; she changed which knee carried her and stood without asking for a hand. Her voice remained firm. "He stays here tonight. Someone wakes me if his breathing shortens, if he vomits again, or if you cannot wake him. Don’t wait until morning."

"I’ll take first watch," the man beside the litter said.

"Then sit where you can see his face."

Wooden wheels rattled over the road outside.

The sound slowed in front of the shelter. Boots struck the packed earth, followed by the runner’s voice from three days earlier.

"They’re here! The Guild registrar came from Greycross!"

Several villagers turned toward the entrance. Tressa stayed over the worker and drew the blanket away from his mouth after someone had pulled it too high.

Severin stood.

The returning messenger appeared in the doorway, road dust pale across his coat. A woman in a dark traveling mantle stepped down from the cart behind him with a leather document case under one arm.

"Severin Morcant?" she asked.

"Yes."

He pointed to the messenger. "Bring the first men who saw the threshold rise. Bring the workers from the field. No one touches the bodies."

The messenger nodded and turned back toward the road.

Severin looked at the registrar. "We meet at the gate."