Raising a Hero

Chapter 3

I never thought my life had been easy. But, then, I'd never met anyone who thought their life was easy. I was under the general impression that everyone had been broken in one way or another along the way, and it was what we did with that brokenness that defined us. I thought this even when I got aghast looks from my therapists who told me, in no unclear terms, that it was phenomenal that I had come out as well-balanced as I was. They'd say "Your life was so hard." And, after a time, I came to accept that, maybe, my life was a bit harder than the ordinary.

I recanted that belief when I found him, my god-given charge, on the third day of being in the city at the end of the farm fields. My life had been luxuriously easy.

Because the boy, my new baby, was dying from how hard his was.

His hair that was supposed to be silver was gray, lank, and matted about his shoulders. Only one eye looked up at me from the hollow of his skull, dull and lost, the other swollen over with an old bruise and dried pus. His clothes was little more than burlap sacks messily sewn into something that resembled a shirt and pants, his feet bare, bony, and yellow-gray with mud and calluses. One of his legs was twisted like it had attempted to make corkscrew pasta, and the other was obviously broken and infected. Flies buzzed about him. The only reason I even knew he was alive was because he gave a slow blink when I crouched down in front of him to check.

And he couldn't be older than eight. It was older than I had thought on hearing 'little boy,' but a child nonetheless.

I was crying by the time I'd gathered up the magic that Nehcor had given me. But even as I set my glowing hands to his legs, I knew I'd have to be selective with how I used it if this dying boy was going to make it.

But first...the broken leg.

Even as I gently set my hands to the askew limb, I could feel the energy trickling out like threads of heat.

Nehcor, my godly brother, had hesitated when I asked him for healing magic. But he seemed to think better of it and agreed to it, saying it was a great idea after all.

But I came to understand why he had hesitated when I had healed the first person I had come upon, the little old lady with the dowager's hump, and she nearly fainted from surprised. Apparently, healing magic is very rare, and often attested to those of divine power. However fitting it was for me, being directly sent from this world's god, I was supposed to be hiding the fact that he had sent me.

'Don't so much as whisper that I sent you. If they come to see you as some sort of avatar of me, that may adversely affect their agency–not to mention get you in trouble. How will you be able to focus on helping my little hero to grow into the man he wishes to be if you're busy being kidnapped by religious zealots or kings who want to use your influence for politics? It's best to keep it secret, especially to your charge. Just trust me on this. If you don't...I'll have to pull you out.'

If I was supposed to be quiet about my connection to him, I had wondered why he had allowed me healing powers to begin with.

But now that I saw the near-death state of this poor boy, I could understand why.

But any change of matter required energy. Healing required atoms, molecules, and chemicals to be reknitted, rekindled, and replaced, which naturally required energy, and since I hadn't yet figured out how to take energy from thin air, it came from my body.

So I only healed his leg for now. It wouldn't do to wear myself out when it was obvious he was too weak to make his way to the hotel I'd made my temporary home. It looked the most painful.

The one, red eye widened in the light of my magic. His cracked lips parted in a wheezy gasp.

Once his broken leg was back to normal, I wiped my face, sniffing. The tears kept leaking out.