Rune Mage [Fantasy/Adventure | Book 1 +2 | Complete]

Chapter 28: Severed Ties

Word of her attack spread quickly; perhaps it was because Bicknor was such a close-knit community that gossip spread like runed fire. Although Seiren hadn't really connected with the people there, her mage status and association with Loren Rummage meant there was always a steady stream of flowers for her each day. The nurses blocked unknown visitors, insisting Seiren needed rest, and she was glad. Something of this magnitude was frankly embarrassing. The flowers were already overkill; she'd run out of vases on day one.

Loren didn't visit more often than needed to heal. Perhaps she was too busy or perhaps she knew Seiren was that uncomfortable. After Seiren's initial breakdown, she hadn't brought up the attack again, merely made idle chat and knuckled down to the healing.

Being in hospital reminded Seiren of the days at King's Academy of Magic. Everyone had a role, a little group, and their jobs. Everyone adhered to protocols and timetables. In the morning, the nurses helped patients onto chairs and gave them a wash behind drawn curtains. There were medications rounds involving heavy trolleys containing drugs and doctor rounds with harried-looking students stumbling after the seniors, and exercise sessions for those needing rehabilitations. Seiren eyed them all from behind her door; none of them visited her, though. She was exclusively under the care of Loren. From afternoon to early evening there was healing. Doctors listened to patients' chests and gave them different concoctions, nodding or shaking their heads depending on their responses. Mages who trained as medics applied green runes to wounds.

Here, though, nobody seemed to know who she was. She was just another patient. The nurses occasionally went up to her and asked if she needed help with anything and she didn't. Seiren wasn't even sure if she needed to stay in. At King's, the whispers followed wherever she went. Furtive glances came her way but darted away when her eyes swept over. People scurried off when she walked down those spreading corridors with stone statues decorating every path, wary of her glaring eyes and sharp tongue. Rooms emptied when she entered to study. Her occasional responses to Madeleine, out loud, didn't help. The students each had their own roles within friendship groups: some were the jesters, some leaders, others just followers. Seiren never fitted into a role. She didn't need one. Even the teachers, although they always looked approving with her grades, never reached out for her. Their words were always measured and spoken with care, as though wary of getting too close to her.

Loren healed her for three days straight. On the third night, she dropped a small pile of notes in her lap, bundled neatly with string. Tiny handwriting sat like little bricks for about ten pages; surprisingly thin given how much it had been used since its discovery.

"I'll loan it to you for a few days to read. It's my research on chaos magic. Guard it with your life. It'll keep you occupied whilst you're staying with us. And yes," she added, seeing Seiren open her mouth, "it's best if you stay in for a while. There's heightened security and the soldiers are searching for the mage who attacked you. Suck it up, buttercup."

Before Seiren could utter a word, Loren had hurried away, called by a nurse to see an unwell patient. Seiren, swallowing the gnawing loneliness without Madeleine, sat up and crossed her legs, propping the notes open in her lap. Her eyes scanned the neatly scribed words, hoping for a distraction.

This is a copy, replicated to the best of Loren Rummage's ability, of the first batch of notes made on chaos magic after its seizure by the king's mages.

Ah. Seiren wondered why the king's mages would seize Loren's notes and under what jurisdiction; unless deemed to be a risk to the general population, mages' research would not warrant confiscation.

Its application to the healing body has been proven over the past six months to be more efficacious than rune magic under the right circumstances, including but not limited to areas of life and death. The mystery of life and death has always been poorly understood, not least due to the fact that any experimentation involving such is heavily frowned upon and prohibited by the Council of Mages.