Fallen One (Book three of Alfireán age)

- Secrets Revealed -

Several minutes later, the world slowly came back into focus as a soft voice moaned, "What's wrong with me?"

The sound of a rustling skirt reached his ears while a blurry figure hovered over him and healed the wound he had inflicted on himself. The healer turned and laid her hand on the woman sitting beside him. "I didn't want to have to tell you this yet," she said in soft, comforting tones, "but you suffered brain damage from your ordeal with the meteor."

At last, the prince's eyes focused, and Drake watched fear spread across the grand champion's face.

As the dust from the destroyed cavern lazily floated to the floor around them, Zaphaniea's back turned rigid. Her long-lashed eyes widened and her voice trembled as she asked, "How bad is it?"

"Not good I'm afraid," Olivia whispered, turning away from the champion. She stared unseeingly at the ground. "The damage is causing several malfunctions in your system, most of which can be artificially corrected with modern medicine and daily treatments. But the majority of the neural passageways around where your spells are stored, have turned to scar tissue. That means your white blood cells are receiving mixed signals." Olivia took a deep breath fortifying herself for her next words. "Because of this," she said, "they are undergoing rapid cellular degeneration."

Zaphaniea frowned, the streaks of dust caking her cheeks and forehead wrinkling in the motion. "What does that mean?"

"Your condition is a rare problem among those who use advanced spells and push things too far," Drake answered for Olivia while sitting up and wrapping his arms around his knees. He looked straight at the champion, his face devoid of emotion as he continued, "But essentially your immune system is dying faster than it can repair itself. Someday soon, it will lose the war, and when it does, it will take with it your ability to use magic and your capacity to live in the outside world. In order to survive, you will have to live inside a sterilized environment," Drake finished, the words coming from his mouth sounding strangely robotic.

The grand champion's eyes grew to the size of saucers as terror affixed itself to her face. "You're saying I'm going to become a bubble girl?" she panicked, her limbs trembling.

The prince wrinkled his brow in consternation. Zaphaniea was referring to a popular hollow vid about a girl who lived inside a giant inflatable balloon. He hadn't seen that particular vid, but he believed it ended with her kissing her true love and dying shortly thereafter—not in the least bit scientifically accurate or at all appealing to him. But for all intents and purposes, the concept was right. "That's not the technical term for it, but yes," Drake answered.

"No, no, no!" Zaphaniea exclaimed, curling in on herself. "I can't live like that. I'd rather die!" she blubbered, tears welling up in her eyes as she buried her face in her hands.

Alf, who had been standing silently over them, laid his hand on Olivia's shoulder. "Isn't there anything we can do?" he asked.

The healer shook her head.

"But you and Harold have done multiple brain surgeries before," the young High Lord argued, as always trying to find solutions to impossible problems.

"But those are different things like aneurysms and blunt force trauma," Olivia explained. "This is more like someone drilled a hole into her skull, injected fire into her brain, and cauterized certain portions of it. At most, I could go in and remove the scar tissue, but that would most likely exacerbate the issue."

"I'm going to end up being stuck inside a ball for the rest of my life," the champion moaned. "And all because I chose to save you guys," she added bitterly, waving her hand at the motley group.