Marked Bound by Fire and Fate

When Staying Mattered

The shouting started before the doors opened.

It came down the hospital corridor in pieces. A voice breaking. Boots slipping on stone. The sharp, metallic clatter of a stretcher striking a wall.

Someone was crying out for help.

Someone else was praying, loudly, as if volume alone could make the words work faster.

Ilyra froze where she stood.

She was eight years old, barefoot on cold tile, a basin of water trembling in her hands. The stone leached warmth through her feet, grounding her even as her chest tightened.

"Clear the west wing!"

That was her mother's voice.

Not panicked.

Never panicked.

Sharper than the noise around it, cutting through the chaos like a blade finding its mark.

The doors burst open.

Blood and chaos came in with the cold.

It soaked into cloaks and gloves and hair, dark and heavy, wrong against the clean white of the hospital walls. Men she recognized were carried inside on stretchers meant for fewer bodies than they now held.

Neighbors. Cousins of friends she'd grown up with. One of the bakers who always slipped her extra crust when bread ran thin.

Someone screamed a name.

Someone didn't finish screaming.

The expedition had gone out at dawn.

They always did.

Meat didn't come from markets here. It came from risk. From forests that pushed back. From beasts that didn't care how hungry a city was.

People went anyway. They learned routes. They learned tells. Most of the time, they came back without issue.

This time, they hadn't.

"Ilyra."

Her mother was suddenly in front of her, hands firm on her shoulders. There was blood on her sleeves. Ilyra didn't know whose, and she didn't ask.

"Go to room seven," her mother said. "Bring clean cloth. All of it."

Ilyra nodded.

The basin sloshed as she ran.

Room seven was already full.

Too full.

Bodies were laid wherever there was space. Cots. Benches. The floor. The air smelled of iron, sweat, and fear layered so thick it pressed against her lungs. Voices overlapped in half-finished instructions. Pain made everything louder.

Ilyra knelt because there was nowhere else to be.

She pressed cloth where she was told. She held hands when they shook too badly. She counted breaths out loud when someone started to panic, because she'd seen her mother do it once.

Sometimes it worked.

A man convulsed violently beneath her fingers.

"Pressure," someone barked.

She pressed harder.

Her arms burned. Her hands slipped. The cloth turned red anyway, soaking through faster than she could replace it.

"I can't…" she whispered.

No one answered.

They were already past listening.

Panic had taken over.

She didn't know when the magic happened.

There was no flash.

No sudden clarity.

Just warmth.

There was only a moment where everything held the first time it activated.

The bleeding slowed.

Not stopped.

Just hesitated.

As if something unseen had placed a hand over the wound and said wait.

The man's breathing evened, just enough to buy another minute. Another decision. Another pair of hands to take over.

Ilyra stared at her fingers.

They were shaking.

She pulled them back, terrified she'd done something wrong. Terrified she'd done something right and wouldn't be able to do it again.

The man died an hour later.

But he lived long enough to say goodbye.

That mattered.

After that day, Ilyra didn't leave the hospital.

She set up a small cot inside her parents' office. Always ready to help when she could.

No one asked her to stay.

No one asked her to leave.

She learned where the clean cloth was kept. Which instruments needed boiling. Which cries meant pain and which meant fear. She learned the difference between urgency and panic, and how to move quickly without spreading either.

Her magic came slowly.

Never on command.

Only when she stayed still long enough to listen.

A fever breaking just before it took a turn.

A pulse steadied when it should have faltered.

A child sleeping through the night for the first time in days.

Doctors noticed.

They didn't praise her.

They started handing her harder things. More tasks she could complete because she would.

By ten, she was watching her younger siblings at night so her parents could sleep in shifts.

By twelve, she knew the hospital's rhythms better than most of the staff.

By thirteen, people asked for her by name. Quietly. Respectfully. Like they didn't want to scare the help away.

She never said no.

Healers were rare.

Everyone knew it.

One in a hundred, if you were generous. Fewer if you were honest. When one appeared, cities adjusted around them like a body learning to protect a vital organ.

Ilyra hated that.

She hated the way people bowed their heads. Hated the way gratitude turned heavy. Hated the way expectation tried to settle into her bones like it belonged there.

She didn't heal because she was special.

She healed because she could.

That was what set her apart.

The letter arrived on a quiet afternoon.

Ilyra was washing blood from her arms when her youngest sister burst into the room, waving a sealed envelope like it might escape.

"It's yours," she said, breathless. "It's got an official seal on it!"

Ilyra dried her hands carefully before taking it.

The academy seal was immaculate.

Untouched by worry.

Untouched by need.

She read the letter once.

Then she folded it and tucked it into her apron pocket.

There was still work to do.

That night, Ilyra stood alone on the hospital roof, the town below moving without thought. The air was cool, clean in the way only silence could manage.

She held the academy letter in both hands.

Below her, the city breathed. Carts rattling over stone. Late lamps glowing in windows. The hospital itself a constant pulse of motion and quiet urgency.

People she knew were down there. People who relied on routines she had helped build.

She imagined leaving and how it would affect the town.

The thought made something in her chest tighten.

She wasn't afraid of the academy.

She was afraid of absence.

Of beds that would feel emptier. Of shifts that would stretch longer. Of moments where someone reached for her out of habit and found air instead.

"What if they need me?" she whispered.

The wind didn't answer.

Footsteps sounded behind her.

She turned to see her father, coat thrown over his shoulders, eyes tired but steady. Her mother followed, one arm wrapped around the youngest, another hand resting lightly at Ilyra's back like it had always been there.

"You're thinking about this too much," her mother said gently.

Ilyra swallowed. "I don't want to leave you short-handed."

Her father smiled. Not wide. Not easy. But real.

"You already gave us six years. What more could we ask for?"

Her mother nodded. "You didn't get this power to stay here. You're meant for much bigger things."

"What if you struggle?" Ilyra asked quietly. "What if you can't save someone I could have?"

"That's not for you to carry anymore," her father said. "They called for you. We can handle things here."

Her mother squeezed her shoulder.

"You'll go learn how to use your magic the right way. If you come back after, think of the people you could save then."

Her siblings clustered around her legs. Arms. Sleeves. Familiar weight grounding her.

One of them looked up and asked, "Will you still come home?"

Ilyra knelt and pulled them close.

"Always."

She stood there a while longer after they left, letter pressed to her chest, the city still breathing beneath her feet.

Tomorrow, she would leave.

Tonight, she stayed.

She went back inside.

And the hospital kept breathing.