THE HEALER WHO COULD NOT SAVE HER BROTHER

THE BODY IN THE FOREST

Aria had seen death before.  

Too many times.

It came in all kinds. Quiet ones. Violent ones. The ones you saw coming from a mile away. The ones that blindsided you and knocked the air out of your chest.

You never got used to it.  

You just learned how to keep walking after.

The forest was too quiet. That creepy, wrong kind of quiet where people start whispering without meaning to, like loud voices might wake something up.

Aria walked between the trees with Rowan and two guards. Nyra stuck close behind her. Closer than normal. Aria noticed. Didn’t say anything. Everyone dealt with fear their own way. Nyra was pretending she wasn’t afraid by staying one step behind Aria at all times.

“You sure you want to see this?” Rowan asked.

Aria didn’t look at him. “Yes.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I know.”

But that wasn’t the point. Daren died because he knew something. Aria felt it in her gut, heavy and certain. And if she wanted answers, she couldn’t keep looking away every time things got ugly. She’d spent years doing that after Liam. She wasn’t doing it again.

The guards slowed down. One pointed ahead.  

“We found him there.”

Aria followed his gaze. Then stopped.

Daren lay under an old oak tree.  

Still.  

Gone.

For a few seconds nobody said anything. Not even Nyra. The guy looked… peaceful. That messed Aria up more than anything. Because she remembered the terror in his eyes last time she saw him. The way he couldn’t breathe. The way he looked at her like she was both hope and threat.

This wasn’t peace.  

This was empty.

She knelt beside him. The doctor's brain kicked in first. Feelings later. Facts first. That was the only way to survive scenes like this.

“How long?”

One guard answered. “Less than a day.”

Aria nodded. Sounded right. She checked his hands. His face. His neck. Looking for any sign of a fight. A struggle. Anything at all.

Then she saw it.  

A bruise. Small. Easy to miss if you weren’t looking. Right under his jaw.

Her frown deepened.

“What?” Rowan asked.

Aria touched it carefully, two fingers, light. “He didn’t die from the illness.”

Silence. 

Nyra blinked. “What?”

Aria looked up. “Not directly, anyway.”

The forest got colder. Or maybe that was just Aria.

Rowan crouched next to her. “Explain.”

“The bruise.” She pointed. “Someone grabbed him.”

The captain’s face went hard. “You sure?”

“Yes.” Aria stared at the mark. The shape wasn’t random. Four fingers, thumb. The pressure wasn’t either. Someone had held Daren’s head. Recently. Like they were forcing him to look at something. Or someone.

A shiver ran down her spine. Daren had been running from something. Now he is dead. And suddenly that didn’t feel like coincidence. It felt like the end of a chase.

Nyra swallowed. “You think he was murdered?”

Aria looked at the body. Then the trees. Then the symbol carved into the trunk nearby. 

A serpent.  

Deep. Fresh. Deliberate. Sap still wet in the grooves. 

Whoever did this wanted it found. Wanted people to know. Wanted them scared.

“Yes,” Aria said quietly. “I do.”

Nobody talked after that. The wind shifted. Leaves rustled. It sounded too loud.

Aria’s eyes drifted back to Daren. Something felt off. Not about how he died. About him. About the way he lay there. Too neat. Like someone positioned him.

A thought tugged at her. Small, stubborn. She leaned closer. Then froze.

His sleeve had slipped. Just a bit. Exposing his forearm. 

There was writing on his skin. Tiny. Ink, faded but fresh.

“Rowan.”

The captain moved in fast. “What?”

Aria rolled the sleeve back carefully. Nyra gasped.

Words. Several lines. Most smeared, half gone, like Daren wrote them while shaking. But one sentence was still clear.

Aria read it out loud, voice barely steady.  

“The answers are beneath the water.”

Nobody moved. Nobody breathed.

“Water?” Nyra whispered.  

“A river?” one guard tried.  

“A lake?” another.

Aria shook her head. No. Too obvious. Daren wouldn’t waste his last minutes on a riddle unless he expected one specific person to find it. Someone who’d understand. Someone who’d been told stories about water and secrets.

She didn’t. Not yet. But her stomach twisted like she should.

Rowan stood. “We’ll search every river, lake, and well for fifty miles if we have to.”

Aria wasn’t listening. Something else caught her eye. A corner of paper poking out of Daren’s coat pocket. Almost hidden. Almost missed. Like he’d shoved it there last second.

She pulled it out carefully. Folded. Old. Worn at the creases like it’d been carried for years.

Her hands shook a little as she opened it. Inside was a rough map. Not detailed. Just roads, landmarks, symbols. Child like but accurate. And one spot circled over and over until the paper was almost torn.

Aria’s breath caught.

She knew it. Everyone in the kingdom knew it. One of the oldest places in the capital. Abandoned for decades. Nobody went there anymore. Parents used it to scare kids.

A place Liam had taken her when they were kids. “The city’s secret,” he’d called it. A place where they’d sat and whispered and promised they’d always tell each other the truth.

The old reservoir beneath the city.

For a few seconds Aria just stared. Then Daren’s last words clicked in her head, clear as a bell.

The answers are beneath the water.

And for the first time since this started since the silver veins, since the note, since the missing hours it made sense.

Rowan saw her face change. “What is it?”

Slowly, Aria handed him the map. Her fingers left damp marks on the paper. His eyes went wide. Then narrow. And for the first time since she’d known him

The captain looked scared.

“Aria…”

“What?”

Rowan looked from the map to her. Back again. Pale under all that guard stone face. He swallowed like the words hurt.

“That reservoir was sealed twenty years ago.”

Aria frowned. “So? People seal old places.”

His next words froze her blood.

“Because according to official records…” He paused. Had to force it out. “…your father was the last person seen entering it.”

The world tilted.

Aria didn’t move. Couldn’t. Her brain repeated the sentence three times like it hadn’t heard right. Your father. Last person. Reservoir. Sealed twenty years ago.

But her father died when she was six. In a fire. That’s what everyone said. That’s what she remembered. A small funeral. A small coffin. Small grief she never understood.

Nyra stepped forward. “Wait. Aria’s father? The one who”

“Yeah,” Rowan cut her off. Didn’t meet Aria’s eyes. “That one.”

Aria’s hands went numb. The map felt heavy now. Too heavy. She looked down at Daren’s body again. The bruise. The serpent. The words on his arm.

He’d been trying to tell her. Not about the water. About her.

The forest was quiet again. But this time the quiet was different. It wasn’t empty. It was waiting.

Aria stood up slowly. Her legs felt fine. That was good. She didn’t trust them, but they worked.

“Official records,” she said. Voice flat. “Right. The same records that said Liam died of fever. The same records that lost their documents. The same records that said I wasn’t supposed to remember.”

Rowan nodded once. “Yes.”

Aria folded the map, slow, precise. Her hands didn’t shake anymore. “Then we go to the reservoir.”

Nyra blinked. “Aria, it’s sealed. It has been twenty years.”

“Exactly,” Aria said. “So why did Daren die with directions to it? And why was my father the last one in?”

Rowan rubbed a hand over his face. “Because if he went in and it was sealed after… he never came out.”

Aria stared at him. Then at the serpent carving. Then at Daren’s peaceful, empty face.

For years she’d thought grief was the worst thing she’d carry. She was wrong.

Now she was carrying questions. About Liam. About her father. About what really happened the day the reservoir was sealed.

And someone with a serpent ring had been trying to make sure she never asked them.

Aria tucked the map into her coat. “We leave at first light.”

Rowan didn’t argue. For once. He just looked at her like he was watching someone walk into a fire they couldn’t come back from.

Nyra muttered, “I really miss simple fevers.”

No one laughed. Because none of this was simple anymore. Daren was dead. Her father wasn’t who she thought. And the answers were beneath the water.

Aria looked up at the trees. High above, the sky was darkening. Another night coming. Another thing she’d have to face without looking away.

She could do that. She’d learned how.