Mages of Rubia ✔️

Ch2

Lief and I continue working until Elder Genova comes back. He tells me what the salves are for while I sit in silence. I can tell he's exhausted by the amount of injuries he has to treat, and the unsolvable problem of supplies. Apparently in the past year they've been weakening, needing more of his things to keep them alive.

Because of the war. He doesn't seem to care much about the war. He seems focused on anything but. Lief just seems generally sporadic and chaotic, to me.

"Oh, it seems this experiment was a success," Elder Genova says when he gives her the salves in a basket, "That's eleven salves."

"And we're out of ingredients for more."

"Perhaps you should go looking for supplies, rather than the others."

"I doubt the next mage you find would have the same intuition I do, if I die finding your medical supplies," he mutters through gritted teeth.

She sighs.

"They're bringing a spare cot for your assistant. I hope you have room."

He swears under his breath while she leaves. "God, where am I going to put you? The library is too open, Alchemy room is dangerous, and my bedroom is... Well, cozy."

I shrug. The cot is brought in.

"Where do you want it, Mage?" the men carrying it ask him.

He doesn't seem to notice the nervous way they regard him as he tells them to put it up in his room. He also doesn't seem to notice how surprised they are to be permitted anywhere near his quarters. From what he's told me, visitors stay in the library or adjacent rooms. Nobody goes into his room, surely.

But when they get up there, the door isn't open. The cot is left in the hall for Leif and I to move in.

"Listen, Aza, I'm going to need you to promise to ignore the strangeness in here. And not tell anything to anybody."

I nod, and he opens the door. The strange vines I saw other places are much more overgrown here. He finds a space for the cot while I look around. There are chains on his bed, they look old. The books on the shelves seem to absorb the light, and the room is lit more by red candles than the lanterns in the other areas.

"Don't touch the vines if you can help it. The sap will destroy your skin and I haven't made any cure for it yet. No time with all the things they have me doing."

As he speaks, he undoes the buckle on the wrist of one of his gloves and pulls it off, revealing blistered and red skin.

"How do you know it isn't an allergy?"

He pauses. "I don't. But I can't test it. I don't want to hurt anyone if it isn't."

I nod. He pulls an extra blanket out of a trunk at the foot of his bed and hands it to me.

"I don't have any pillows. They've all been allocated to the elderly, sick, and children since we don't have supplies to make new ones."

I nod again.

"If you wake up to me doing any sort of magic in my sleep you should go downstairs."

He lays himself down and literally chains himself to the bed.

"Why?" I ask.

"Oh, uh... Mages tend to sleep walk. And sleep spell. I do both. So I use these chains, and this lock I made... It's a puzzle lock, too intricate for me to undo in my sleep."

I can't imagine how uncomfortable that is. I lay down and turn on my side to watch him as he waves a hand to turn out most of the lights, the symbols on his skin flashing and quickly fading.