The Threadbound series : Unraveling

Broken Promises

Frin

I had been treating patients all morning, and it was almost noon when I finally took a break. I sat down in the dining hall, ready to take a spoonful of lunch into my mouth when Marcel, our household help, came rushing in, looking flustered. He informed me that there was another patient waiting, and it seemed to be an urgent case. As soon as the old man headed to the kitchen, I excused myself and made my way to the room adjacent to the living hall. It was my mother's old library, now transformed into my treatment room.

Inside, I found a very pregnant woman, her eyes red and puffy as she sniffled into a kerchief. She seemed to be in her early thirties.

"Madam?" I inquired softly.

She rose from her chair, visibly distressed. "Healer Freeman?"

"Yes, please, have a seat. I assume you're here for..." I began to ask, but she didn't let me finish my question. I settled into my chair.

"I need your help, Sir," she interrupted urgently.

"I am here to help you," I assured her.

"No, you don't understand," she insisted. "My husband is in prison,he is wrongfully accused."

"Then you are at the wrong place. I am a healer. You need help from a threadhunter or one of the governors. I am neither," I tried to explain as I started to get up from my chair.

"My good sir, nobody trusts my words,You are my only hope" her desperation was palpable.

"Do you want me to vouch for you? Hearsay isn't considered valid," I suggested.

She interrupted me again, her voice trembling.

"I have no one else to turn to. Everybody has ostracized me. My husband's trial will be conducted soon, and he will be publicly hanged."

"He is a rebel?" I inquired, then realization dawned on me. "He is the child murderer ..the thief?."

"My husband would never harm a child," she replied with a pleading look, her hands resting protectively on her pregnant belly.

She spoke in a resigned tone, her voice heavy with sorrow. "I didn't know he was a rebel, but he's a good man. He toiled on the farm and took care of us. Never once raised a hand against me. Marcus Burns is a good man." She sniffled again, wiping away her tears, then continued, "Once, he told me that if anything happened to him, I should seek help from Scholar Freeman."

The mention of my mother's name intrigued me. "Scholar Freeman was my mother," I told her, my voice tinged with sadness. She passed away just last summer.

Hearing my mother's name raised more questions than answers. My mother had never spoken of Marcus Burns, and it left me wondering if they had been friends. Had my mother kept secrets from me? Then, I did something I had promised myself I would never do. I ignored the scene that had come into my mind when I made that promise, a promise to my mother. But she wasn't here, and it was because of her that I was doing this.

I pulled my emotions thread and dream thread together, slightly manipulating them to gently caress the woman's mind. As I did so, a rush of images assaulted me, giving me a whiplash,causing my chair to rock slightly. The woman, unaware of the threads weaving into her mind, looked concerned and asked, "Sir, are you okay?"

I got up and walked towards the wooden cabinet, where I kept various medicinal tonics. From one of the bottles, I poured some tonic into a vial. After carefully corking it, I handed it to the woman.

"An ounce of the tonic, every night after dinner," I instructed, offering her the vial.

She gave me a coin as payment, and I accepted it graciously. Afterward, she took the medicine and left my treatment room.

As I turned away, I heard a shuffle behind me and glanced back to see my mother's ginger cat. Anger welled up in me. I hated that creature and what she represented.

"What? Yes, I manipulated her memory, but it's for the better," I exclaimed at the cat, who seemed wholly uninterested and began grooming its front paw.

Great, now I'm talking to cats, I thought to myself, shaking my head at the absurdity of the situation and the absurd things I saw in her memory.

"Absurd things are often the truth; you just need to find the right explanation, then you can see it is not absurd anymore," my mother's words echoed in my mind.

"Is this the purpose you left me?"

My question was met with silence.

My ma didnt answer. The gods didn't answer. The cat meowed.