Sword of Flames [Book I] - {#Wattys2017}

Chapter 21 - The Rings of Uncertainty

Chapter 21 - The Rings of Uncertainty

For the time being Zikarith and Levana ignored the taunts and mysterious nature of the situation. The boy immediately dug into his bag and took out a bottle and a soft fabric roll to wrap around her wound. They both sat down with joy; it had been a while since they could do so with no care in the world. As if he was a doctor, the boy looked at his materials and then at the wound, speculating what he should do at that point.

"I can't use this before I clean these wounds," he said, shaking the bottle in his hand. As the ship rattled more from the tides, the Below searched for something until he found a small barrel similar to the one on the outcasts' vessel. He picked it up and easily carried it back towards the girl. He opened it up and it revealed alcohol that took up less than a quarter of the container. He picked up her bag, which was right next to her.

"Get a shirt or some kind of cloth from in here," he commanded. "Anything."

Levana took it back and searched through her bag that was filled to the brim. Once she found a thin white shirt she would not be wearing anytime soon, she threw it into Zikarith's waiting hand. He scrunched it up into a ball and lightly dabbed it into the liquid.

As he squeezed the excess out he explained to Levana what he was going to do. "We don't have any healing liquid to clean off the wound, so we're gonna have to use this for now."

Before the cloth was placed on her face, she moved back with alarm. "I don't think that I should be putting drinking alcohol on my wound." She began to remember one of the things she read online.

"Why not? We use it all the time."

"Earthian skin isn't suited for that, I don't think," Levana said. "Can't you just put the medicine on?"

"It won't work if the wound is full of germs." He turned the cloth over to the opposite dry side and went to the edge of the deck. He dipped it into the saltwater of the sea that had splashed into the boat from the force of the collisions between the moving water and vehicle. Levana thought that the new liquid was somehow worse, but she avoided saying so in order to keep Zikarith on his good side.

"Guess we're using this," Zikarith concluded. He put the wet cloth on the wound on her forehead where the blood that blinded her came from. The stings were so bad that it almost tickled. After a few dabs he took it off and cleaned the other two streaks as well.

"I'm not here to make things weird, so put the medicine on yourself," the boy directed. She obeyed and opened the bottle to find a light green jelly substance inside. She rubbed it on her wounds, soothing the pain as she did so. He then threw the roll of fabric for her to do more of her own nurturing.

"What do you want me to do, tied this around my whole face?" she asked with annoyance in her tone of speech.

"No, you don't need to. The two on your nose and chin are fine. But the one on your forehead is what needs to be bandaged before it opens up again," he diagnosed. Levana took the roll, and after wrapping it around her head multiple times she tied it to her head tightly. And as the health care session ended, there was no way to distract from the larger problem ahead.

Zikarith and Levana stood up and scouted the depths of the Valuna Sea, but saw nothing irregular. As they travelled further and further away from the other ship, electric waves crackled in the skies above them, but it was not lightening; shaped like rings, they seemed to resemble something forthcoming other than rain.

"I've never seen that before," Zikarith admitted, watching the electric shocks show up and disappear with her. Those words did the opposite of comfort her; she did not want to know she was not alone in her confusion; she wanted to know she was the only one feeling that way. If the Below, who lived on those lands all of his life, had never seen it before, it only meant one thing. It was rare and summoned something that was just as unknown.