The Silver Fox

Chapter 17: Annalisa

“No! I refuse to use my powers on a human! Especially while being held captive,”

I yell at Tuin. His informers found out about what my first power is, healing. He has dragged me into the infirmary and wants me to heal his mortaly wounded soldiers. I know that I am fully capable of saving a few of them, but that would drain my energy dangerously.

Once before I have saved a horse, so badly wounded that it was bound to die. I tried my best to save it but in the process I put myself into a comma. It is too dangerous for me to heal the soldiers because it would take too much of my energy. I wish Tuin would understand that.

I have also vowed to never use my powers on a human. When I was eight, I helped a man who had been rescued from the forest, an outsider. A person that lived outside of the kingdom. After I left, he killed three people and stole produce to bring to his clan. I will never forgive myself for interfering. Since I had not let the nurses know that i was going to heal him, they did not properly restrain him. I would have been so easy for me to have prevented those three people from dying.

It would be even worse if I healed one of the men on the beds here, for Tuin is sending troops to attack the outsiders. Our village technically makes us outsiders because we ran away from the kingdom. I would just be causing more death and destruction . . . it would have been better if I had just left him alone. I should not have interferred. I will never again use my powers on humans.

“Come on sweetheart, you can do it. What if they were your friends?”

One of his Beny generals uses his power to turn all of the men’s faces into the faces of my loved one’s. I see my sister, Kayla, her face in excruciating pain. My mother, my father, and Jaquelin lay on the beds beside her. I hear their cries of sorrow and have to look away. I know these are just illusions produced by the Beny, but neverthe less I burst into tears. Through sobbs I question Tuin,

“S- Stop it! Why are y - you doing this?!”

“Save your loved ones. Use your power to save them,”

Tuin knows just how to hurt me. Well he can’t make me heal his own soldiers … he can NOT make me! My sadness turns to anger. Anger of being held at the palace against my will. Anger at not being able to escape.

The king smirks at me, knowing that he got to me. I can't allow him to have that satisfaction.

My emotional limit is passed and I explode inside. Before I know it I am clawing the general’s face and screeching like a falcon. I feel warm blood trickle out as I latch onto him as if it were a life or death situation. The king looks at me in shock and I am dragged off the man and restrained. The men on the tables once again have their own faces and not those of my friends and family . . . and as for the face of my tormenter, the general is covered with blood. He backs away from me, his face twisted with horror. He reaches up to touch his red and swolen chin and flinches away.

I look down at my hands, dripping the man’s blood and with chunks of his flesh under my nails. I feel no shame of what i have done. He has chosen the wrong side and had to pay for the emotional dammage he caused me. I spit at the general,

“Serves you right. I will do the same to anyone who messes with me.”

No one doubts that I would. The nurses, who had restrained me when I was attacking the general, release me in fear to be the next victims of my wrath. I send daggers through my eyes at Tuin who reallizes he has underestimated me.

I stomp out into the hall with my head held high. The servants in the hall look at me confuzedly when they see me without a guard. They crane their heads as they watch me stomp up the spiral starecase and back to my quarters.