His mother’s voice was a counterpoint to his own frightened whispers. You are my son. You can do anything you dream...

  Alfread closed his eyes. He wasn’t in Rubinia on the precipice before the greatest leap. He was home. The day after his fourteenth birthday. Snow fell upon frosted ground outside the window of his mother’s cozy library. Zander practiced his swordplay in the yard between their two-winged cabin and the road, likely trying to catch some passing girl’s attention. Alfread sat on the library’s window seat, happily avoiding the attention of those girls, reading a treatise on medica that his mother had written when she was a student at Leverian University titled The Pleasant Practitioner.

  Mirielda sat in her library armchair, writing in a journal. When Alfread looked up, his mother smiled at him, pride gleaming in warm eyes of amber.

  Alfread held eye contact for several turns, love passing through the silence. Words weren’t needed to convey love that was implicit and infinite as the stars. All he needed was her eyes on him to know that he would forever be cared for.

  Hated pierced into his memory. His mother tried her best to be kind to all people, devoted her life to providing medica to people who needed it without charging an iota, did her best to fill the role of mother, wife, and foster mother—performing each of them magnificently. She was remarkable and fundamentally good. Despite having her life taken from her, she gave him everything she could. That everything was more than enough. These people discarded her, stripped away her name, sending the clear message that she was wrong, that loving Evan of Astoria was a fatal error, that Alfread himself was a living mistake.

  Alfread tried to rein in his anger, holding it at arm’s length as he spun his focus back to his mother and this memory that was among the most treasured he had and would ever create. Let this lesson be carved into his mind again and again, to be a reminder on days like this one where he wanted to give in to the hatred that anger inspired.

  Alfread sat in the library, sharing this moment where the hearthfire let out a coziness that was impossible to attain on a sweltering summer day like the one in Rubinia. Like all moments, this one passed, disrupted by Zander.

  Covered in sweat—despite coming from the snows and wearing nothing but a classic Zander shirt where the sleeves had been torn off and his already shredded muscles were presenting themselves for inspection—Zander let in a glacial wind that blew away any sense of coziness. The discrepancy between his youthful face and his already biggest in Bear’s Crossing size and sinew was laughable to seventeen-year-old Alfread. Naturally, Zander didn’t shut the door behind him until Mirielda glared from him to the opening, her eyebrows speaking far louder than any yelling ever could.

  “There’s a man here for you. He’s as charming as King Wilhelm Ruby on Reaping.”

  Alfread remained impressed that Zander had retained that quip from their telling of Tale of the Traitor King during the day before’s readings by the fireside. He caught the smirk on Alfread’s face, offered a charming nod with his baby face on his big man’s body.

  “Thank you, Zander,” his mother said sweetly. However, the sly smile that followed reminded Alfread of the clever fox in all the children’s stories. He tensed with apprehension. “You are medican today and I am the observer.”

  “What?” He raced for an explanation for this punishment. Had he ‘forgotten’ to do his dishes again?

  She eyed him sternly, the curve of those magnificent, but terrifying, eyebrows putting down any further rebellion.

  “Fine,” he said, doing his best to mean it.

  His mother’s full-hearted smile, her hand on his shoulder, the softness of her voice assured him this was no punishment. This was a lesson, a gift, even though it felt like taking the hilt of a sword in the gut. She held him there, soothing him with small words that went deep into him, until even that apprehension was slain. Until Alfread could not not smile back at her. “That is better.”

  The first lesson Mirielda taught him as a medican was the importance of caring for the patient and maintaining a positive attitude in healing. According to her, the brain was just as important as the body, that the brain was influenced by herbal remedies far less than the body was. The brain was healed by love and hope. The Pleasant Practitioner, his mother’s master’s thesis, was a series of essays she wrote while she was still an observer and not a master medican. She found that a caring medican who smiled while confidently offering hope could be more effective with an inert tonic than an apathetic, mirthless, or uncertain medican with a potent tonic.

  Thus, Alfread led his mother into the clinic with a smile and the intention to care for the patient.

  The patient grimaced, his legs up on the treatment plinth—a long leather-cushioned table that could be adjusted to the patient’s comfort and the medican’s needs. He was, putting it mildly, an uncomely man: balding, pot-bellied, scarred in the face, dotted with blemishes. The grimace didn’t help. Alfread thought of the orcs from the stories and kept smiling.

  Mirielda’s son was at home in the clinic, not just because it was built into his home either. The spacious room smelled like sunshine and sweetness from the fragrances Mirielda cultivated to enhance the healing milieu. The log walls were polished to a bright chestnut to enhance the lighting. A noralistone illuminated the room like a miniature sun as it dangled on a transparent wire. A long, rectangular window looked out into the garden where Mirielda grew herbs. Two of the walls were lined in cabinets. One stored the harvested herbs and tonics while the other kept the surgical supplies, linens, and cleaning supplies. A wash basin and a wastebasket were in the corners near the hallway portal. Every surface was sterilized and clean. Alfread knew because that often fell to him and any failure to uphold led to the eyebrows and, when he was particularly negligent, the ear pulls. Comfortable wooden chairs with cushioned backs sat along the window. Usually, loved ones of the patient could be found here. They were empty.

  The ugly man growled, “Git yer bloody whelp out o’ ‘ere, wench!” He fixed his gaze on Mirielda, undressing her with his eyes as he scowled.

  At fourteen, Alfread was already taller than most men, with lean muscles from a life of farming and archery. Yet, the smoothness of his boyish face gave away his age no differently than it did Zander’s. He couldn’t smile at this personification of a hemorrhoid. The best he could do was a tight-lipped grin that was two feet into the doorway of becoming a frown.

  Mirielda’s beaming face lost no light. Her voice was as firm and confident as it was warm. “Alfread will be your medican today.”

  The man gaped, looking as stupid as he was ugly, then spat on the diligently cleaned floor. His mouth had more dark gaps than yellowed teeth. Every new turn reinforced the stereotypes about drunkards.

  “‘im! Ye bloody better be fuckin’ with me, lady! I didn’ come ‘ere ter die! ‘e ent no medican er I’m the divinedamned king.”

  His diatribe ended with him gripping at the right side of his lower abdomen, groaning in agony. Alfread wasn’t going to tell that his double negative implied he was indeed a medican, but the thought let him smile more genuinely.

  “I would trust him with my own life and the life of everyone I love,” Mirielda placidly assured the man. “He is fully qualified and more capable than most Erudition or University-trained medicans. You are lucky to have him.”

  Alfread approached the belligerent patient he’d rather hit than heal. The drunk reeked of sweat, filth, fish, and mead. His clothes were stained from dock work, tattered from lack of care.

  Alfread brought his hands together, aiming to convey a get-it-done attitude. “I promise we will discover aught that ails you.”

  The man grunted. He winced, gripping at his lower right abdomen again. His stomach was distended, bloated as if a bubble of air were about to burst inside of him. Alfread recalled a similar story that cast his mother in the starring role and him as the support. He was confident what they were dealing with and how to treat it. Alas, his mother taught him as a medican was to never make assumptions without collecting the evidence. Arrogantly assuming you knew all was among the worst medican sins.

  “What is your name?”

  The man quickly swiped his arm in disgust. “Git away frem me, divinedamn kid! Go play with yer toys an’ wait fer yer stones ter fall.” He grunted, his eyes watering from the pain.

  Alfread suppressed the urge to call him ‘Master Gitaway Fremme.’ He took another step toward the anonymous patient, gathering data with his nose. The distinct fecal scent matched his initial hypothesis, but could also be explained as some drunk shitting himself and not changing.

  He began his diagnostic interview with the least invasive question that was in line with his hunch. “Have you had a loss of appetite?”

  The man shot Alfread with a disgusted snarl, then shot Mirielda a rapacious glare. “I ent on my mommy’s juicy teats no more. I eat like any man ought.” He spat again. Not that it made a difference. Alfread would have to clean the room thoroughly to get this arsehole’s contamination out.

  He fixed the patient with a stern, eyebrow-heavy stare that would make his mother proud. He raised his voice the way Mirielda would with a noncompliant patient or Sir Edward with a slacking squire, speaking slow but with firm intonation. “I cannot help you if you refuse to be helped.”

  The man cowered at Alfread’s size and severity. Alfread lowered his voice to sound more compassionate, though his heart wasn’t congruent. “You have pain in your lower right abdomen. There are many possible etiologies, causes, for such pain. If you answer my questions, we will rid you of that pain.”

  And I will be rid of you, Alfread thought spitefully. He smiled on the surface. Unlike Zander, Alfread could mask what he felt. Zander’s emotions were always written on his face in bold italics with the largest font.

  The patient looked out of the window. Zander was training again. He sparred an invisible opponent as if he were fighting against Sir Garrond the Dust. A pair of girls were watching from the window of Jem’s house across the road. Alfread knew how that story would end. Appetites would be sated, tributes offered, some poor girl’s heart broken when Zander realized she wasn’t his Sunrise.

  “Have you had a loss of appetite?”

  The man nodded, a sullen motion that did everything it could not to acknowledge Alfread as an expert, muttering a curse under his breath.

  Alfread fired his next shot without delay. “Have you been vomiting?”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  The man belched. He tipped his head.

  Alfread was hitting the target, center mass. He felt himself becoming confident rather than acting so. “Is your pain aggravated when you walk or make sudden movements?”

  Another nod. This one was less reluctant than the last two. The man’s scoff faded. Alfread felt like a wheelcart picking up speed rolling down a mountain path.

  “Are your bowels watery?”

  Nod.

  Another hit. The target could be on the moon, Alfread could quickdraw and find the arrow right where he wanted it. The ornery patient was starting to relax on the plinth. His deep grimace was now only a small scowl.

  “May I feel your forehead?” Alfread asked with an air of respect, as if he was speaking with an archlord rather than a dockworker.

  “What for?” He raised his hands as if to shove Alfread if he came nearer.

  Alfread didn’t flinch. “I need to check your temperature for a fever.”

  The man grimaced, but he lowered his arms. The clammy heat delivered him closer to the diagnosis. He launched his final shot. Alfread pointed at the patient’s lower right abdomen. “Is that where your pain is?”

  Nod.

  “I need to touch it to confirm my diagnosis.”

  The man grunted, going tense, but not stopping Alfread as he reached in.

  The patient’s abdomen went stiff as a shield, a bodily reflex to guard against pain. He held his finger in position for a few turns. The man winced the entire duration of his touch, his body rigid. As predicted, he yelped after Alfread released, signaling that the adjacent peritoneum was inflamed. Diagnosis confirmed. Beyond all rule-outs.

  Bulls-eye, Alfread thought. Right before the patient spat into his eye.

  “Keep yer ‘ands off me ye little shite!”

  Stepping back, Alfread wiped the spittle away with his sleeve. He made a fist, but suppressed the urge to bash this arse’s divinedamned skull. He forced a smile, hatching a plan to get some revenge.

  Leverian cognitive-affectomancers had long since eradicated the strains of human-transmitted venereal diseases. Alas, they didn’t bother to do the same with livestock-transmitted diseases. Amazed that such things still happened in a promiscuous society—Zander now outside the window making out with a girl, lifting her up and carrying her toward the barn—Alfread predicted that a guy this ugly out and in, with no money, nobody sitting in the family chairs, would be the type to resort to plowing a sheep.

  “Have you ever had the Shepherd’s Shingles?”

  The man grunted, eyes popping, and a neck vein too, then clutched his abdomen. Mirielda did a double take before fixing her expression.

  “Why in Meladon’s name does tha’ matter?”

  “Your answer to this question determines how rapidly we need to act and whether you need an operation or a tonic. Be truthful. A lie may cost your life.”

  The man spat again, thankfully at the floor this time. He looked as far away from the beautiful medican as possible and gave the smallest nod. Alfread grinned boyishly, maybe not regaining his composure until the patient caught him.

  “Excuse us while we discuss your treatment options,” Mirielda said, sweet as honey. “With me, Alfread.”

  Back in the library, his mother folded her arms over her chest, those eyebrows doing the work of a hundred men. Her tone was sharp, warning him that ear pulling wasn’t out of the equation. “What is your diagnosis, medican?”

  Alfread restrained his laughter, but one side of his mouth rose into a grin. “He is suffering the world with a malignant case of Mule’s Arse.”

  “Alfread son of Evan!”

  Alfread felt a sharp pang of guilt but he cut through it. He had no reason to feel guilt. The man was an arse and a sheep molester! “He has appendicitis.”

  Mirielda nodded. “Indeed, he does. What is your recommended course of treatment?”

  Alfread lowered his eyes and adjusted his voice as if telling the most soul-crushing of tragedies, “Mule’s Arse ... has no cure.”

  “I disagree,” his mother reprimanded.

  Alfread shrugged. “Mayhap a swift and stiff kick in the arse cures Mule’s Arse?”

  Mirielda sighed. “I will give you a swift and stiff kick in the arse, Alfread son of Evan! Might I remind you that untreated appendicitis is lethal. This is a person’s life!”

  “The world would be better off without him!” Alfread shot back.

  Mirielda’s eyes grew fiery and it felt like she was twice his size despite Alfread towering over her. She pointed at her armchair and there was nothing he could do but timidly take a seat like he was a dog with its tail tucked between its legs. When he looked up at his mother, he was shocked to see tears in her eyes.

  “When we look at a person, we only see the front cover of their story. We don’t see all the pages within. We don’t see the chapters of their life or the choices they’ve had to make or the choices that have been made for them. We don’t see how they’ve done the best they were able to with the setting and situations they’ve been given.”

  She slammed her hand on her desk with each word to come, “You … do … not … know … this … man’s … story!”

  Mirielda paused, catching her breath and studying Alfread. Looking back, Alfread felt profound pride to be this woman’s son. Tears misted his eyes now just as they had then. Remember this, he told himself, standing on the rim of Leverian University. Don’t be like everyone else, judging the book by its cover. Reveal the pages within, seek the why, find the good in each person… even those that won’t do the same for you. Especially them. Perhaps. Be Mirielda’s son. I can do anything I dream. Attend Leverian University. Even open my mind to people who are closed to me. Only then can I help them change how they read my story.

  Inspired, Alfread submersed himself again in his memory, recalling perfectly every detail of this day.

  “What are you hearing, Alfread?” Mirielda asked, leaning against her desk.

  “I don’t know this man or why his story has led him to become the character that he is.”

  She nodded. “What else?”

  “He had no choice but to become who he is?”

  Mirielda shook her head. “No. We always have a choice, my son. One’s story doesn’t absolve one from responsibility. Yet, this man’s story led him to believe that becoming harsh and pushing people away was his best choice. He may have even felt that it was his only choice. Even now, he might not know that he can choose a different ending to his story. He may never know that he can live differently if the world only teaches him that he needs to be cold and hostile. For many people, who we are seems set in stone, yet we still have the quill and more empty pages ahead of us.” She took a deep breath. “What are you hearing?”

  “That he has become who he needed to be to survive? That I was only confirming that he needs to be cold and hostile?”

  She touched his cheek. “Remember that you too have a choice. You can remember that everyone has their own story and that you can use your intelligent mind, strong body, and loving soul to help them change their story or you can only see the front cover and be another footnote in their life’s story. What is your choice, my son? Who do you want to be?”

  Alfread felt the emotion rising in his chest, the tears falling faster as he listened to his heart. “I want to be the one who looks at the whole story. Not just the front cover. I want to be the one who changes the story and makes it better.”

  Mirielda opened her arms, Alfread rushed into her embrace, future him remembering how much he missed those hugs. Despite being large of mind, and even larger of heart, she wasn’t grand of stature. He knocked her off-balance in his haste, but, as always, she held him steady.

  “You will change many stories, Alfread, and your story will be my favorite one of all.”

  He held her for several moments, making sure to memorize this feeling for days like today when he needed to believe in himself or remember why he needed to look at more than the surface of things.

  After savoring his mother’s love, Alfread decided to do his best to understand the man and make today a better chapter in his story. “You will put him to sleep with narleaf then make an incision in his abdomen,” Alfread said. “Next, you will remove his appendix. Last, clean the abdominal cavity since the patient has probably nursed his wounds too long, allowing infection to spread.”

  Mirielda set her hands on his shoulders. “You are his medican, Alfread. You will be his surgeon.”

  The Coward came alive. He had never led on a surgery before. He would kill this man! “I cannot perform the surgery! I’m not ready!”

  “My darling son, you are limited only by what you are unwilling to imagine is possible.”

  Alfread inhaled, held, and exhaled slowly. He repeated this several times, injecting confident thoughts between each cycle, until his hands were steady.

  When he re-entered the clinic, the man glared at him with the same disgusted grimace. Alfread tried to read the story beyond the front cover. He saw the man’s battle scars and wondered what hopeless choices he had needed to make and what horrendous choices had been made for him. He thought of the loneliness of living with those ugly scars, the desperation needed to seek the warmth of a sheep. He thought of that grimace as a protective barrier, akin to Seraxa’s Wall, to keep people away so they couldn’t hurt you. He thought of how hard it would be to live in happiness when nobody walked beside you to the medican’s clinic, the shame of needing to ask for help when you didn’t want to be reliant on others for anything. This man had a story and Alfread believed that he was surviving the best he could, the only way he knew how. Alfread would see him survive another day so that he could possibly learn to live another way.

  “You have appendicitis. If I don’t operate, your appendix will burst inside of you. It will kill you.”

  The man’s grimace softened into a frown. He let out a hopeless chuckle.

  This was a man you didn’t approach too warmly so Alfread kept back and made his mark not with proximity but with compassion. “I want to help you.”

  “Want?”

  Alfread nodded. “Your story doesn’t end in this room. Today is a new beginning.”

  The man sighed. “Well bloody git on with et, whelp.”

  The man’s words were sharp, but empathy allowed Alfread to dull their impact on him. He would do his best to save this man. If his act of caring and kindness could make a difference in his story, he would do it even if he had to face sharp words or dodge expectorate.

  Alfread commanded his mother to assemble the surgical instruments while he ground up a single narleaf. He mixed the mashed leaf into a vial of distilled water then offered it to his patient. “This will put you to sleep. You won’t feel any pain while we’re operating.”

  The patient stared at it for a few turns before taking the vial. Alfread wanted to see beyond the cover. This wasn’t obstinance or ignorance. His hands trembled fierce. Trust wasn’t easy for him and Alfread was asking him to entrust his life to a fourteen-year-old boy. When was the last time he’d been able to trust anyone?

  “What is your name?” Alfread asked.

  The patient looked down at his vial, swirling the narleaf tonic in his hand. “Sammet.”

  “You will wake again, Sammet, and when you do, I want you to tell me your story.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it deserves telling.”

  “Eh. Dunno ‘bout that.”

  “I do. Does that sound like fair payment for saving your life?”

  “Whatever,” Sammet growled.

  He swallowed the contents of the vial. Immediately, his eyes drooped, his muscles went lax, and he slumped into the plinth. Within ten turns, he was unconscious and would remain so for the next four angles.

  “You did well,” Mirielda told him, standing beside him. “He masked it, but he felt your compassion. His soul will fight harder to survive because you showed him kindness and concern he probably hasn’t seen in many chapters.”

  Alfread wasn’t as certain his words cut through the cold, but he was happy that he tried. It had cost him nothing to be compassionate, while buying him steady hands and mind. He felt peace with himself rather than rage toward another. Even if Sammet didn’t feel it, Alfread knew it was still right.

  Mirielda wrapped her hair in a net and Alfread put a cap on over his hair. They scrubbed their hands in the wash basin with scentless soap and distilled water. Mirielda put on her surgical smock, then helped Alfread don his as he spread his arms out as if he would take flight. Lastly, on came the sheepskin masks and gloves.

  Nearly four years of time spanned the distance between now and then. Yet, Alfread crossed that distance in his heart. His mother was not beside him outside Leverian University but her words were written in his soul. Never far. Right now, he needed them as he faced his fears. “I love you, Alfread. You can do this.”

  “I know,” Alfread had said, breathing to steady his hands and heart. “I am your son. My possibilities are only limited by my imagination.”

  His mother put her head beside his and leaned into him, keeping her hands sterile. “No truer words have I ever heard in all my days.” She leaned back and beamed at him. “If you were born into my father’s family, you would have married a princess and been the king’s left hand. That poor princess’s heart would have no hope against your smile. I believe it still would not!”

  Alfread was glad that she didn’t pinch his cheeks. She placed her gloved hand over his surgical smock, right at his heart. “For all that, I’m happy that you weren’t born into my father’s family, son of Evan. That ending would have been written for you. You are a shooting star, free to choose your destiny from as many possibilities as there are stars in the heavens. You can become any number of great things: a legendary knight, the greatest medican, a master storyteller, a prince of stewards, a farmer with a loving family. And wherever your dreams take you, you will always be my son.”

  Alfread looked no further into the past. He retrieved what he needed from the memory. It was time to walk through the doors into his next chapter, confident that he could forge his own path despite the challenges. The Coward was subdued, for now, and Mirielda’s son was in control of his fate.

  He vaulted off of his mule, his eyes scanning Leverian University with renewed courage. Alfread took a step toward his future, toward the destiny he was free to choose. He set his intentions firmer by speaking them aloud. “I am Mirielda’s son. I can do this.”

  “Mirielda’s son?”

  Alfread spun toward the hoarse, combative, aged voice. He braced to defend his mother’s name. Instead, he came face-to-face with the legend that had saved his father’s life.