Chapter Text
The empty grave had been calling to her.
The call was weak at first, like a slight ache in her stomach, but gnawed at her incessantly as the days passed, growing inside her until it was a boulder of hard, sharp stone that dug into her insides with every step she took. She’d done her best to hide it, keep herself in the role of a saintly thief, performing her miracles on the innocents of the town until eventually she just couldn’t continue anymore. After twelve long, agonizing days, it had just become too much.
This pain, this guilt, this embarrassment…it pulled at her, endlessly, until she simply couldn’t go any further without accepting the truth. She’d failed. Utterly and completely, Clara the miracle-worker couldn’t even keep the eight people in her care from dying to the same plague she’d been born to cure.
She stood above the dirt hole that was her birthplace and listened to the quiet rustling of the grass around her. The Town splayed out before her, peaceful in the morning twilight. There was no longer screaming, no plague-clouds, no endless death; instead there was only a gentle wind flowing through the empty gap in the sky.
The town was safe, but the Polyhedron was gone. What purpose did she even serve in a town that had forsaken its miracles?
She remained there for a while, gazing numbly out into the endless Steppe, before she heard a familiar set of footsteps crunching across the graveyard.
Artemy Burakh, the Haruspex, the Ripper, walked methodically to her side. It was odd seeing him wearing clean leathers. She’d got used to the bloodstains.
Clara allowed the following silence to remain for a moment before she spoke.
“Enjoying your victory?”
She couldn’t quite hide the bitter tone.
“Is that how you see it?”
“You got the ending to your story, didn’t you? The town’s heart discovered, rivers of blood let free, Boddho eased of her pain…”
“And the only price was every miracle my town and my people held dear.”
Clara looked towards him, noticing the quiet anger and mourning within his face. She held her arms across one another and began to rock softly back and forth on her heels.
“Could you have made any other choice?”
He pressed his eyes shut for a moment before responding in a low, gravelly tone.
“I couldn’t. I know you may not see it this way, but this was the only path I could have taken. Better to choose a new future than cling to the past. “
He paused briefly, before softly muttering “Any choice is right so long as it is willed.”
The words sat in the air between them, before floating gently into the wind.
“I’m sorry.” he said.
Those two words, saying so many things and yet so little.
“I could have saved it, if you’d let me.” The words slid out of her mouth before she could stop them. “Nothing needed to die.”
His hand moved across her shoulder blades, resting across the back of her neck.
“But what would it have cost?”
His voice was rough and deep, but still filled with a surprising tenderness. It was kindly, somehow. No judgement.
Clara brought her arms across her torso, like she was trying to shrink away from his slight grip.
“I…can do miracles…” She hesitated. These words were familiar, rehearsed. But they weren’t the truth. Not anymore, after she’d failed so spectacularly, over and over again. A single tear trickled down her face. For all the miracles she’d tried to perform, she knew there was only so much they could really do. And Artemy had created his own miracle, painful as it was. A town free of plague.
Artemy stayed still as Clara swayed slightly, letting her swirling thoughts settle. Then, she leant into him as Artemy’s gentle arms wrapped around her as both healers gently supported one another in a quiet embrace.
“It’s okay.” She whispered the words to him, feeling the tension slowly leave his muscles. “We did what we had to.”
She didn’t know if she was reassuring him or herself.