# Chapter 257: The Healer's Doubt
The word echoed in the sterile quiet of the infirmary, a ghost of a sound. "Marr." Judit froze, her hand hovering over ruku bez's sweat-slicked brow. Anya's tirade about tainted souls died on her lips, her pious expression crumbling into one of stark confusion. The name hung in the air, heavy with implication. Rook Marr. Soren's former mentor, the man who had betrayed him to the Synod for a better life. The man who was supposed to be a ghost from Soren's past, a closed chapter. But here he was, a name whispered from the lips of a man broken by the Synod's most secret facility. It wasn't a question. It was a connection. A thread, dark and bloody, linking the Bulwark, the Wastes, and the highest levels of the Synod's conspiracy directly back to the first man to ever break Soren's trust. Judit looked from the terrified, vacant eyes of her patient to the door, a new, chilling question taking root in her mind. What had Rook Marr done to ruku bez?
The silence stretched, thin and taut, broken only by the rhythmic drip of a saline solution into a vein on ruku bez's arm and the low, guttural hum of the containment field that shimmered faintly around his cot. The air was thick with the antiseptic smell of boiled herbs and the metallic tang of ozone, a scent that clung to the man like a second skin. He was a mountain of flesh and bone, the giant from the wastes, but now he seemed shrunken, his immense form a prison for a shattered mind. His skin, the color of sun-baked clay, was marred by the dark, sprawling lines of his Cinder-Tattoos, which no longer glowed with a warrior's light but pulsed with a sickly, intermittent grey, like dying embers.
Juit finally lowered her hand, her fingers trembling slightly. She smoothed the rough wool blanket over ruku bez's chest, a futile gesture of comfort. "Did you hear that?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper.
Anya, standing at the foot of the cot with her arms crossed, shook her head slowly. Her own healer's robes were immaculate, the white starched to a painful brightness, a stark contrast to Judit's worn, stained habit. "A spasm of the lungs," she said, her tone regaining its clinical, dismissive edge. "The vocal cords convulsing. It means nothing. The body is a vessel, Sister, and when the soul within is corrupted, it makes meaningless noises."
Judit turned to face her, the soft lines of her face hardening. The infirmary, carved out of a forgotten cistern deep beneath the city, was her sanctuary, her domain. Here, she fought a war against decay and despair, and Anya's cold doctrine was an affront to everything she believed. "It was a name, Anya. A name we both recognize."
"A coincidence," Anya retorted, though her eyes flickered toward the door, betraying a sliver of unease. She took a step closer, her soft-soled shoes making no sound on the damp stone floor. "You are clinging to straws, Judit. You see a man where there is only a vessel. You hear a word where there is only a gasp. Look at him." She gestured with a sharp, contemptuous wave of her hand at the still form on the cot. "The Bloom's touch is all over him. It's in his very marrow. The Synod didn't just break his body; they poisoned his spirit. What you are trying to save is not ruku bez. It is a thing wearing his skin."
The accusation hung between them, a theological chasm. Anya was a true believer in the Synod's revised gospel, which taught that the Gift was a divine burden and the Cinder Cost a holy penance. To her, ruku bez's condition was not a tragedy to be reversed but a final, righteous judgment. His suffering was a purification. To interfere was blasphemy.
"He is a man," Judit said, her voice low and firm. She moved to the small table beside the cot, her hands automatically checking the levels of the various infusions. The glass vials clinked softly, a delicate counterpoint to the tension in the room. "He is a man who fought beside us. A man who protected Soren. He has a name, a history. He is not a 'thing'."
"His history ended in that facility," Anya pressed, stepping around the cot to stand beside Judit. Her proximity was an invasion, her scent of lye and soap an aggressive cleanliness in the organic dampness of the cistern. "What came back is not him. It is an echo, twisted by the raw magic of the world's end. You waste precious resources—herbs, energy, your own spirit—on a lost cause. Resources that could be used for those who can still be saved. For those whose penance is not yet complete."
Judit picked up a small mortar, her fingers grinding a mixture of silverleaf and calming root with practiced, steady motions. The rhythmic scraping was her anchor. "And who decides who is worth saving, Anya? You? The Synod? A checklist of who is pure enough? My faith teaches that every life is a spark of the Light, however dim. It is not our place to judge when that spark should be extinguished. It is our place to shield it from the wind."
"Your faith is a relic," Anya scoffed, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial hiss. "A soft-hearted sentiment from before the world was remade in ash. We live in the age of Cinders, Judit. The rules have changed. The Bloom was a cleansing fire, and those it touched are marked. Some are marked to bear the Gift as a burden. Others… others are marked for destruction. ruku bez is one of them. To try and heal him is to spit in the face of the world's judgment."
As if on cue, a tremor ran through ruku bez's body. It wasn't a simple shiver. It was a violent, convulsive shudder that made the cot frame groan in protest. The grey light of his Cinder-Tattoos flared, a chaotic burst of energy that made the air crackle. The shimmering containment field hummed louder, straining to contain the raw power leaking from him. Judit dropped the mortar, her hands flying to the cot's railing to steady herself. Anya stumbled back, her face a mask of fear and revulsion.
"See!" Anya gasped, pointing a trembling finger. "The corruption! It fights you! It is the Bloom itself, rejecting your interference!"
"It's pain!" Judit shot back, her voice rising with a fierce, protective anger. She leaned over the giant, her hands hovering, not daring to touch him as the tremor wracked his frame. "He's in pain! His Gift is tearing him apart because he has no control. He is not a monster, Anya, he is a victim!"
The convulsion subsided as quickly as it began, leaving ruku bez breathing in ragged, shallow pants. A fresh sheen of sweat glistened on his brow. The grey light in his tattoos faded back to a weak, sickly pulse. The infirmary was quiet again, but the peace was shattered, replaced by a raw, humming tension. The scent of ozone was stronger now, sharp and acrid in Judit's nostrils.
Anya straightened her robes, her composure a fragile shell over her fear. "You call it pain. I call it the soul's final struggle. You are prolonging his agony for your own sentimental reasons. You are not a healer; you are a torturer, keeping a spirit chained to a broken body for your own comfort."
The words struck Judit like a physical blow. She had dedicated her life to easing suffering, to mending what the world had broken. To be called a torturer by this woman, this zealot who saw holiness in agony, was a profound violation. She turned slowly, her eyes locking with Anya's. The dim light of the infirmary caught the moisture in Judit's eyes, but her gaze was hard as flint.
"I have seen the pits, Anya," she said, her voice dangerously quiet. "I have seen men and women worked to death for the Crownlands, their bodies failing long before their spirits. I have held children as the Cinder-Tax claimed their parents, leaving them orphans in the ash. I have seen what happens when people are given up on. I will not add to that number. Not here. Not while I still draw breath."
"This is not the pits!" Anya's voice rose, taking on a fevered, proselytizing tone. "This is different! This is the Bloom's taint! It is a spiritual cancer, and you are letting it fester. By 'saving' him, you risk letting it spread. What if he wakes? What if that power, uncontrolled and corrupted, is unleashed upon us all? Will you take responsibility for that? Will you answer to the families of the people he might kill because you could not let go?"
The question was a low blow, a direct attack on Judit's deepest fears. She had wondered the same thing in the long, silent watches of the night. What if ruku bez was no longer in control? What if she was nursing a time bomb? But her fear was always met with the same, unshakeable conviction: that to give up on him was to become the very thing they were fighting against. The Synod gave up on people. The Crownlands gave up on people. The Unchained were supposed to be different.
"That is a risk we will have to take," Judit said, her voice regaining its strength. "Together. As a community. We will find a way to help him, to contain the danger without destroying the man. That is what hope is, Anya. It is not the absence of fear, but the choice to act in spite of it."
"Hope?" Anya laughed, a short, bitter sound. "Your hope is a sickness. It blinds you to reality. Soren's hope is what led him to the Bulwark. Nyra's hope is what has her dancing with the Sable League. And your hope… your hope is keeping this poor soul trapped in a living hell. You are all the same. You would rather burn the world down chasing a fantasy than accept the hard, clean truth of sacrifice."
The argument had circled back, becoming a proxy war for the soul of their entire rebellion. Anya's fatalistic doctrine, a twisted reflection of the Synod's own, versus Soren's desperate, pragmatic fight for a better world. Judit saw it now with perfect clarity. This wasn't just about ruku bez. It was about whether they were defined by what they had lost, or by what they refused to surrender.
"You are wrong," Judit said, her voice filled with a profound sadness for the woman before her. "Soren fights because he loves his family. Nyra maneuvers because she believes in a future free from the Synod's lies. And I… I fight because I believe every life, even one as broken as this, has value. That is not a fantasy. It is the foundation of everything we are trying to build."
Anya opened her mouth to deliver another cutting remark, another piece of dogma honed to a razor's edge. But the words never came.
A low groan, deep and resonant, vibrated from ruku bez's chest. It was not the sound of a spasm or a pained gasp. It was a sound of intent. Both women froze, their argument forgotten, their attention snapping to the cot. ruku bez's head, which had been lolling to the side, turned slowly, creakily, toward them. The movement was unnatural, stiff, as if his muscles had forgotten how to work.
Then, his eyelids fluttered.
They were heavy, gummed shut with dried tears and exhaustion, but they fought their way open. The eyes beneath were not the gentle, simple eyes of the giant who had followed Soren with unwavering loyalty. These eyes were wide, stark with a terror so absolute it seemed to suck the light from the room. They were the eyes of a man who had seen the other side of the world, a place of nightmares and screaming voids.
His gaze, unfocused and wild, darted between Judit and Anya. He didn't seem to see them as people, but as shapes, as phantoms in his personal hell. His lips, cracked and dry, parted. A sound, like stones grinding together, escaped his throat.
Judit leaned forward, her heart pounding a frantic rhythm against her ribs. "ruku? Can you hear me?"
He didn't answer her. His gaze fixed on a point just over her shoulder, his pupils dilated with primal fear. The air grew cold, the smell of ozone intensifying until it was almost suffocating. The grey light of his tattoos flickered wildly, casting dancing, monstrous shadows on the curved stone walls of the cistern.
He took a ragged, shuddering breath. And then he spoke.
The word was a torn whisper, a fragment of sound ripped from the depths of his trauma. It was fragile, yet it struck the room with the force of a thunderclap.
"Marr."