The Lowest Healer and the Highest Mage (Clem & Wist #1)

by Hiyodori

I just didn’t think I was cut out for a lifelong career as a fugitive.

“We have a problem,” said the mage. She had dark waist-length locs and better posture than all the rest of us in the room combined.

And yes, plenty of people like to bray and moan about how revenge will just leave you feeling more empty inside, and retribution will only lead to more suffering. You know what? Screw ’em. Sometimes nothing tastes better than a nice meaty serving of petty vengeance.

If failure was all but guaranteed, where was the harm in merely trying? It was like telling a subliminal mage child to wash their hands and brush their teeth and, oh, be sure not to accidentally transform into a butterfly overnight. They wouldn’t wake up as a winged insect even if they wanted to, regardless of whether you went to the trouble of warning them against it.

I’ve always had a slightly paranoid mindset, but if anything, age has only taught me that I was right all along. Just look at how trusting Wist saddled me with a life sentence.

Something unreadable crossed Wist’s face. A repressed spasm like a dinner guest fighting to disguise the fact that they’d gotten a fish bone stuck in their cheek.

Speaking for myself, I hadn’t set foot in anything resembling the natural world since—well, since I was a scrappy kid still chasing bugs. I’d probably never seen an old-growth forest before in my life. Between whining vociferously about my leg and striving not to inhale mouthfuls of bugs or twist my ankles on slippery moss, I didn’t have much time to look around and think poetic thoughts. But the biggest of the trees made us humans seem about as significant to the world as a pack of squirrels.

It didn’t feel anything like moving. Ever seen the trick where someone whips a tablecloth out from under a full set of dishes and glasses without disturbing them? It felt a bit like that—as if she’d whipped the ground out from under us, but not even long enough for us to miss its presence.

About teleporting

At some point in those brief days when Wist’s family feared we might be bonded, Wist turned to me and said she’d thought I didn’t want to bond anyone. “Well, I’ve always been sort of against it in principle,” I said. Wist already knew that. “But I would totally do it to spite them.”

We were more than best friends and less than a couple.

He was a prototypical honor student (and it suited him!), and he’d gone much further in higher education than me, in spite of having just turned twenty-two.

“I missed you,” she said. “We’ve been apart less than a day.” “I still missed you.” “You got by just fine when I was alone in prison for seven years,” I said through my teeth. “I missed you then, too.” She looked at me like she meant it.

“There must have been a time when you loved me,” I said. “Even if you never said so. How about now?” Those dark eyes widened. A few more thick seconds of silence, and I might very well either vomit off the side of the bed or faint to blackness. I wanted to do to the emotional center of my brain whatever Wist had done to ravage and silence her own magic.

“I know which taboo you broke,” I said. “Reviving the dead.” I held out the blue bond thread, forced her to look at it. “I don’t remember anything except what I’ve seen in my dreams. But I’ve seen enough. There was a world where we bonded quite young, wasn’t there? There was a world where you gave me this bond thread. There was a world where Fanren assassinated me, and I didn’t even know him yet. You brought me back. You gave me another life.”

And worst of all, there was a part of me that didn’t care about any of that. There was a part of me that wanted to overlook all of it. There was a part of me that keened in misery solely because Wist had loved the wrong Clematis.

them. You were there with me. You were listening.” “But not in this life,” I said. I didn’t have a perfect memory, but I wouldn’t have forgotten that. I was sure of it. “In this life, I didn’t stop to look at them as long. I already knew them. Your father didn’t say anything.” “That’s the whole story of this life, isn’t it?” I said acridly. “You already knew everything.”

“I need to explain what I meant,” she said. She watched the ground—a slippery mass of rocks and moss and roots—as she spoke. “I told you I didn’t know if I could live without you.” “And here I took it as a confession of undying love.” “If you don’t want to know—” I caught at her elbow for balance. “No,” I said. “Tell me.”

“What consequences? The previous Kraken never actually said a word about what would happen if someone broke one of her taboos. Don’t use magic for this, she said, and left it at that. And it didn’t make sense to think disaster could strike simply as a result of using magic in a certain specific way. People use magic to kill each other all the time, and the continent hasn’t shattered yet. Why would using magic to give someone life be any different?”

“I want you to stay with me,” Wist said into my hair. Her voice broke and broke again. “I want you to love me.” There were no words in the bond. But the bond told me she was talking to me, the me holding her right now, not the old me who had died a lifetime ago and gone deaf to her cries. Don’t leave me, she said. I deserve to be alone for the rest of eternity. But please don’t leave me alone again.