I signaled to the little boy to go back, just as a guard came around the wagon. I quickly looked down and continued walking toward the building from where we were bringing out supplies. We were still scavenging the town after the soldiers had attacked and burned much of it. The boy, probably a refugee, had been looking at me from behind a house. I just hoped he hadn’t been seen.

  I grabbed the next crate, but it was too big for me to lift by myself, so I asked Fin for some help. Together we carried it out to the wagon. Each time I came out, I looked for the boy. When I saw him again and no one was watching, I signaled eating with my hand to my mouth and again to go back and hide.

  Later, while we were taking a lunch break, I told Quack I needed to relieve myself. That was a fairly normal occurrence, so he just nodded. I could no longer stand to pee without making a mess, I’m ashamed to say, so it often took me longer. I’m sure it annoyed Quack to no end, but he was used to me taking my time.

  When I was out of sight I quickly made my way over to where I had st seen the boy hiding. There I found not just the boy but a girl too. She was a little taller, but her lower leg, below her dress, looked like it was badly injured. I could see they were scared of me and prepared to run if needed.

  “Don’t worry. I won’t hurt you,” I said. I had to be quiet so the others wouldn’t hear me. “Here is some food. Please, take it.”

  I held out the rest of my lunch, a piece of cheese and some ft bread. We had been eating a little better now that we had been salvaging supplies.

  The boy first only looked at it. I could tell he was very hungry. He finally reached out, snatched it from my hands and ran back to share with the girl. The food disappeared in seconds.

  “Thank you,” the girl said.

  “You’re welcome. May I look at your leg?” I asked. “I might be able to help.”

  She looked uncertain, but finally nodded. So I moved closer and knelt down next to her.

  I couldn’t see above the hem of her dress, but I could tell it affected more of her leg, so I asked, “Can you pull up your dress a little, just enough so I can see where you are hurt?”

  So she did. I was actually surprised she would do that for a boy and a stranger. But then I remembered, even though I didn’t think of myself as a girl, maybe she didn’t see me as a boy.

  A lot of people were confused about my gender tely— including me.

  I could see the whole cut on her leg, cuts actually. I wondered how it happened, but it wasn’t important. They didn’t look too deep, but some were long and parts were still bleeding.

  “Don’t be frightened. I’m going to try to heal it, but I need to touch you. It doesn't matter where.” I looked at her and waited.

  “Oh… alright.” She held out her arm.

  So I pced my hand on her and reached for my magic. When I felt it deep inside, I pushed the thought of healing and wholeness into her leg. It only took a few seconds. It was fascinating to watch her skin quickly knit back together. When I finished there was still dirt and blood but I could no longer see the cuts.

  “Wow!” was all she could say. She reached down to touch it. “It doesn’t hurt any more. Are you a healer?”

  I wasn’t sure what to say, so I just nodded. “I need to get back before they come looking for me. You two need to hide until we leave. After that you need to find some pce to go, some pce safe. Far away from these soldiers.”

  “Thank you,” they both said as I left them there. It wasn’t much, but it was all I could do for them. I just hoped it was enough and that they would be safe.

  I was still depressed… and hungry. But somehow I felt a little better on our long walk back to camp that evening.

  The soldiers had been gone for almost a week when we were told to pack up the camp once more. Things were different this time. Everyone was nervous and on edge. Something had happened, but they didn’t say what.

  Once we were packed up we started moving te in the day. That was very unusual, since we couldn’t go far before nightfall. This time we didn’t stop when it got dark. Our masters just yelled at us to keep going, so we did. At least the light from our three moons helped us to see.

  We walked most of the night before we were all too tired to go any farther and had to rest. Early the next day, after a short meal, we were again commanded to travel. We finally caught up to the army te that day.

  We could see some of the soldiers were in bad shape. As we set up camps, they had us arrange special tents in an area for the wounded. I looked around but didn’t see whoever they had fought. Now that I thought about it, it looked like a good portion of the army wasn’t here. So, I assumed the fighting must be going on elsewhere.

  Lil and I were assigned to help in the hospital area for much of our day while we were camped there. The head nurse even gave us aprons to wear over our clothes. I decided not to correct people when they called me either ‘zprbra’ (girl) or ‘up’ (nurse).

  It was just easier to not fight it. I wouldn’t win that fight anyway. According to Lil, I looked more like a girl than a boy by that point. And I was definitely developing breasts, whether I wanted them or not. They were still small, but I was sure they wouldn’t remain so for long. I mostly dressed in a loose tunic, which could be worn by either boy or girl, with a sash for a belt.

  My voice was changing also, even breaking at awkward times, like it had when I was first going through puberty. I guess you could say I was going through puberty once again, but this time in the other direction.

  I was still sad and disappointed at times about how my body was changing against my will, but keeping busy and thinking about others helped me take my mind off my own problems.

  I did not use my healing ability while working in the hospital tents. That would have given us away quickly.

  On the one hand, I really didn’t care about healing these soldiers, just to have them get well enough to go back out and fight our people. But on the other hand, helping people was something I was good at. So I just decided to do my job. That consisted of taking care of bedpans and chamber pots, changing bandages, changing sheets and bnkets on cots and even feeding patients when needed. I was also sent to get more supplies when we were running low.

  We had a healer who came in sometimes, but he rarely used any magic. Mostly he just told us how to treat patients and what medicine or herbs to give them. Only if a commander was wounded, or a sergeant when the case was extreme, did he try. I watched him, when I could. He didn’t seem to be very powerful, from what I could tell. I was pretty sure I could heal people faster, but I also had absolutely no training, so I might just cause more harm than benefit.

  We remained camped there for about three weeks. I was happy that the fighting was far away from where we were, enough that we didn’t have to worry about being attacked.

  I learned that the two armies were at a standstill, and neither could dominate or prevail against the other. The casualty numbers went up and down, but still came to us in a steady stream

  The season was midsummer by then. The days were hot, but being in the hospital tents was much hotter. We had to keep the fps open to allow some air to flow through. But it only helped a little. The nurses often went on “errands”, just so they could get out of the heat. It was ironic to learn that being outside in the full sun was actually cooler than being covered inside a tent.

  “Tel eikiueki pka asue yski!” (The camp is under attack!)

  We were awoken one morning to yells and screams of attack. Opening my eyes, I could hear the distant sound of impacts. You could feel the ground shaking each time something heavy nded. There were some explosions also.

  “Get up now!” I yelled.

  I made sure Fin and Lil were up and moving as I quickly threw off my bnket and pulled on my tunic and boots. After remembering to tie on my scarf, we exited our tent together. We looked around for the cause. We saw soldiers everywhere coming out of their tents. Sergeants soon had them assembled and armed for battle.

  So much for being far away from the fighting.

  Looking around, I could see distant stones and fireballs coming from the East.

  “Hurry, this way, away from the fighting.”

  We all ran together. We were going through other camps on our way, but since we were not soldiers, they mostly ignored us. Once we were far enough away, we climbed a hill where we could hopefully watch from a safe distance.

  It looked like the other army had a way to cast rge stones and fireballs at us. I didn’t know if magic was involved or not. It was scary, but as long as you weren’t directly under one of the projectiles when they came down, it didn’t seem very dangerous to me. Of course, how could you know in advance if one of those was going to hit you or not.

  The bombardment stopped after a few hours, but we waited for several more before we decided to go back to camp to see what we could do.

  When we got back, everyone was scrambling in a rush, trying to take down the entire camp. I assumed we should help also, so I told Fin and Lil to get busy and help. I went to the medical tents to see if they needed help there. It was the area I was most familiar with. Maybe the injured needed help also.

  When I arrived I found that hospital tents were mostly cleaned out, so I set to work helping the other nurses pack things into a wagon. Then I started to do the work of taking down the tents. I finished one and was just starting on the next when Quack came in

  He had never looked more furious. His normally bck streaked face was red, almost purple. I wouldn’t be surprised to see steam coming out of his ears. But that wasn’t all. He had his sword in his hand. He took one look at me and started to come at me, yelling something I didn’t understand.

  He’s going to kill me! I can’t use my magic! But he’s going to kill me! But I can’t use my magic!

  Those thoughts fought within my brain for the few seconds he took to reach me. There was no time left to do anything else, so I again pulled on my inner magic with everything I could to protect myself.

  In the st moment I had two overpping thoughts: stop and shield.

  Just before he hit me, his sword stopped with a loud cng, just like the man’s hand had done the night he attacked me. The sword didn’t break, but I could tell that Quack felt the recoil up his arms. But Quack had also sent his electricity through his sword at the same time, probably to make sure I was dead. This time it did nothing. But I felt energy flow into me, the energy of the sword impact as well as the rge amount of electricity he tried to use.

  I felt powerful at that moment.

  It took a few seconds for Quack to realize his attack hadn’t done anything to me. Shock slowly appeared on his ugly face.

  Lightning began to dance between my fingers, like it had done before.

  What can I do with all of this energy?

  He already knew by then I had some kind of magical protection, so I could not allow that knowledge out of this tent.

  There was only one thing to do.

  He needed a taste of his own punishment. I held both hands out toward him and sent all of the power I felt at that moment back into his body.

  At the same time, I was also filled with all of the suppressed hatred for everything this man had inflicted on me and my family. However, my emotional storm wasn’t finished. I felt all of the abuse I had received while being a sve, not just from him, but from the whole army.

  Eventually the storm in my mind passed, and I was left weaker than I had ever been before.

  I have no memory of what happened next.

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