Book 2 Chapter 42 - Heroes Are Above Reproach

The fight is so there won’t be any more fucking statues, no more 
heroes, no more names above reproach whose words can’t be challenged 
by their ancestors. The fight is to stop every single person—sage, king, 
or cultist—from deciding when people own their own bodies, their own 
minds. You can’t win and be remembered for fighting back because you are
one of them. You have created your legend. You are a sage, rejected by the
others, perhaps, but still a self-appointed queen of a queendom you dreamt
up yourself. Another petty tyrant to be listed alongside all the others. The
Void Sage. The Original Sage. And let’s not forget you: The
Reject Sage. The Petty Sage. The Fallen Sage.
—Lillith of Endings, “The Violent Stones”

Something was beeping. The last thing Violet clearly remembered was Mr. Clay, finally appearing in the middle of the nest. There were other muddy memories, of course. Aubrey catching Violet as she stumbled and fell. Some kind of potion being poured into her mouth. Kiera trying to feed Guy the same thing while Aubrey helped Violet.

The world had blurred far too quickly. She was badly injured, but she’d won, and she’d managed to fight through similar injuries before. And with a lower constitution and endurance attribute at that. Yet, as soon as the adrenaline had faded from her veins, Violet had nearly crumpled. She’d lost control of her limbs again, and her vision had blurred. That was when the memories started swimming together. All she was certain of was the very last before her vision was taken by darkness. Mr. Clay crashing into the nest with a face of sheer, panicked terror. That, and a stinging in her shoulder.

When she regained consciousness, she was in a white bed and an orange room. Something was still beeping. Her head was throbbing, but the rest of her body felt better than common sense allowed. She blinked at a blurry world a few times. Splotches of black, red, and blonde lurched into her line of sight the moment she did. Before she could make out more than the colors of her environment.

“Fuck, Vi! You scared the absolute shit out of me!” Kiera complained. Violet blinked a few more times. 

“Oh, hang on. Sorry!” Kassie apologized. A pale blur immediately filled Violet’s entire field of view, then a glowing orange replaced it. A few seconds later, Kassie's hand came into focus. It was surrounded by the familiar orange energy of the Druid’s healing talent. Violet recognized it by the tiny crystals floating around it like the moons of Saturn. “Hiya, hero! Doc had your perception, like, muted or something for the past week. Kinda necessary for long-term healing after a certain degree, or it’ll wake you up during the ugly bits. All fixed now, though!”

Violet blinked again as the now-perfectly clear world came into focus. In fact, it was a sharper image than she’d ever experienced before. The sounds she could hear and the details she could make out left her reeling for a moment. Her mind focused on the beeping machine to her left. It looked just like the ones in the old movies, down to the line on the screen that followed the beating of her heart. Except it lacked all the old-world cables. Instead, a single clear tube filled with orange light connected it to the cart it was mounted on. She was in the orange wing of the academy infirmary. She wore a loose hospital gown and slept under a thin blanket. Her hair seemed to be tied up and contained in a familiar net, likely to keep it out of the doctor’s way while she was treated. It used some sort of talent-based magic to contain far more hair than should have fit so close to her head. It was uncomfortable, but the now-familiar feeling was oddly helpful. It helped her get her bearings.

A few pieces fell into place as soon as she did. Her perception was too good. Better than it had been before the trip into the mist. She’d advanced again somehow. Her calling was extremely clear that killing hedron wouldn’t do this. Which left only one possibility. Since she hadn’t killed anyone, her plan must have worked. She smiled internally. 

Violet was in control.

Except—to advance so quickly—it would have taken time for word to spread. Her mind latched onto Kassie’s words. “Past week?” she asked. That would certainly explain it. She’d been unconscious for an entire week. But… whatever she’d presented, the fight hadn’t actually been that close. “What happened?”

“You fucking solo’d a queen, managed to jump all the way to orange in the middle of the fight, then passed out like a bitch just because your blood was slowly replacing itself with poison. Way to stick the landing, dude,” Kiera answered.

“Well, nobody's perfect,” Violet replied solemnly, as if to acknowledge her failure. “Except for me, obviously. And maybe Azula. But nobody else is perfect. So I’ll happily forgive your terrible memory. I stuck the landing perfectly.”

“Right, of course. Forget the poison and the week in bed. You nailed it,” Kiera agreed. “Seriously, though. I’m relieved as shit that you’re awake. Aubrey and Guy will be, too! They’ll be pissed you woke up on our shift, actually.”

“Language, please,” Violet reprimanded. Then, she let the words roll over in her head. Kiera was implying her team had stayed by her side for the entire week. Well, her team plus Kassie. But the Druid was likely earning clarity with the act. Healing Violet was more utilitarian for the blonde than anything. Aside from that, however… it felt nice. Even her own family wouldn’t have cared back home. After everything, it inspired a warmth in her chest to have friends who worried when she was hurt. But she could bask in that feeling later. For the time being, she had too many questions to ask. “Poison?” Violet asked. “But we had the safe potions. Did Aubrey give me one of the other ones?”

Kassie tilted her head curiously at that, but shrugged it off a moment later. “So it was super obvious why my whole team stopped moving all at once, huh?” she asked.

Violet shuddered a bit as Kassie’s green eyes rested on her. The memory of that senseless fear the girl inspired hadn’t quite faded yet, apparently. In the quiet room, however, that danger felt much more muted. Violet lifted her arms in a heavy stretch, ignoring the pain in her shoulder. Then, she rested one hand on her head, pushing until she felt a comfortable and loud crack. Only after that did she shake her head as if to clear it, then focus on Kassie.

“Sorry, I’m still a bit disoriented. You mean when you all collapsed after fighting off the hedron ambush, right?” she asked.

Kassie rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly. “That’d be the time, yeah,” she answered.

Violet shrugged. “I mean. These circumstances don’t seem quite appropriate to say I told you so, but…” She trailed off. 

Kassie sighed. “Yeah. That’s totally fair,” she conceded. “But you’re right! It had nothing to do with the potions! That’s why I’m up and about, and you’ve been unconscious for a week. It was from the snake bite, actually. Like, venom. Not poison. Kiera was being serious about the blood thing. The queen’s talent was totally replacing it a little at a time. It was pretty gross, actually.”

Violet stared at the cheerful blonde for a moment. She’d wondered why the snake hedron hadn’t used any talents. It was possible it simply had none that were useful in combat, and she’d written the oddity off with that. It hadn’t even occurred to her that a combat talent might be so subtle and hard to miss, especially from a beast with no real intelligence. She’d need to remember that. She rolled her injured shoulder, and groaned as the limitations of healing talents and clarity presented themselves. She was far from completely recovered. She felt better by miles. But a few injuries were going to keep hurting for some time, it seemed.

“Ah,” Violet replied. “I guess that more or less explains the migraine, huh?”

“Afraid so. That and maybe some of the healing talents used on you. Those can be totally unpredictable,” Kassie answered. Violet sighed. But it likely wouldn’t matter in the long run. It was an oversight she’d need to remember in the future, but things had still ended in her favor. Better than she’d hoped, actually. Except…

She shifted her attention to Kiera. The kitsune had clearly been happy to see Violet conscious, but her ears were drooping, and her tail was limp. And she’d clearly been letting her mind wander from the conversation. Some of the warmth at her friend’s presence faded, but Violet was fond enough of Kiera to give her the benefit of the doubt. It had been a long month, and Violet could understand how many things must’ve been on the other girl’s mind.

“Hey, at least it won’t happen again, right?” Violet pushed. “Have they arrested your dad yet? Or are they still investigating what happened? I know how much time these things can take.”

Kassie and Kiera shared a look, and Violet’s heart sank. Something had gone wrong. The druid and the kitsune seemed to silently communicate for a moment, then Kiera sighed.

“Can you tell her? I don’t know if I can talk about that fucking—” Kiera winced at her own language, then shook her head. “About that useless creep without screaming.”

Kassie nodded, but grimaced at the same time. “Yeah. Well, it’s, like… I totally believe you guys completely now! And I told Bouvier that! My whole team did! Even Zach, who was being a crazy huge jerk about the whole thing. The other teams all made a statement, too! But—”

“But Mr. Bouvier doesn’t think it’s ‘fair’ to punish my dad when they can’t definitively prove he messed with the potions, or some stupid shit like that,” Kiera cut in, despite previously asking Kassie to explain. The frustration was boiling over, and had clearly washed the brief relief away.

“So they are still investigating what happened?” Violet asked. Then she paused, a new thought occurring to her. “Wait, the other teams wrote statements as well? Was there another hedron ambush?” 

Again, Kassie and Kiera shared an awkward look. Finally, Kassie latched onto the second question, ignoring the first. “Yeah, they were, um. They were, like, less cautious about the potions than our group? A lot of kids were freaked by their first trip into the mist and started topping off after every hedron they saw. So your team was pretty much the only one still standing at the end of the trip,” she explained.

“Most of us,” Kiera corrected. “You were drooling all over a stretcher with the rest of them.”

“Thanks for that,” Violet deadpanned. “An attractive depiction of my hard work, if ever I heard one.”

“You’re welcome, bestie,” Kiera replied with a smile.

“So they are investigating Samuel, then?” Violet pushed, returning to her initial question. 

Kiera clicked her tongue, and Kassie fiddled with her ponytail. “Well, to be super honest? Um. No,” Kassie finally answered. “Bouvier met with the whole class, actually. He doesn’t want to, like, lose a valuable Apothecary. So we aren’t supposed to spread rumors about it. That hasn’t stopped us, obviously. But rumors are all that’s really been spread around, and the story’s already been messed up a lot. And technically none of us accused him of anything, exactly. We just said what happened. We took the potion and got sick. There's, like, a lot of things that could happen between him making them and us getting them, so no one actually reported verbatim that he tried to poison us. Well. No one but Kiera, I guess. Anyway, apparently losing his contract or public image with the school based on an unproven investigation counts as, like, punishment all on its own? I don’t really know; it doesn’t make a crazy amount of sense to me.”

Violet thought about that for a long moment. She was surprised at first, but it made more sense as she thought about it. It was exactly why no one cared what her uncle did, after all. And, if she was being completely fair, there was a small amount of truth to the idea of Samuel’s innocence. Not… a lot. But the man had meant to poison only one student. It was technically true that he was innocent of targeting the rest. Violet’s intervention had changed the names on the list of victims, which made the charges against him only half true. “The school Apothecary had tried to poison a student” was true. “The school Apothecary tried to poison an entire class” was not. 

She’d been hoping they’d analyze the potions with some talent and find that he had, in fact, made them. And that would make up for the twisted truth she presented. A man poisoning a teenage girl should have been enough. Regardless of whether he hit his target or not. But she’d muddied the waters when she’d changed it to make it more visible. The fact was, they had evidence of real crimes before they’d hired him. An eyewitness who would be directly affected by his access to her. If they ignored the unadulterated truth, then Violet had no chance of enforcing real consequences on the man. Especially not after twisting reality. 

“I guess if they didn’t care about Kiera’s testimony before, they aren’t going to care about ours now, huh?” Violet mused.

“Especially since the rest of the fucking school got perfectly good potions,” Kiera grumbled. “Which have apparently helped them gain clarity faster, so the dickheads think we made the whole thing up. To keep our ‘advantage.’ Like we give a shit about that.”

“The other half aren’t stupid, though!” Kassie replied as cheerfully as she could. It clearly didn’t cheer Kiera up much. It was obvious why the class with Samuel’s alleged target would be poisoned and the rest wouldn’t. It was more incriminating, in fact. Proof of ill intent rather than incompetence. But, of course, when people were personally invested in someone, they cared more about the conclusion they liked than anything else. And free potions that were usually too expensive to dream about? There were a lot of people who wouldn’t want Samuel to leave his new position.

Violet had mixed feelings about all of this. She was still sore and a little irritable, but it wasn’t entirely downsides. One plan had largely failed. In fact, her idea to dispose of the green Apothecary had fallen completely flat. That made her angry, but it could be rectified. But it also implied some of her longer-term plans would work exactly as she intended. 

“Wait,” she said, a realization donning on her. She looked over toward Kiera as anxiety radiated from the other girl. “Does that mean you’re still awaiting trial? If they aren’t even investigating him, then have they not dropped the charges against you, either?” Kiera gave Violet a flat look that answered the question all on its own. Violet scowled. “Why the absolute fuck were you arrested based on testimony alone, but they won’t investigate him based on the same?” 

She almost asked why Guy hadn’t stepped in to back Kiera’s claims up, then she remembered the way the boy had frozen in the nest. He wasn’t going to be helpful. Even Samuel must have known that, or both would have been arrested for the crime. Well, that and the fact that Samuel likely just didn’t care about Guy. The arrest had been to put a collar on Kiera, not to take revenge for what had happened.

“Language,” Kiera scoffed, although her eyes were appreciative of the outrage. 

“Kiera’s, like, red,” Kassie answered quietly. And that was all she really needed to say. Violet knew better than anyone how that worked. She’d made it well into her teens as a white. She knew how a category disparity would affect how seriously someone was taken. Of course a red teenager would be ignored. And of course a green healer could have that red arrested from hundreds of miles away. That was simply how categories and callings worked.

The group was silent for a few minutes. Violet was already making plans to deal with Samuel. She’d have to do it soon. She may have been underestimated when she’d met him, but he’d know she was the reason things had gone south. The next time she saw him, she’d need to deal with him. Or there was a chance he’d use his influence to levy charges against her as well.

Finally, Kassie broke the silence. “Oh, right! Congratulations on hitting orange already! And in a crazy flashy way! People might not agree on the resident Apothecary, but there is only one rumor about you, Violet. You are a badass, and something of a rising star in Chromatic. You should hear some of the ways the story of your fight is being told,” she said.

“Oh, yeah, you sound way less like one of those rubber balls tied to a paddle than you actually were,” Kiera agreed. “I heard you tore the queen's head off with your bare hands!”

“I heard you never even, like, moved. Just stared it down and it died,” Kassie laughed.

Violet rolled her eyes, but she smiled internally. That would explain her increased perception. When she had a moment alone, she’d need to check her attributes. She may have failed to have Kiera’s dad arrested, but she’d gained some measure of control over the academy. Over people she hadn’t even met, in fact. It was a funny rumor to Kiera and Kassie, sure. But Violet knew what it really meant.

This was going to help Violet in more ways than one. After all, when people were personally invested in someone? They cared more about the conclusion they liked than anything else.