"To heal and protect humanity is our duty." That's the ideal my dad lived by.
My mom on the other hand was more of a direct person.
"Eva! Get down here now. It's time."
I took my time descending the wooden stairs of our cottage.
Another bandit attack. Nothing new in a place like Heal.
Our village was full of healers. Women who mended what others broke. And men who protected what mattered most.
That was how it had always been told.
And bandits… were just noise we had learned to survive.
The Protectors had driven them off too many times to count. Today was supposed to be no different.
My father, the leader of the Protectors had a flawless streak of victories against those trouble makers.
And even now, as my mother rushed me toward the tunnel, he still looked confident as ever.
He let her worry like he always did, and gave me a small wink like the world had already lost before it even started moving.
"Come on, Eva," he said. "Don't make your mother wait. All healers go underground until it's over."
My mother didn't wait for another word.
She grabbed my arm.
Hard.
And pulled me into tunnels beneath our floor boards.
The tunnel smelled like old wood and earth.
Safe. Hidden. Familiar.
We weren't alone. Other healers were already there, waiting in silence.
Above us… the world was starting to break.
I pressed my hand to the small viewing gap in the tunnel wall.
And I looked up trying catch a glimpse of my dad in action.
Seeing him shattered my expectations.
He was there.
Wounded.
Bleeding.
Surrounded.
Still fighting.
But barely winning.
The Protectors were overwhelmed and there was something definitely wrong today.
The bandits were never this many and united. They were also coordinated and focused on my dad. Like he was their mission, their sole target.
My father swung again.
And again.
But there were too many.
Ambushing too quickly.
Then one of them slipped through with an opening that could get Papa killed.
I desperately screamed.
"PAPA!"
My mistake caught the bandits attention.
He turned.
Just for a second.
He left my dad on his knees and moved toward the ground right under the tunnels.
Soon he was right above us.
I froze and stayed silent.
He let out a wicked smile as he looked down saying," I can hear your heartbeat."
He was going to find us!
He raised his foot.
But never brought it down.
My father appeared behind him.
Like he had always been there.
And with one clean cut of my dad's blade, the man's throat opened.
Blood hit the dirt.
He fell without a sound.
My mom who was alarmed by my scream came to scold me.
For a moment, everything went still.
Even the battlefield seemed to pause.
Then I heard it.
The sound of an arrow piercing the wind.
Dad's voice buried it for a moment as he told my mother,
"Enet, get Eva out of here."
My mom wasted no time as she grabbed me.
I felt nothing because I was still asking," Where was that arrow going."
I couldn't know.
Not yet.
Not until it hit my father in the neck.
Time stopped.
His body jerked slightly.
Just once.
He fell slowly as my mom covered my mouth to prevent me from screaming.
I fought her instantly trying to free my lips.
My muffled voice begged to be heard.
"No—wait—!"
She began to drag me back into the deeper parts of the tunnel.
I saw him fall.
His body covered the holes we viewed through.
He fell like a tree that had finally been cut down.
I tried to break free.
I tried to run back.
I tried to desperately free my self from the firm grip of my own mother.
I kept begging her.
"Please! He needs help! We can save him! We can-"
But she wasn't letting go.
And she was still pulling me further and further away from where it happened.
Outside, the bandits were laughing.
I could hear their mockery and also dad's dying breath.
"Your Great Protector is dying."
"Healers, where are you?"
My eyes stayed locked.
On that small opening.
On that same place I had been looking through a moment ago.
Replaying the same moment he fell.
Knowing he was still there.
Still blocking it.
Still hiding us.
Even while dying.
Even while we run.
My mother held me even tighter as I fought harder.
"Let me go!" I screamed. "Let me help him!"
I scratched and bit but nothing worked.
She didn't let go.
She couldn't let go.
No matter how I begged.
No matter how it broke me.
She held on.
I watched my father's blood spread drip into the tunnel the sound of each drop louder than anything I heard from the loudest of storms.
I kept trying to scream until my strength was no more.
I heard his heart stop and so did mine.
Father didn't just die protecting us.
Mother ensured we couldn't save him.
For that act.
For that sin.
I could never forgive her.
The funeral was three days later.
The village called him a hero.
The Great Protector.
The Shield of Heal.
The man who had never lost.
People cried.
People prayed.
People shared stories.
I hated every one of them.
Heroes weren't supposed to die.
Heroes weren't supposed to bleed out while healers stood a few feet away doing nothing.
Heroes weren't supposed to leave daughters behind.
The coffin disappeared into the earth.
Everyone bowed their heads.
Everyone except me.
My eyes stayed on my mother.
Enet.
The woman who let him die.
The woman who held me back.
The woman everyone else still seemed to respect.
When it was over she reached for my shoulder.
I stepped away.
The movement was small.
The damage wasn't.
Pain flashed across her face.
Good.
Let it hurt.
Maybe now she understood how I felt.
Months passed.
Then years.
The village healed.
I didn't.
Everywhere I went people talked about my father.
His bravery.
His sacrifice.
His final stand.
Nobody talked about the healers who stayed hidden.
Nobody talked about the wife who never tried.
Nobody talked about the daughter who listened to him die.
So I did.
Every chance I got.
Every argument.
Every disagreement.
Every time my mother tried to tell me what was right.
I brought it back.
"You let him die."
The words became a knife.
And I learned exactly where to stick it.
Sometimes she would go silent.
Sometimes she would leave the room.
Sometimes she would stare out the window for hours afterward.
I didn't care.
Not then.
If she was hurting, good.
I was hurting too.
The first time I asked to train with the Protectors, they laughed.
Healers didn't become warriors.
Warriors protected.
Healers healed.
That was the way things worked.
That was the way things had always worked.
I hated those words.
Always worked.
The system that always worked killed my father.
The rules that always worked left him bleeding in the dirt.
"No."
The training master blinked.
"What?"
"I'll be both."
He laughed harder.
I didn't.
Years later he stopped laughing.
I learned how to run.
How to fight.
How to carry injured people while bleeding myself.
How to stitch wounds while arrows flew overhead.
How to heal without walls.
Without tunnels.
Without safety.
I swore nobody near me would ever die because I arrived too late.
Not again.
Never again.
My mother watched all of it.
The bruises.
The scars.
The sleepless nights.
The obsession.
Sometimes she tried to stop me.
Sometimes she begged.
Sometimes she just watched.
Every single time I gave her the same answer.
"You wouldn't understand."
And when she tried to argue.
When she tried to be my mother.
I used the knife.
Again.
And again.
And again.
"You let him die."
Eventually she stopped defending herself.
That should have felt like victory.
Instead it just made me angrier.
Unknown to me, all this heartache would be the death of her.