Chapter 248: To Be A Healer
For Ashlynn, the lesson Cecile gave her was different than anything she’d experienced from Nyrielle in admittedly sparse lessons on sorcery. Where Nyrielle’s methods relied on simple will and a few words to shape the energy she needed, Cecile’s lessons were much more precise with detailed instructions and specific words that needed to be used for each purpose.
The complexity of it was much greater, but one look at the men Cecile had healed to demonstrate the technique was all Ashlynn needed to understand the power of her methods.
"Cher," Cecile said, her voice commanding attention as she guided Ashlynn through her first healing attempt, "you gotta stretch yourself out like a tender vine. Think of your spirit like roots, diving deep into de earth. Pull up the life-energy, not from the hard ground, non, but from the living things dat grow. Dat’s de true magic of healing."
"So I need wood energy," Ashlynn said, nodding in understanding. As the Mother of Trees, her greatest strength was supposed to lie in using the power of Wood, and she already had some experience reaching out to trees for help when she escaped from the shallow grave that Owain’s knights buried her in. "Then, I should imagine the wounds healing in the same way grass grows after its cut or new branches grow after they’re cracked."
"Watch yourself now, girl," the old woman cautioned, her tone sharp but not entirely unkind. "A broken branch, she don’t repair herself. The tree, she makes a new branch, yeah? Better to think like the grass, we may walk on him but he’s resilient and quick to recover."
"But listen close here. Your words, dey got power. Dey give de energy shape and purpose. We might not know how a wound knits together, but we know what helps; keeping clean, bandaging right, giving the body what she needs to mend."
As the old woman spoke, a clearer image formed in Ashlynn’s mind of what she needed to do. Already, if she closed her eyes, she could feel the dense, lush vegetation outside the hut. Trees and vines, bushes and grasses, in this place, life was abundant.
"You stretch your senses out," Cecile explained, speaking softly as she felt Ashlynn’s reach expand. "Like roots seeking water. Find de energy you need, tap into it, pull it close. Shape it with your will, with de words you speak. Do dat, cher, and remember what you seen me do," Cecile said. "Help dis poor man sleep, ease his pain, and heal his wound."
Feeling the energy around her, there was one source of energy that seemed both stronger and easier to grasp than any of the others. Focusing on that, Ashlynn repeated the words she’d learned from Cecile.