Content Notes: Medical racism, ethnic-based violence, body horror, self-harm, and child death
Opening Author’s Note: When I wrote this story, I was simultaneously working on a novella version, which fleshed out not only the events but the themes, characters, and frictions. That version, The Bruising of Qilwa, is due out by Tachyon Publications in 2022. While the following is not a summary of the novella, it does follow the general idea of it, including the conflict, stakes, and general consequences, and includes three of the major characters. If you like “Nothing Less Than Bones,” I hope you will consider picking up The Bruising of Qilwa, to see the story as I originally intended.
***
In the late sun-swept hours of the evening, purples streaking across the pink sky like blood, Firuz-e Jafari took out the trash. Or would have taken out the trash, were they not interrupted by a scream.
Clinic trash was burned in the alley out back, and Firuz was halfway to the brick oven when the echo reverberated down the street. The bucket slipped from their fingers, spilling soiled bandages too ratty for another wash and bodily refuse from the sick. Even as the stench of infection, that too-sweet smell, filled the air, Firuz was dashing away.
This was the third time this month they’d interrupted an attack.
Firuz pressed their thumb into the needle sewn in their sleeve as they followed the indecipherable taunts. This was a reaction etched into their muscles, though the surroundings were wrong—real doors and brick homes instead of planks of rotting wood and shanty houses. Strangers poked their heads from behind curtains, but no one went after the noise; no one followed the assistant healer as they ducked around corners, willed the patter of their heart to calm its drum rather than ratchet higher.
At last, hugging the wall that circled the district, Firuz spotted a handful of teens kicking something on the ground. Navel drawing tight, they inched towards the unnoticing group. From experience, they knew hurtling down the streets would cause panic to the detriment of the targeted individual.
One of them jeered an insult—Firuz had heard that one too many times since they’d moved to the Free Democratic City-State of Qilwa—before levelling a kick. “That’s right, lick the shit of your precious birds.”
“Ack, look how dirty it is!” laughed another. “No wonder your kind is getting kicked out of Dilmun.”
“Or kicked out here,” sniggered a third.
“I’m giving you one more chance to stop,” rang a clear, though pained voice. “Then I’ll make sure you never touch me again.”
Firuz froze.
They knew that voice.
Eight months ago, Firuz and their mentor searched the nearby dock slums after a recent migration wave—and subsequent riot—left injured refugees by the dozens. Firuz’s mentor had been expecting his late partner’s sister and her family, had already found them a place to stay. Instead, the two stumbled upon swollen bodies and the huddled, beaten girl who had been their daughter.
Afsoneh, now fifteen years old but still too skinny after a recent growth spurt, surged up from underneath the limbs of her attackers. She tripped one, shoved another, and elbowed a third, before wiping the blood trickling from her nose, her mouth.
Understanding iced Firuz’s spine, but they were too far away to stop her. “Wait—”
As the last member of the group wound back a fist, Afsoneh lunged.
Firuz bolted.
The two slammed to the ground. Afsoneh snarled as she clawed a hand across the bully’s face and rolled away. Two of the others yanked her arms back, hauling her to her feet, but she only grinned.
The bully arched their back, howling. One of their friends crawled over, reaching a hand, but the bully whipped one way, then another, slapping them away with their ministrations. The kids holding Afsoneh stared, faces paling, arms loosening their holds. Afsoneh sagged to the ground. Hunched over, with mud-matted, waist-length hair and dirt streaked across her face, heavy bags sinking her eyes and purple-brown bruises marring her sun-dark olive skin, she looked like a creature risen from the sea.
Firuz finally stuttered to a halt, collapsing next to the writhing teen. They could see what havoc was wreaked, so close by: a bloody lip, a split eyebrow, a broken nose. Injuries, Firuz was sure, they could look up and see mirrored on their smug apprentice’s face. Swiping a finger across the dot of blood on their wrist, they clasped the head of the bucking body.
Magic is mostly a working of the will, Firuz learned when they first began training. So Firuz breathed into their makeshift patient’s blood, sent spindles of energy through veins and arteries, rooting through to injured tissue, burst capillaries. Straightened the broken nose, knit the split lip.
Afsoneh’s magic calmed its attack as soon as Firuz’s touched it, even in another’s body. Their patient panted, the relief smoothing their brow as the pain receded.
“Get out of here before I report you to the guard.” Firuz released their hold and raised their head to meet each of the others’ gazes, except for their trainee’s. “May this be a lesson to all of you.”
The bullies grabbed their friend and scampered, muttering curses. The one Afsoneh had targeted seemed more relieved than anything else, though perhaps that would mean nothing if they told others what had happened.
Afsoneh did not look at Firuz as they shifted over to her, did not respond as they took her wrist and healed her. Despite themself, Firuz was impressed that Afsoneh managed to mimic her injuries on another, with what seemed like minimal effort.
Her roaring blood thus soothed, Firuz sat back. “Better?”
“I thought you were going to yell at me,” Afsoneh muttered, hugging herself.
Truth be told, though the healing had calmed them some, Firuz was still planning a lecture. Their first instinct had been to shake her, yelling for her careless demonstration in a place that already hated Sassanians like them. Now, in the middle of an alleyway with the sun well-past set, was not the time.
“We’ll talk about that later,” said Firuz. “Let’s get you cleaned up. What happened?”
Afsoneh let Firuz help her up. “Nothing. I took care of it.”
“Afsoneh.”
She sighed, shuffling alongside Firuz as they made their way back to the clinic, keeping her face down. “It was after lessons when I was on my way over. They got me when I wasn’t looking.”
“You weren’t somewhere you weren’t supposed to be, were you?”
“Look, I don’t want to get into it.”
Uh huh. That explained some things. “And I don’t want to tell Kofi how I found you.” Firuz’s mentor was particularly fussy about his niece, now adopted daughter.
She kicked her feet, but her voice was sufficiently cowed. “Don’t tell Bibi Kofi, Firuz. Please.”
“Best hurry to the tub before he sees you, then.”
As they drew close enough to see the clinic awning, Firuz remembered the trash. They scratched their scalp and grimaced at how oily it felt. When was the last time they themself had bathed? They tentatively sniffed their shoulder. “I dropped the garbage when I heard you scream, by the way. You know, one of the chores you would have had to do, if you’d come straight here instead of dawdling.”
Afsoneh scowled. “I didn’t scream. And I didn’t dawdle, I was just saying hi to—” She stopped walking, crossed her arms. “It’s not like we’re not allowed to go to the other districts!”
“No, but you know how things are right now.” Of course, Firuz knew it wasn’t Afsoneh’s fault that she’d been targeted, but she should also have known the risks of visiting a Qilwan friend in the nearby wealthy merchant neighborhood. How to balance not blaming her for wanting a normal life with their ever-present fear? Afsoneh and Firuz were Sassanians by both blood and ethnicity; though some Sassanians could blend in with native Qilwans, having Qilwan blood themselves, the two of them did not. “Have Amir visit the clinic instead of going to see zhim.”
“That doesn’t feel fair.”
“Neither does you having to put yourself at risk because zhe doesn’t feel like walking over.”
Afsoneh pursed her lips. “If I get the trash, will you distract Bibi Kofi long enough for me to get clean?”
Firuz nodded. “This doesn’t mean the conversation is over.” Their trainee made a face but acquiesced, heading into the alley as Firuz went for the door.
The clinic bell jangled. “Just me, Kofi-khan,” they called.
Kofi’s voice drifted from the back. “Ah, Firuz-jan. Come help me sort these herbs when you can.”
Despite seeing it nearly every day for a year, Firuz never tired of stepping into the clinic. The homey waiting room brimmed with energy—blankets and cushions and chairs and couches, a slate board usually full of names, and best of all, a tapestry Kofi’s late partner had woven years ago: threads a deep crimson, with golden triangles along the edges, and in the center stretched the Shahbaz, wings out wide, orbs clutched in pointed talons. Firuz had not worshipped in years, but the emblem of the eagle-like Sassanian god was an aching reminder of a home they no longer had.
They pushed aside the curtain separating the front room from the rest of the clinic, ducking into the first room to wash their hands. Kofi waited in the last room at the back, sorting plants into baskets with practice ease. He’d already changed out of work clothes and into the colorful, geometrically patterned clothes the city-state was known for—today’s tunic was a robin’s egg blue with red and yellow triangles embroidered along it.
“Did Afsoneh come in?” he said, not looking back.
“She’s taking care of some chores for me.” Firuz settled beside him. “Anything in particular, today?” Almost one year working with Kofi, and Firuz had come to relax around him. This wasn’t Firuz’s home country of Dilmun, where they’d been subjected to constant tests of skill. Kofi trusted Firuz, insisted they were well-trained, and only needed experience to call themself a full healer.
“I thought we’d teach Afsoneh the herbs and their uses.” Kofi’s voice was a musical burr, a gentle song. “A quick study, she is.”
Firuz’s fingers hesitated against the square stem of a mint branch. A quick study, indeed. Too quick a study. “That sounds good to me.”
***
The next morning, the bells tied to the busy clinic door jangled, ringing through the chorus of complaints buzzing in the background. Firuz’s hands lay on the cracked ribs they were mending; a soft hiss brought their focus back. “Sorry,” they said, smiling down at their child patient. “The door distracted me. You’re all set. No running around or climbing trees for another few weeks, all right?” The child groaned. “Don’t give me that. You’re still tender. I don’t want to see you back here for at least a month or two.” They ruffled their patient’s hair, and the child giggled, sitting up and wincing.
“It still hurts.”
“Imagine how much worse it’ll be if you actually break it, this time. Say hello to your grandmedar for me. Will you remind hom to come in before the week’s up?”
They ducked their head in agreement before jumping off the wooden table—“I said take it easy!”—and dashing out. Firuz chuckled as they shook their head, rinsing their hands in the nearby basin.
“Bandages,” came Afsoneh’s voice from the hall. “Putting them in the back.”
She hadn’t been there when Firuz opened the clinic an hour ago. Kofi was arguing with the governor again—she denied the clinic subsidies as long as Kofi kept refusing monetary payment from his patients—so it was otherwise only Firuz and Afsoneh. Firuz pushed aside the curtain in the doorway and leaned against the jamb. “We need to talk.”
Afsoneh balanced a basket on her hip, no doubt payment from the injured child and their grandparent. “Have you seen how many people are out there today? We don’t have the time.”
“It’s important.”
“So are they.” She sashayed into the back, and Firuz closed their eyes to hold their exasperation in check. Of course she didn’t want to talk about yesterday, but it was vital they did.
“Afsoneh.” They caught her arm as she came back out. “You need to understand. What you did was careless.”
She scowled, yanked her arm free. “I knew what I was doing.”
Stubborn child. “No, you didn’t.”
“I thought you weren’t going to lecture me, Firuz.” She sailed past them into the waiting room, ostensibly ending the conversation.
Firuz wouldn’t let her, following close behind. “I said I wouldn’t yell at you.”
The room was packed, as it had been nearly every day for the past two months. Though the windows were shut, preventing a breeze, the curtains were drawn back to let in the morning sun. Children ran around chatting parents, half-shouting to be heard; an old person rocked an infant; a series of sneezes bounced around the room.
The room was heavy with the smell of too many people in too small a space. Kofi had been considering a new locale for their work, and as the last free clinic in Qilwa, he would need to do so—and quickly—if this busyness continued.
“Window,” said Firuz, and Afsoneh nodded, worming her way through the crowd. When she returned, Firuz bent their head towards her. “Do you know why your family left Dilmun?”
She looked up and grimaced. “We’re still talking about this?”
“We never got started.” Firuz called out the next name of the board. “Get the next one set up, and think about what I asked.”
She rolled her eyes. “I know why.”
“Then humor me.” Firuz met the familiar elderly woman who had risen at the sound of her name and offered an arm to help her to the back. “How is your daughter doing, Umm Nia?”
The wrinkles along the old woman’s forehead smoothed, and her bronze cheeks lifted in a beam. “Nameless Creator be praised, very well, Firuz-healer. Thank you for remembering.”
No matter how many times Firuz told their patients they weren’t a healer, only an assistant, they never listened. Firuz wasn’t sure whether this pleased, embarrassed, or hurt them. The two exchanged more social niceties as Firuz helped her into a back room before leaving to wash their hands.
When they passed Afsoneh leading another patient to a different room, she grabbed Firuz’s sleeve. “I told you, I know why. The Deev of Dilmun.”
Ah, that answer. Firuz repressed an instinctual shudder. Whatever—or whoever—the Deev was, their specific and skillful killing of Sassanians had begun with missing people and ended with whole neighborhoods wiped out. With Raha Village disappearing overnight. And only Sassanians within Sassanian-heavy areas were targets; non-Sassanian Dilmunis or people of mixed descent were ignored. What else could the remaining people do but flee, terrified they would be next? Dilmun might have been the root of the ancient Sassanian empire and their ancestral home, but it was not enough to stay for what was amounting to genocide.
Firuz peeked into the examination room Afsoneh went in. “I’ll be with you shortly,” they told the patient. To Afsoneh: “Do you know why?”
She bit her lower lip, shook her head.
Truth be told, Firuz didn’t know for sure, either, but they had their suspicions. The bulk of the Sassanians targeted were those in contact with the elders, after all.
They left Afsoneh to do her preliminary exam and returned to Umm Nia. “So, how can I help you?”
Her teeth were rotting, though her smile was cheerful as she responded, pointing to the fresh purple and older greening, yellowing bruises on her dark skin. Tiredness she could not sleep off. Firuz pressed their fingers to her neck, noted the swollen nodes there. Lackluster nutrition due to failing dental hygiene, perhaps? Little to do for the teeth at this point, but the nutrition, they could do something about. They sent her home with a tonic and an order to mash her food and drink hearty soups, thinking nothing of it.
Until they stepped into the next patient’s room, where they saw almost the exact same symptoms. No teeth problem here, but there were again those mysterious bruises, the deep weariness. Firuz quizzed the patient, who’d done no tree-climbing, swimming, fighting, running, or other strenuous activity. They mixed up the same tonic they’d given to Umm Nia and sent them on their way. Two patients didn’t necessarily mean a pattern, but it was something to keep an eye on.
Afsoneh pulled the curtain to the room shut and crossed her arms. “So, are you going to tell me why you asked all those questions?”
Their temple throbbed. “The Deev is hunting blood magic.”
From the moment they had picked her up in that alleyway, Firuz had known what Afsoneh was. At first, they had ignored her red-rimmed irises, but when skin met skin, Firuz had felt her blood shift in response, acting in tandem instead of rebelling. Sassanian elders trained those with an affinity for blood magic from far younger ages than Afsoneh’s. And Firuz had wanted so desperately to deny what they felt, to hope her parents—Kofi’s in-laws—had fled because all the others had and not for more concrete reasons.
But to ignore the truth would run counter to every value the elders taught. So they’d carried her limp, shivering body out to where Kofi was helping another riot victim, and brought her to the clinic, and when she woke, offered to train her rather than unleash her on a city of people who’d caused her parents’ death. The unsuspecting Qilwans, of course, knew little to nothing about blood magic. But it was enough that swarms of Sassanians were on the street, that they clogged the clinics, that the city-state felt it was being recolonized again by the people who had once been an empire but had been conquered themselves.
Afsoneh’s face paled, staring with open horror at the implications. Her chest heaved. “But that would mean…”
When Firuz had been a child, they’d asked their mentor whether anyone could learn blood magic. Their mentor had stared into space for long minutes before saying the techniques were kept close by the elders, guarded more carefully than a queen’s newborn heir.
Sassanians only taught blood magic to other Sassanians. Blood magic begot blood magic, multiplying in power when met with someone else who accessed the energy of the universe through their bodies.
“Yes.” Firuz watched her expression. “Do you understand how important it is not to reveal ourselves, with Dilmun only a day’s sail away?”
Afsoneh folded her thumb and forefinger around her wrist; her index covered her thumbnail completely. Firuz filed away for another time to make sure she was eating properly. “I understand.”
“Do you promise,” they stressed the word, “to never be that careless with it again?”
She didn’t look at them but nodded. “I promise.”
They sighed, rubbed their forehead. “All right. Let’s not dwell on it. C’mon. Others are waiting for us.”
***
Over the next two weeks, ten other patients came in with the symptoms of what Firuz was calling the blood-bruising. No amount of sleep helped; bruises would not disappear with salves, and it took an abnormally long time for any bleeding to stop. None of the patients reported doing anything out of the ordinary, their routines involving work, home, and the clinic.
Kofi grunted with Firuz confronted him with the evidence, flailing their arms at the report they’d written. He, too, was at a loss, suggesting a hereditary disease in a nearby country as he flipped through the sheets.
“I looked into that.” Firuz ran the sharp edge of the pendant they always wore over their thumb, tapping their toes. “But all of these patients developed these symptoms practically overnight.”
“Hmm.” The healer stacked the sheets together, looking troubled. “Have you asked the other clinics if they’ve seen this?”
“Not yet.” Despite themself, Firuz smirked. “Although I did run into Mazaa at the market. Someone’s back in the governor’s bad graces.”
Kofi scowled, despite the teasing tone. “Bah! Months since the last migration, and still the governor insists on these unnecessary laws. It’s cowardice, it is. Irrational fear. Let people live their lives in peace.”
Well, peace was a relative term. The Sassanian slums might be home to most of the migrants in the city, but the mold from the surrounding sea ate through their houses and bodies like rot running through saffron bulbs.
“Not that I need to tell you that.” Kofi clapped a hand on Firuz’s shoulder. “My wonderful Sassanian trainee, almost a full-fledged healer.” Firuz flushed at the praise. “Go to the clinics together, then?”
Firuz shook their head. “Too many patients here.” Too many patients who had nowhere else to go for treatment. When Firuz had approached Kofi with a job, they’d followed the rumors rustling through the streets—that the governor was trying to control the stampede of Sassanian migrants from Dilmun. That Kofi was the only healer who would tend to the sick in exchange for food or cloth or even nothing at all. His name, a whispered prayer. A beacon of hope.
“I can go with you!” Afsoneh slid into the room as if waiting for that moment, her arms aloft, skirts fluttering as she stuttered to a halt. Still a child in so many ways, although her antics made Firuz smile. “Bibi Kofi can stay here, especially if the other healers won’t talk because of him.”
“Firuz didn’t say that, baba-jan.” It was still strange to hear the Sassanian endearment on Kofi’s lips, a born and bred Qilwan. Firuz wasn’t sure if the twist in their belly was homesickness or memories of their own father, who had died when they were a teen.
“But when was the last time you saw any of them? Shared what was happening in the clinics?” She pouted. “Please? I’ve washed all the linens, made new bandages, sorted the herbs, and cleaned the workbenches.”
The real reason Afsoneh wanted to come, if Firuz knew anything about her, was her curiosity. Insatiable, clever, and persistent, Afsoneh could talk at Firuz until their head pounded, leeching their skin away from their skull. To be fair, it had been some time since their last magical lesson—a combination of Firuz being too tired after work and Kofi’s insistence that Afsoneh focus on her schooling—and she probably wanted to know when those would resume, too.
“Fine.” Firuz rose, tucked the file under their arm. “But we have to go before you have school. I’ll meet you in front of your house at dawn.”
Afsoneh groaned. “Dawn!”
“Do you want to come or not?”
She huffed, settled next to Kofi on the sofa. “Fine, fine. I’ll be outside.”
“Good.” Firuz walked over to the front table and slid their report on the pile of records kept there. “You’ll be okay opening up, Kofi-khan?”
Kofi looked amused, his arm around his daughter’s shoulders. “I’m not so old to be unable to open my own clinic, Firuz-jan. I’ll be fine.”
***
Visiting the other clinics was less fine. Oh, sure, the healers were polite enough, but none of them had seen anything like the blood-bruising, and Firuz didn’t think they were lying—they all looked alarmed enough at the description of the symptoms. By the time Firuz and Afsoneh left to walk Afsoneh to school, the day was already humid and bright.
“Well, that was useless.” Afsoneh fanned herself as they walked through the market district, which was already awake and busy with early-morning foot traffic. Awnings hung over stalls in bright reds, greens, and yellows; the shopkeeps measured our spices and nuts and fruits or else hawked their wares; buyers swirled around them in loose Qilwan cloth dyed in oranges and blues and pinks. Two people carried a long piece of wood through the developing crowd; Afsoneh ducked under it, narrowly dodging someone who tried to do the same. She clasped Firuz’s hand when they offered it to stay together. “Does this mean we get to continue my lessons now?”
“Not useless.” Firuz ran their free fingers over the edge of their amulet, spelled to keep the blasted mosquitoes away, already swarming for slaughter but unable to taste their delicate skin. “We know now it’s something about our clinic. The location, perhaps, or the number of people. As for your lessons, hopefully soon. Do you want to stop by your friend Amir’s house before going to school and see if zhe wants to walk with us?”
She grinned. “I thought you didn’t like zhim.”
“I have no problem with Amir. I have a problem with zhim putting you in potential danger. I take it you never told Kofi about that.”
The smell of fresh bread wafted over as they crossed a bakery. Firuz’s stomach growled. A cup of coffee—the Sassanian instincts in them sneered, preferring tea—and some bread sounded heavenly, but it would have to wait until Afsoneh was at school.
They emerged into a quieter district, the passageway between the markets and the merchant quarters. As the shouts of vendors faded into the morning rumble of feet on stones, children giggling in their homes, the starch thwap of shaken sheets set to dry, Afsoneh grabbed onto a passing branch and a set of leaves.
“I don’t want to worry him,” said Afsoneh, shredding the leaves. “Bibi Kofi, I mean. Amir felt really bad about that, you know.”
“Feeling bad doesn’t do anything when you’re a target of misplaced fear.” Firuz grabbed Afsoneh’s shoulder to let pass a harried adult with a wailing child over their shoulder, then gripped again when a cart lumbered by without stopping. “What Amir could do is talk to zher father about the Underdock’s conditions, if not about everything else.”
Afsoneh blew out a gusty sigh. “Zhe did. Apparently, he said the governor ‘has her reasons’ for keeping things as they are.”
The greatest irony, of course, was that the Underdock was a bird’s glide away from the wealthy merchant quarters, and improving conditions in the former could only benefit the latter. They do not see the slums as their responsibility, Kofi had once told Firuz. Only as an inconvenience. They would rather flap it away than fix it, as though their complaints are more worthy than the cure.
A cure for the disease that, apparently, was Firuz’s and Afsoneh’s people.
Stepping into the merchant district always made Firuz’s skin crawl. They didn’t come here very often—it’s not like they had any patients here—so they braced themself for the usual buffeting of their senses: perfume and incense cloying the air; the twang of strings and ululating voices drifting from the nearby docks, meant to buoy the early-morning passerby; the patrols of guards with their heavy batons and heavier stares. The houses, made here of not just brick but cut stone, stacked tall despite the humidity and heat, were painted almost garishly—if the effect wasn’t so captivating. Large triangles in bright blues, warm oranges, cool purples decorated the walls, geometrical shapes in colors to make any Qilwan clothier weep with joy. Flowering vines bloomed alongside the sides, and trimmed bushes and reaching trees framed the buildings like each was a grand palace, preparing for entry.
A sharp wail cut the already busy air.
Afsoneh froze.
“What is it?” Firuz rested a hand on her upper back. “Afsoneh?”
“I can feel it,” she whispered, face pale. “Something is… something’s wrong.” She whipped around, surveying the area. “Amir…”
“Go,” they said. “I’ll follow.”
She raced down the street, ignoring the shocked grumbles of passersby, Firuz on her heels. A guard called to them but she continued on; Firuz, begging the skies to grant them this passage, didn’t stop either, hoping it wouldn’t lead to a chase. Before long, Afsoneh skidded to a halt in front of one of the only buildings Firuz knew in this district—the home of her friend, the child of a wealthy rug merchant.
Another scream spilt from closed windows. She barged up the steps and thumped on the heavy knocker.
A worker opened a door, but before they could say anything, Afsoneh pushed past, ignoring the indignant spluttering of her name. But they collected themself before Firuz could step inside. “We’re not allowing visitors today.”
“I’m a healer.” They hefted their bag. “If something’s wrong, I can help.”
The worker hesitated, looking back inside after Afsoneh, when another howl pierced through. Firuz winced. “Please,” they said. “That doesn’t sound good.”
They sighed and let Firuz through.
Firuz did not have time to take in the marvel of the house: the hanging tapestries, the heavy rugs underfoot, the copper statues standing tall. Instead, they followed the sounds of heated pleading.
“Abu Amir, please, my mentor can help—Firuz!” Afsoneh’s way was blocked by a towering Qilwan Firuz had to assume was Amir’s father, bulging arms crossed over an impressive belly, their shirt embroidered with flowers along the collar and hem. “Firuz, please, this is he-Abu Amir, tell him—”
Another sob. Abu Amir’s face, impassive, twitched, though he didn’t look back at his child.
Firuz held up their bag, again. “I’m a healer. Please, let me see zhim.”
A beat, then the proud man’s shoulders fell. “No one knows what’s wrong with zhim,” he said, voice defeated. “It’s been only three days but zhe keeps…” His voice, heavy and tired, petered out, and he turned to open the closed door behind him.
And then collapsed against the jamb with a gasp.
Firuz could smell the blood in the air.
Stepping past the ashen-faced father, Firuz took in the state of the room with a glance. Windows closed, curtain drawn with only a crack to let in light. Despite the tall ceiling, the air was stuffy, heavy with the stench of sweat. Under a tall cover lay a body wracked with sobs, and now Firuz could see why Abu Amir had stumbled. Circles of crimson, the size of a date and growing larger by the breath, bloomed on the white fabric.
Firuz allowed themself a single curse before hurrying over. “Afsoneh—”
“On it.” She pulled back the blankets, shedding the shivering body of its armor, before dashing off. Firuz pressed a thumb into the needle at their sleeve and drew out from their bag the funnel that amplified the heart’s beat. No conventional methods here, even with the ruse; Firuz needed to work fast, even though under normal circumstances, the invasive magic felt unethical without consent. But to save a life, particularly one of a child?
Amir’s ochre face was paler than zher father’s, and zher body shuddered on the bed even as Afsoneh returned with a bowl of water and cloth to wipe off zher face. Red tears snaked from the corners of zher eyes as zher chest heaved, releasing pained moans. Uncaring for niceties, Firuz snatched the scalpel Afsoneh offered and ripped open the bloody shirt to reveal their patient’s torso. Remarkably, there was no wound there, despite the droplets pooling on zher skin around the underarms, the groin, but nothing to indicate why Amir would be bleeding from places unseen, so Firuz did what they knew how—they smeared their drop of blood on zher chest, and sent their magic in deep.
Burst vessels around the sweat glands and tear ducts explained the bleeding, maybe. Firuz swept their awareness through the veins and arteries, through organs to check their function. The hoofbeats of zher heart—it was so fast, Firuz had to slow their own to avoid an inadvertent synergistic effect. No mobilization of infection-fighting components, but the blood was overactive, rushing through not only with each heartbeat but with another force as well. Firuz could feel capillaries burst at the surface of the skin, just from how full they were.
That wasn’t usually how injuries happened, but the proof of such bodily changes bloomed before their eyes.
Bruises erupted along Amir’s skin—where Afsoneh had wiped away, and where she hadn’t touched. Firuz pushed back, the outline of their palm and fingers purpling Amer’s chest.
Even though they continued to work, a part of Firuz wanted to clench their fist. The blood-bruising, here? Wasn’t it something to do with the clinic? So then how…
There was something so wrong about activity in Amir’s blood. Zher metabolism—overactive, unsustainable. A body producing so much new blood in such a short period of time, burning through nutrients, eating through itself to justify the continued creation. As if, even past death, zher body wouldn’t stop to even register the passing—
Amir arched zher back, a dark crescent of red-splashed white pooling at zher thighs. More bruises peppered zher ribs, and zhe twisted, a terrified gasp erupting into a coughing fit, blood dribbling past cracked lips. Firuz shoved their magic in deeper, hunting for the root, for anything that might stop the young teen from losing more blood.
Something… giggled, inside Amir’s veins. It was the best word Firuz could use to describe it. Vibrations pulsed the fluid, sent a bubble of mirth into Firuz’s chest. They bit their tongue to dam the instinct and followed the feeling until the vibrations became shudders, became shakes, became a tidal avalanche of insistent energy. A need to propagate, to spread and reduce the energy before it built and exploded.
Exploded, like the blood pooling in the hollows of Amir’s collarbones, zher cheeks. Like zher untamed laughter pouring with each cough and splatter of blood; like the wild look in zher eyes growing wilder with each beat. Exploded, like the magic racing back through Firuz, a magic tainted. A magic wrought of grief and rage and a lack of control—a familiar magic, one they intimately knew but did not want to consider. It felt like a firebrand, buzzing Firuz’s fingers and toes and here, again, was that almost-giggle, which felt now like a riot of flies rattling inside them, smelled like overripe bananas and uncooked rice.
Firuz drew the burnt edges deeper; they had airtight control over their body, knew how to smother diseases before one even began. They coaxed the disease further, encouraged the invading presence to leave the frail body peppered in crimson. Magic is a working of the will, and they knew their will was stronger than the snapping snake racing towards their heart, eager to infect marrow and bone.
They gathered the tendrils of the blood-bruising, and with the surety of the healer they could have been, crushed the intruder and swallowed it into nothingness.
On the bed, Amir lay panting, the blood flowing from zher nostrils and eyes slowing until it stopped. Afsoneh sagged against the bed, exhausted from her own efforts to stop the bleeding. Abu Amir hovered behind her, face still pale, hands clenched to his chest. “Is he…?”
Firuz didn’t need to, but they pressed two fingers to Amir’s wrist. The pulse, though weak, was steady, and reassured them. “Zhe needs rest and fluids,” they said, weariness piercing through their bedside manner. “Salted broths until zhe can stomach more. Water for now, and juices. Zhe is stable, but weak. I can make a tonic if you send someone to the clinic.” It would be a tricky balance between retaining fluid without increasing turbulence in the veins, but Firuz had made many of such remedies over the last weeks.
“Anything,” swore zher father. He fell to his knees and grasped Firuz’s hand, ignorant of Firuz’s discomfort, pressing it to their forehead. “Thank you, healer. Thank you.”
Firuz grimaced and rubbed their neck with their free hand. “It’s my job, Abu Amir. I’m glad to have helped.”
Afsoneh took Amir’s skeletal hand, looking troubled. The back of her palm was a crisscross of healed and angry scars alike. Firuz had expressly forbidden her to practice blood magic without them, fear for her safety and life forefront in their mind, and how often had she broken that rule without their knowledge? How often had this angry, fiercely brilliant child tried taking her life in her own hands, uncaring of the consequences, trying to build a possible future for herself the best way she knew how?
Firuz watched her, but said nothing, even when she met their gaze.
***
Amir died the next day.
Firuz heard the wails lofting through the humid afternoon heat but was focused on chopping parsley and dandelion for a diuretic tea, the scale ready for the dried version Firuz would make next for the patient to take home as they consumed the fresh one. It wasn’t until Afsoneh burst through the clinic doors, disrupting the waiting room chatter with a cry of their name, that they broke their concentration, exited the back room, and saw Afsoneh sobbing in Kofi’s helpless arms.
“Amir is dead,” he said simply, as the other patients looked on in worried confusion.
Firuz didn’t realize they still had the knife clenched in their fist until Kofi raised an eyebrow. They tossed it to the ground without care and sank to their knees, placing a hand on Afsoneh’s heaving back. “I’m sorry,” they managed.
Poor Amir. Zhe was one of Afsoneh’s few friends—only friend?—and zher father’s only child. A life so young, another victim to incompetent blood magic.
Firuz’s jaw quivered.
Kofi tucked his niece-turned-daughter’s head under his chin, shushing comfortingly as he rocked her against his chest. He gave Firuz a weary look, placing a hand on their shoulder and squeezing. “It happens, Firuz-jan. I know you did the best you could.”
They were not inexperienced enough to blame themself for this turn of events; Amir had been stable when they left, sleeping with an uncreased brow, blood cleaned from zher face and hands and chest. A part of them, though, whispered that they’d been careless in leaving without further thought, in assuming they’d fixed what they’d been unable to in almost a dozen other patients. What arrogance, to assume they’d saved the teen from a fate their other patients had been unable to avoid. Were those others, too, dead?
A vein at Firuz’s temple pulsed. The noise in the clinic, though muffled, didn’t help; patients were peering at them curiously, whispering about the crying girl and her screech, and maybe about the dead merchant’s kid.
Afsoneh choked, blowing green snot onto Kofi’s tunic. He paid it no mind, resettling his reedy arms around her. The look she gave Firuz was one of terror, and one of guilt.
A bone-settling exhaustion settled their limbs. Too much—it was too much. The clamor from the waiting room and Afsoneh’s wails and they knew, not too far away, Abu Amir’s grief; the smell of sweat and briny seawater and desperation, acrid and bitter on their tongue. Everything in them ached, not only their too-tired feet and fleshy thighs but the ribs holding tight their lungs, the skull caging their brain, the knowledge that the blood-bruising was only found in proximity to their clinic, that every case could trace back here, and that Amir would be the only exception, except zhe wasn’t one at all, but a further elaboration of a hypothesis Firuz did not want to put to the test, because Firuz knew where it would end without wanting to, knew their searches would not lead to deliberate machinations or malicious intent but desperation and youth and—
Kofi must have seen the look on their face, because he said, “Can you make a pot of the calming tea? I’ll see if we can’t close up early today.”
Firuz retrieved the knife and returned to the back room, gripping the handle hard enough to leave deep grooves before releasing it to get the herbs they needed. Silky chamomile and woody lavender and tart rosehip and bitterness left behind. The green-yellow smudge from discarded, wilting parsley lay on the chopping block, and Firuz swept it into a different pot and prepared both sets of tea, hands going through the motions.
In their heart of hearts, Firuz understood what they did not want to name. The disease was based in blood magic—that had been clear from the outset. The city-state was swarming with their people, any of which could have been taken under the elders’ wings recently enough to warrant a lack of control. But it took years of training before the elders let someone out of their sight, along with a rigorous and feared test to prove the user’s control. Firuz still had the scars from their own trial, knew it was nigh impossible for someone to unleash the blood-bruising unknowingly if they’d undergone the same. And somehow, despite the fear clogging Qilwan minds, Firuz could not imagine someone had deliberately begun the disease. Based on the demographic of the cases, it was indiscriminate; Qilwan and Sassanian and Dilmuni alike had been spackled with purples and greens and yellows and reds.
If only Firuz could talk to Kofi about this. Kofi was not afraid as many of his brethren; he had welcomed Firuz and Afsoneh and the rest of their people into his clinic, into his home. The memory of his dead Sassanian partner still clung to the clinic walls and haunted his steps. Kofi might understand, might help Firuz get to the bottom of this… or might kick them out of his life.
A jar tumbled from the shelf; they blocked its descent with the back of their palm before they caught it against their chest.
Firuz fixed their gaze on the rapid bruise left behind, their stomach clenching.
***
Awoken in the dark hours of the night, Firuz knew something was very, very wrong.
They’d fallen asleep on the clinic couch, planning to rest their eyes for only a few minutes before returning to chores after Kofi managed to triage those who’d clamored for attention. From the looks of it, it was before dawn; the sky was lightening from the twinkle of night, but only just.
A noise in the back alerted them they were not alone. But that was not the most of Firuz’s concern, which was this: Firuz was dying.
They could feel it in the way their heart beat too quickly, in the thickening layers of bone, in too-flaky skin like fresh baklava. They knew it from the tenderness everywhere skin had touched sofa, the soreness with each gentle press of skin.
The blood-bruising.
They stumbled as they pushed themself up, fell into a nearby statue. They caught it, but barely, and felt more vessels burst along their legs. The exhaustion hadn’t hit yet—that was something. Firuz didn’t know how much time they had. The disease raced from organ to organ, they could feel, tissues pulsing and swollen. Perhaps their magic was speeding the usual progression; perhaps they’d been sick for a while, and was only now feeling it; perhaps they’d not managed to destroy what had lain within Amir, only transferring it to themself.
They clung to the curtain that partitioned the waiting room from those where examinations were done, steadied themself before they tore it, and limped down the hallway, hand on the wall.
The back room was meant for remedy preparation. There was only one counter, where the sink was, but there were workbenches lined up in place of more, each littered with Kofi’s latest experiment or an assembly line of work awaiting competition. Dried herbs in labeled jars lined the wall, ranging from common crystallized ginger and dried mint to fennel fruits. It always smelled earthy in here, which should have brought Firuz comfort, but under the dim flicker of candlelight, the lack of windows, Firuz felt only tired. Because amidst it all stood Afsoneh, because of course she did. Precocious, clever, and so full of grief. So full of need.
Skies, but Firuz hated when they were right.
Her back was to them as she stood, hands in the sink, but the water wasn’t on. Her long hair crowded her face as she hunched there. Firuz’s mouth tasted like dirt.
“I wasn’t trying to kill zhim.” Her voice was soft, peach-fuzz. She didn’t look over, even as Firuz drew next to her. “I swear. I wasn’t trying to kill anyone. I was just… angry.”
Firuz slid the tie around their wrist—left a ringed bruise there, too—to pull away Afsoneh’s hair from her face. She didn’t resist. Firuz rested their hands against the counter after, where she could see them.
“I mean, I didn’t know I was doing it at first. It started with people who had known my parents. People who lived, when they didn’t. I saw my parents attacked, Firuz. Held them as they died. Have I told you that? The riot, when our boat docked, it… they tried to shield me, even as the rocks hit them. Someone slapped my mother with a fish. A fish!” She laughed, the sound broken. “I didn’t even know my medar had been stabbed until we’d been hiding in the alleyway for an hour. A belly wound, some broken glass when someone had pushed hu against a destroyed shop window, I think.” Firuz winced; untreated, those took long minutes to bleed out. “And so I held hom while hu died. And my mother, she’d gone out looking for help, for anything, and came back with a headwound. I was in that humid, disgusting alley for five days before you and Bibi Kofi found me.”
When they’d found her, she’d been starving, her eyes blank. It had taken her a week to speak to them, a month to let either touch her. Firuz wanted to touch her now, wanted to braid her hair as she spoke, give her quiet comfort, but their hands stayed.
“Someone who’d been on the boat with us came into the clinic a couple of months ago. I didn’t expect to see them. Their vitals—something happened when I did the basics. I didn’t understand. It kept happening. And I wondered…”
Firuz cleared their throat, just once, when she didn’t continue. “Why didn’t you come to me?”
“I was scared. I… Bibi Kofi wanted to pay his respects yesterday. There was a gathering—I heard your name.” She shook her head, wiped her teary face. Pulled the lever for water. “That’s exactly what I was afraid of.” Her fingers left a smear on the handle as they let go. Firuz’s gaze dropped to her hands; the water in the basin was red. “And now you’re sick.”
Firuz moved slowly, calmly, to take one of her wrists and turn it over. There was a long gash there, dug deep into the flesh of her arm. Firuz could feel her magic keeping her alive, knitting the skin on instinct even as she pried it away.
Panic surged up their throat; they swallowed it. They picked up the scalpel lying at the bottom of the sink to prick their finger, pressed it against her wound and breathed. At first, her magic fought theirs, fluid growing viscous to their prodding, but then gave way.
“Amir didn’t deserve what happened to zhim. I don’t even know how…” A sigh. “I think I figured out a cure.” She jerked her head to the side, towards a bench. A beaker atop a closed burner held an opaque, puss-yellow liquid. “Separated out my blood, multiplied the elements.”
Firuz grimaced. “Looks gross. Hope it works.”
“Me t—” She stilled. Firuz frowned, glanced over to where she was looking. At the entrance of the room stood Kofi, watching them. “Bibi-jan.”
Kofi did not shift his gaze away, chest moving in deep, slow breaths. No—he did not look away from Afsoneh. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
She inhaled sharply.
“I understand blood magic is a tool.” Kofi’s attention shifted to Firuz as he walked across the room. Was it dawn already, with Kofi in at his usual time, or had he noticed his daughter’s absence? Firuz’s head spun; they felt weak, unmoored. Would this Afsoneh’s cure work? Would they have time to take it? “I understand it has potential ethical uses. But this?” Kofi gestured to the two of them. “How did it come to this?”
“It was an accident.” Firuz stepped in front of their trainee, as if that could protect her, somehow. “She didn’t mean to.”
Kofi scoffed. “Didn’t you, baba? You told me you sometimes got so mad, you wanted to hurt everyone until they were nothing less than bones.”
Afsoneh held her mostly healed wrist, water dripping from her skin. The blood had oozed into a standstill, but the worst of the damage—the ruptured artery that should have killed her—was healed. “I didn’t mean it,” she whispered.
“I wish I could believe that.” Kofi drew his lips tight. “You didn’t see the look on your face.”
Firuz pressed an arm across Afsoneh’s chest to stop her from coming forward. The effort felt monumental; they were tired, so tired. “What are you going to do?”
Kofi sighed, rubbed his forehead. He perched against a table. “I love you both, you must understand. But I must keep this clinic open. It’s bigger than I am.”
“So what does that mean?” Afsoneh’s voice, pitched high, pitched scared. “Abu Amir might not think Firuz killed Amir, but others do. We heard them yesterday, Bibi! You heard them. It was an accident, all of it—”
“That much, I do believe.” Kofi scratched his head. “I don’t want to turn you in. Skies know what the governor would do to you, or your people. But…”
Firuz’s mind whirled. What could they do? Muck bury it, Firuz didn’t want to start another life over. Truth be told, they were happy in Qilwa. It wasn’t a perfect life, but it was a fulfilling one.
“We can leave,” they said. “Give us a few hours, and we’ll go.”
“Go where?” Afsoneh’s voice was almost hysterical. “We can’t go back to Dilmun.”
“South. No, north. No—” Firuz grimaced; it was difficult to focus, their mind a whirling fog growing deeper. “I don’t know. I’ll figure it out.”
Kofi tapped his fingers against his chin once, twice, thrice. Kofi, a person Firuz respected down to the fabric of their muscles, to the depths of their overactive marrow. He hadn’t tried to run their people out of his clinic, the way so many others had. He hadn’t sold this space to the governor, despite her constant knockings. Kofi had given Firuz a chance when other healers would have sneered at them, had taken in Afsoneh without a second thought, even if she hadn’t been his kin.
Another person might have taken this opportunity to lure Firuz and Afsoneh into complacency, then trapped them, gone for the guard. Another person might have fought Firuz to the death, killed them before the cure could reach their lips, hauled Afsoneh to a harsher fate. But Kofi looked at them with nothing more than a deep, weary grief.
Shivers wracked their spine. They were running out of time. Soon, they, too, would flesh to be buried, flesh to be forgotten. The rancor of an inevitable end, more fodder for the oven out back.
Something sparked inside them. “I have an idea,” they said.
***
The refurbished clinic opened shy of one month after the fire in the back room. Firuz, their hair now henna-red and chopped short, and Afsoneh, head wrapped in a rose-printed roosari, watched from down the street as Kofi eulogized the two that had been caught inside, his brilliant assistant and fierce daughter, tear tracks if not visible, then implied. He praised the work they’d done to stop a new disease in its tracks, a disease that had claimed the lives of those indiscriminately, including a young teen from the merchant quarters whose father had the first to step forward when the damage was tallied and funds were needed.
“I miss him,” said Afsoneh, rubbing her eyes. “I miss it all.”
“Me too.” Firuz lifted their face into the humid Qilwan sun. It was strange to hear people talk about the two of them in this part of the city as if they were dead. A necessary precaution, part of Firuz’s plan, but still strange. “C’mon, we shouldn’t stay long. We have to get those herbs.” Their patients in the slums, where the two worked quietly in an abandoned warehouse, waited for them.
She sighed. “All right.” She took only a few steps before hesitating. “Do you think we could visit sometime anyway?”
Firuz looked back at the clinic. Abu Amir was clapping Kofi on the back, but Kofi had greyed in the last month, become frail in his movements. Firuz’s heart seized that they had done that, however inadvertently.
“Probably not,” they said, joining her. “It’s best to keep it alive just in memory.”
