Solomon was so gentle when he set Rose down. No hard knocks to the tailbone, no whack on the back, no sudden jolts. Just a clean, gentlemanly depoit upon the earth.

She had been so violent when she stabbed him. No gentle embrace to ease his departure, no fairness to give him closure, no time to make any other choice. Just brutal, uncivilized murder.

His retort to the princess's suggestion didn't make her feel any better. "Amalthea, we could at least make our guest comfortable before we talk about execution."

He looked back at Rose.
She looked back at him.

Sweat drops stained his face with dust and ashes. Ugly blood stains marred his clothing. His nostrils cried for breath. If anyone needed to be made comfortable, Solomon did. The simplest way would be to ditch her and move on with his life. Yet, for reasons that escaped her comprehension, she was important to him. At least, important enough to warrant interrogation.

"While you heal yourself, I believe you can talk," he began. "With that said, explain yourself. Your name, your affiliation, everything you possibly can. Please."

Rose left eye contact with him.
She looked at her leg.
It was a grisly wound. The wood spike tore clean through the bone. The blood had clotted somewhat. Rose numbed the site and pried out the spike. Blood immediately began reddening the earth.
"My name is Rose Fairmont," she began as she profiled her gene code into the spell matrix. "I acquired a Master's Degree in Pneumatherapy and a Minor in Alchemy from Durvain University, and I joined the National Healer Guild shortly thereafter. After a brief stint in the army, I became obsessed with learning the secrets of Resurrection."

Rose combined the gene code in the memory spell with a stitching spell. With a slight application of the finger, she directed her energies to the bone first.
"I'd heard that Lady Grey, the so-called 'Hermit of the North,' had discovered a technique for True Resurrection. I'm not sure whether you're aware, but bringing back people who are long-dead is the final goal of the spiritual healing sciences, the previously unattainable end point of all medical research. Normally, we healers would dismiss such rumors out of hand, but Lady Grey is not some nameless nobody. She was renowned for her incredible breakthroughs in Shadow Magic before King Dragan made it illegal, and her works were peer-reviewed by the most respected names in the field."

With the bone reconstructed, she began rebuilding the flesh around it, blood vessels first. Once the vessels were connected, she destroyed the clots and resumed work on the muscle and skin. "I picked her to be my mentor. Her tasks were easy enough at first. Gather these herbs, collect this much biomatter. I could usually work out what she was doing after a day or two of study. I'm not sure when things went downhill; I think it was when she started asking me to collect animals for her to experiment on."

Rose halted her healing work and looked up at Solomon. "I swear to you, she resurrected animals that were dead for hours, days even. I saw it with my own eyes!"
She resumed stitching the muscle and skin. "I wanted to learn to do that too. But it requires knowledge of advanced Shadow Magic, and studying it is just as illegal as practicing it. So first I lobbied, then protested, then stole, then aided in assassinations, then...well, here I am. I guess I always knew it was wrong, but it's hard to stop or go back once you've started."

"It's pathetic, really."