Chapter 66: 66. The Golden Healer Who Calls Herself Mommy
The golden-white light took about three seconds to go away completely. When it did, the figure in the middle of Lucian’s small recovery room looked like she had come from a place much pricier than a military barracks.
She was tall, almost five feet, ten inches, and her posture made it seem like she had spent hundreds of years in rooms where posture was important. Her hair was the deep gold of old coins, and it was waist-length.
It was arranged so perfectly that it shouldn’t have been possible since she had just come through a portal. Her golden eyes moved smoothly around the room, taking stock of the space and its people with the calm efficiency of someone who was used to getting to places and quickly figuring out what was going on.
The armor appeared to be made entirely of gold. However, the gold trim on the dark metal armor that Marshal wore was not made of real gold.
Instead, it was gold-colored silk and metallic golden plates that caught the limited morning light in the room and made a lot more of it than there had been before she got there. One shoulder had a long, shimmering gold cape hanging down from it.
The staff she carried was a six-foot-long polished golden rod with a sun symbol on top. The bangles on both wrists, the earrings, the necklace, and even the sandals she wore made her look like someone who had decided very early on that half-measures were for other people.
She glanced around the room. She looked at Lucian, who was in bed.
She looked at Glacielle, who was standing next to him with the tense posture of someone who wasn’t sure if this new person was a threat.
Then she smiled and walked over to the bed with a natural sway that was just how she moved. She sat down on the edge of it without being asked.
"Oh my," she said, her voice rich, warm, and smooth, possessing the quality of someone who had never needed to raise it to be heard. "I’ve been called to help a poor, hurt darling."
She reached out and ran one finger along Lucian’s cheek, like a doctor who had been checking things out for a long time. Her touch sent a shiver down his spine, a mix of comfort and something deeper, awakening emotions he had buried for too long.
"I can see the weight you carry," she continued softly, her eyes searching his for answers he struggled to articulate.
"Don’t worry, my sweet boy," she said. "Mommy is here to take care of you now."
Lucian’s brain completely shut down.
"Mommy?!" He knew he had said this too loudly for the situation. "Um, I didn’t mean to, that is—"
"Shh, darling." The golden light that began to flow from her palm was warm and gentle, and it washed over him before he could finish his sentence.
The feeling of it right away changed his focus because it was unlike anything the bond synchronizations had ever made. The pain from the triple-sync damage, the raw channels, the stress from three days of fighting, and the near-death overload all started to go away like frost under direct sunlight.
"Please let me work on it."
Glacielle’s frost aura came up without her even thinking about it. "Excuse me?"
She didn’t look at the golden bikini warrior. She kept working with both hands, and the golden light got brighter.
She was completely focused on Lucian, like a professional who had learned to ignore background noise a long time ago.
Glacielle stood by the bed and felt, for what seemed like the first time, the specific frustration of being entirely ignored. She turned to Lucian.
Lucian looked back at her with an expression that said he understood, but he was also healing all of his injuries faster and more completely than he had thought possible, so he couldn’t help her.
"This is wonderful," he said, and it really was. "The synchronization channels that Aldric had said were dangerously strained were clearing up quickly, but it felt more like being reset to a previous state than healing."
"Of course it is, sweetheart." She smiled without losing focus. "You’re going to meet the best healer ever."
As she talked, a soft light began to shine from her hands, lighting up the area around them. He suddenly felt hopeful, realizing that this trip might not only help him get better but also help him find new strengths he didn’t know he had.
She changed the position of her hands, and the light moved with them. "Now let me see what else is wrong with my poor boy."
The notification from the system showed up.
[Fourth Warrior Called: Serenia Halcyon.]
[Rank: SSS Legendary.]
[Age: Forty-eight.]
[Class: Divine Specialist, Support/Healer. Light/Holy, Purification, and Restoration are the elements.]
[Personality: self-assured, caring, generous with money, and smug. Sugar Mommy Protocol is a special trait.]
Lucian read the name of the trait twice.
[Will spoil Master a lot.]
He looked up at the ceiling and took a deep breath.
The door opened, and Marshal came in with Octavia two steps behind. They both moved quickly, like people who had heard something through the thin walls of the barracks and had come to find out what it was.
They stopped at the door and looked in. Lucian was in bed, and a tall, golden woman they had never seen before was sitting next to him, running her hands over him with the calm authority of someone who owned the space.
Marshal’s hand moved to a Dawn Reaper without even thinking about it. It was a reflex that was so well-trained it happened before he could think. "Who the hell is this?"
Serenia finished what she was doing, quickly checked the result with her eyes, and then looked up. She looked at Marshal and Octavia with the same calm look she had when she first walked into the room.
"Oh my, how many warriors does my darling have?" She stood up straight, smoothed out her golden cape, and smiled at both of them with a smile that had many levels of amusement.
"I’m Serenia Halcyon, an SSS-Rank Healer and Support specialist." The smile didn’t move. "And you must have been the ones who hurt my Master so badly."
"We protected him just fine," Marshal said, with a tone that would have cut most people.
Serenia’s laugh was light and musical, and it was clear that she wasn’t scared. "Oh, sweetie~!"
"He almost died from too much triple-sync, and I wouldn’t say that’s not just fine." She walked past them both like she owned the space she was in. "But don’t worry."
"I’m here now, and I’ll make sure that never happens again."
Octavia’s tentacles moved around under her armor like they did when she was having fun. She said softly, "Ara ara."
"We have competition."
"She’s very sure of herself," Glacielle said to Lucian, searching for help on his face.
"She’s completely healed me," Lucian said.
It was true; he felt better than he had before the triple-sync, and the synchronization channels were clear and open in a way they hadn’t been for days. "That’s amazing, and I really want her to stop calling herself Mommy."
Serenia was back at the bedside.
"Now, sweetheart," she said, pulling a small gold tool from her gear and using it to check something near his ear. "Let me finish the last test, and then we’ll talk about your gear."
She looked at the sword that was leaning against the wall. "Your armor is terrible, by the way."
"We’ll have to get you something better before this campaign is over. Don’t worry about the cost; Mommy will pay for everything."
"Stop calling yourself that," Lucian said.
She laughed. It was a strangely young sound coming from a woman who had been working for three hundred years.
She reached over and touched the end of his nose with one finger. "But you look so cute when you’re embarrassed, my sweet boy."
He looked back at the ceiling.
After the test was over and Serenia said that his synchronization channels were not only healed but also stronger, she went into the kind of explaining mode that Lucian had learned to recognize as what happened when someone answered questions before they were asked.
She said she had been the High Priestess of the Golden Cathedral for 300 years. She said this about the Golden Cathedral, which was the most famous healing center in the ancient world, without any pride.
It was just a fact about the organization she had led. She had been called by emperors. Heroes had come to her as they were dying.
She had healed things that most healers thought were impossible to heal. This was not because the damage was too bad to heal, but because most healers didn’t have the religious and magical knowledge to see that the limits they thought were real were actually made up by them.
"People pay a lot for miracles," she said, with the calm confidence of someone who had been selling miracles for a long time. "I own land in six kingdoms."
"Just the compound interest would make you pass out."
"Six kingdoms," Glacielle said again.
"I’m a good investor."
"Gold means nothing if you don’t put it to work." She said this in the same way that Marshal talked about tactical positioning, like she was giving out basic information that everyone should know.
