(Starla)
Aghast, I stared at my compatibility results.
|Compatibility Report for Guide Starla Argastine|
•Age: 18 years
•Calming Energy: 10.6 %
•Matching Affinity: 11.5 %
•Neural Match: 5 %
•Healing Energy: 9 %
•Type: Healer (Very Weak)
•Rank: E
My hands shook, and the paper dropped to the ground. Tears blurred my vision. This couldn’t be.
How could I have no compatibility with my fiancé? He was a Sentinel, and I was his guide, his healer.
He had chosen me without waiting to see if we were compatible. We had grown up together. We were childhood sweethearts. He was the love of my life. We had always believed we would be a good match.
I had to speak to him; he would understand.
I was about to leave when the Healer Barni stopped me and told me another heart-wrenching truth.
"Can you keep this between us?" I asked with a sniffle, and he nodded with understanding.
My feet carried me towards Amil’s house. Just as I was about to knock, the door opened.
Amil and the daughter of our Clan’s Goldsmith, Emery, stepped out. Both laughing together, holding each other. Seeing me standing there, they stopped in their tracks; their smiles instantly vanished. Amil quickly let her go. A guilt descended on their faces.
"Starla, I wasn’t expecting you," Amil quickly said.
"What are you guys doing?" I asked, my confused eyes wavering from Amil to Emery.
"Nothing, I had an idea for the upcoming Starlight festival. Came to share. I will catch you later." Emery rushed off.
They were lying...but I didn’t press.
I turned towards my fiancé. "I have some news to share. It’s not good."
Without thinking much, I handed him my compatibility results.
Amil was a human A-ranked Sentinel, the strongest in our clan.
His mouth flew open; the warmth he carried for me disappeared.
"What’s this, Starla? E-ranked? You have no neural match; you have no energy. How are we to be paired?"
I came here thinking that Amil would understand, but the regrets in his eyes and disappointment on his face dimmed whatever hope I had left.
"It has to be a mistake. This can’t be right." I tried to reach him, touch his arm, but he stepped back and shook his head at me. "Deep down I knew. Your magic was always weak. I should have listened to my instincts. I need some time to think. I can’t."
He left me standing there and shut the door in my face.
The loud thud seemed to have landed straight in my heart like a splinter, piercing it.
I had stood by Amil through thick and thin, buying him healing potions, uniforms, and whatever he needed. I used my healing abilities on him more than I could count. My magic wasn’t weak; I had always overused it.
And when I needed him most, he left me there.
Dragging myself away, with teary eyes and a heavy heart, I reached home.
"Starla!" My younger sister Sirela found me crying. She wrapped her arms around me.
"What’s wrong?" She worriedly asked.
I told her the truth between sobs.
She wiped my tears and smiled her radiant smile. "You don’t need any stupid test results. You have the biggest of hearts any human can possess. Suppose someone can’t see it. It’s their fault."
I hugged her tight. She was right. The results didn’t change who I was.
In the evening, my father held a meeting with us siblings. Me, Sirela and my brother.
"Starla, as the chief of the clan, I had high hopes for my firstborn female. Our clan’s well-being depends on strong sentinels and guides."
I lowered my head, trying to hide the tears starting to accumulate. My pet cat, Doodles, purred at my feet, understanding my emotions.
"You are a disgrace to our family name," my elder brother, Samian, mocked. He was a Level A Sentinel and already going on missions.
"You are not even compatible with Amil. And here I had thought that if your results had been above 50 per cent, we might get a match from beyond the wall," Samian regretfully said.
Sirela tightly clutched my arm at the mention of the beings beyond the wall. Even my heart thudded loudly.
"I am glad Starla is not matched to those beasts. Who wants to go and live with savages?" Sirela timidly added.
"You are insolent. They bring wealth and gold. They make you rich if they find a single compatible guide. With how the situation is going on their side, more and more human guides are needed. And here we have two of you. But..."
"That’s enough, Samian," my father didn’t let him finish.
"I will speak to Amil and see if he wants to continue your union. It will be difficult for you to find a new match." Father dismissed us.
Picking up Doodles, I carried her to my room with a heavy heart. I had seen the look on Amil’s face; I knew what his decision was going to be.
That night, my sleep was disturbed. A mythical blue dragon grabbed me in its powerful claws and flew away while another flew by its side.
"You are destined for greatness," a voice echoed in my ears.
I woke up screaming, drenched in my own sweat. My sister quickly wrapped her arms around me.
"It’s alright; I am here." I leaned into her arms. "At least you are safe from those barbarians. I was afraid that father and brother would send you away if your results came high."
Sirela was terrified of Beastmen, and she didn’t want us to become their guides.
"I am not going anywhere," I assured her.
The next day, we left the house to grab some groceries, and my violin needed repair.
People who usually greeted me with a smile and respect averted their eyes and whispered to each other. The warmth on their faces had evaporated.
Did they know?
"Ignore them," Sirela whispered, pressing my hand.
"To the town centre," someone shouted. Everyone began running. I exchanged glances with my sister, and we followed.
Amil’s loud voice hit my ears. "She is not compatible with me. Look at her compatibility results." To my horror, he held up the paper with my test results. Emery stood beside him, smirking.
The crowd gasped, pointing fingers at me, shaking their heads in disappointment.
With anger and resentment, I turned towards Amil. Not a shred of remorse on his face. His arm wrapped around Emery’s waist.
"That’s why I am breaking my engagement with Starla and taking Emery as my guide and fiancé."
For a brief moment, his eyes found mine, and guilt flashed in them before he averted his gaze; it disappeared.
A blinding pain erupted in my heart. My knees hit the pavement. All those promises, all those memories gone, forgotten merely because of a bunch of numbers and stats.
Someone threw a tomato at me. It splattered on my dress.
"What a disgrace for the Argastine family," Mr Gamian said in disgust, forgetting how I always healed his children.
"Who would want an E-rank healer?" Mrs Hala didn’t think like that when I healed her wounds last week.
"She was trying to deceive Amil using her family name. I am sure they knew about her low rank." The old lady scrunched her nose at me. My rank didn’t matter when I healed her son.
"Amil deserves better. Emery is an A-ranked healer. They are perfectly matched."
The whispers had turned into loud accusations and insults. Sirela held me in her arms. "Don’t listen to them. They have forgotten the goodness you have shown them. The sacrifices you have made."
Sirela threw them all an angry look and stood in front of me, shielding me.
In the centre, Amil was kissing Emery, announcing his new beginnings. While on the ground, my whole life fell apart that day. I became my family and Clan’s biggest embarrassment and lowest-ranked guide.
But I promised myself that this would be the last time I would cry because of him. The time I had left was mine to spend the way I wished.
Because they didn’t know what the System healer had told me. My body had burnt out from the overuse of my healing powers. E-ranked bodies were not made for sustained use, and my core was burning out.
"You have exhausted your powers, helping everyone. If you stop now, you will have 2-3 years to live. If you won’t, it will be even less." His words rang in my ears as I fainted in my sister’s arms.