Against The World

Chapter 94: Hands Without Light

The bridge took longer to replace than the wagon took to lose.

Eleanor explained this while standing over a drawing that contained considerably more bridge than I thought we needed.

“The water still has to go somewhere.”

“It went through the last one.”

“Yes. We’re trying to discourage that.”

The new crossing would stand higher, with a wider opening beneath it and less stone placed where drifting branches could catch.

Until it was finished, supplies went around by the upper track.

Bram remained at the healing house.

His latest message concerned the timber.

Hester had added a line beneath it.

He has asked this every morning. Please answer before I use him to support the roof.

I wrote that some had been recovered downstream.

Then I added that we expected him to leave his bed out of the rebuilding plans.

Eleanor read it.

“He’ll ask whether he can work sitting down.”

Three days later, he did.

A week passed.

The snow softened, froze again, and acquired enough footprints that the courtyard looked thoroughly lived in.

The healing house’s beam was replaced.

Ada received her first wages.

Mary found that the mill store named in the old endowment had burned down decades earlier. The orchard still existed, though its boundaries had changed and the surviving records disagreed about who had purchased what.

Garrick took those papers away before I could develop a premature opinion.

“You can be angry when we know who with.”

“I wasn’t angry.”

“You were reading the same sentence with increasing force.”

He left with the documents.

I went upstairs.

Carol smiled at me.

I stopped in the doorway.

Evelyn looked up.

“What?”

“She—”

Our daughter did it again.

A brief, uneven smile while looking directly at my face.

I crossed the room so quickly that Evelyn laughed.

“Hello,” I said.

Carol watched me.

“Do that again.”

“She isn’t one of your lamps.”

“I know.”

I tried smiling.

Then speaking.

Then making a noise that I would have denied producing if anyone except my wife had heard it.

Carol became solemn.

Evelyn pressed her lips together.

“Apparently,” she said, “the first attempt was sufficient.”

The visitors arrived the following afternoon.

Nine people.

Two carts.

One white staff wrapped in a blanket.

Eliza came to find me before they were brought beyond the gate court.

“Their leader says he is a healer from Halvane.”

“Temple?”

“Avar.”

The name settled unpleasantly between us.

“Armed?”

“Two traveling knives. They surrendered them without argument.”

“And the staff?”

“He asked us to take it.”

I looked up.

“He said it no longer works.”

The man waiting in the receiving room was younger than I expected.

Perhaps thirty.

His hair had been cut close at the temples, and the skin beneath his eyes looked bruised with tiredness.

He stood when I entered.

“Your Majesty.”

“Sit down.”

He remained standing until the woman beside him touched his sleeve.

Then he sat.

There were ink stains on her fingers.

A boy in a patched coat slept against her shoulder.

“My name is Brother Soren,” the man said. “This is Mistress Yara. She kept our accounts and dispensary.”

“Where?”

“A temple infirmary outside Halvane’s northern capital.”

Eliza stood beside the door.

Mary took the chair near the table.

I sat opposite him.

“What brings you here?”

He looked down at his hands.

“A patient I couldn’t leave behind.”

The patient was in the second cart.

A woman called Mara, though not our Mara from the workshops.

She had worked in the infirmary laundry.

When a temple officer found a small rose stitched inside her sleeve, he ordered her removed from service.

“She had already been ill for several days,” Soren said. “A chest sickness. We had a bed for her.”

“And they wanted her out of it?”

“They wanted her to renounce Aurelia before further treatment.”

Mary’s pen stopped.

Soren noticed.

“I know what that sounds like.”

“Then tell us what happened.”

He swallowed.

“I refused.”

The woman beside him watched the tabletop.

“The officer returned with a written instruction from the high temple. I refused again.”

“And your magic?”

He opened one hand.

Nothing happened.

“I had used it that morning.”

He stared at his palm.

“By evening, it was gone.”

I sent for Ilyen and Maelin.

The visitors were taken to warm rooms while Mara was carried to the infirmary.

Soren asked to accompany her.

I went with him.

Along the way, he explained that the others were two infirmary attendants, an apprentice, Yara’s husband and son, and Mara’s sister.

“They dismissed all of you?”

“Yara was dismissed for refusing to alter the admission book. The others chose to come.”

“Did you know you could reach us?”

“No.”

He said it so plainly that I looked at him.

“We knew you had allowed Aurelia’s worship. We knew what happened at Reed Crossing.”

I thought of the young priest raising his staff.

Of the bolt hanging before my chest.

Soren’s eyes moved toward my hands.

“I hoped you would distinguish between him and us.”

We reached the infirmary door.

Inside, Nessa was already directing people out of the way.

“Come in or stand aside,” she told us.

Soren obeyed before I did.

Mara was awake.

That helped me breathe more easily until I heard how much effort each breath cost her.

Ilyen listened to her chest.

Maelin asked about the journey, the medicines, and when the fever had begun.

Soren answered carefully.

He knew the times.

The quantities.

Which nights she had slept and which she had spent sitting forward because lying down made things worse.

Then Ilyen asked him to hold the lamp closer.

He did.

His hand was steady.

When Mara began coughing, he set the lamp down and helped her sit.

There was no hesitation in that movement.

He supported her until the fit passed, then wiped her mouth with a clean cloth.

She caught his wrist.

“Stop looking like that,” she whispered.

He bent closer.

“Like what?”

“Like you brought me here to die.”

His face changed.

“I brought you here because they can help.”

“Then let them.”

Maelin gently drew him back to make room.

He came without protest.

But his eyes remained on the bed.

Evelyn joined us after the children had been fed.

She had brought her shawl and tied her hair back.

Ilyen met her by the washstand.

They spoke quietly.

Then my wife washed her hands and approached Mara’s bed.

“I’ve only been learning,” she said. “Ilyen would like me to help while she works. Would that be all right?”

Mara looked at her.

“The queen?”

“Yes.”

“Will it cost more?”

Evelyn’s expression softened.

“No.”

“Then yes.”

Soren stood beside me.

Evelyn placed her hands where Ilyen showed her, lightly against the woman’s upper back.

Gold gathered around her fingers.

It was still strange to see.

Even after the little lessons.

Even after watching her close a shallow cut.

The light reached through the thin linen of Mara’s gown and spread beneath Ilyen’s amber tracing.

My wife’s brow furrowed.

Ilyen said something too quietly for me to hear.

Evelyn adjusted her hands.

The light steadied.

Beside me, Soren drew in a sharp breath.

They worked for several minutes.

Then Ilyen told Evelyn to stop.

My wife lifted her hands at once, though I saw how reluctantly.

Mara’s breathing remained rough.

But there was more room between the breaths now.

Her shoulders had lowered.

Maelin tucked the blanket around her and spoke to her sister about staying nearby.

Soren approached the bed.

He asked Mara a question.

Listened to the answer.

Then looked at Ilyen.

“The tightness?”

“Eased,” she said. “She still needs care.”

He nodded.

He seemed about to ask something else.

Instead, he sat down.

Mara took his hand and shut her eyes.

Evelyn came to me near the door.

“How are you?” I asked.

“Tired.”

I offered my arm.

She accepted it.

Outside, she leaned against the wall for a moment.

“I wanted to keep going.”

“I saw.”

“I could feel where it hurt.”

I waited.

She rubbed her fingers together, looking at them.

“It’s harder to stop when it’s someone.”

Through the open door, I could hear Maelin moving a chair closer to the bed.

I stayed with Evelyn until she was ready to walk.

We spoke with Soren again that evening.

This time, he brought a folded copy of the order.

Yara had kept it.

The high temple’s seal was impressed at the bottom. Mary compared it with the documents we had received from Halvane.

“This appears consistent,” she said.

The order named Aurelia’s worship a corruption.

It required the infirmary to withhold temple-funded treatment from those who persisted in it.

Below that was a list of exceptions.

Officers.

Certain merchants.

Households with standing agreements.

I read that part twice.

Evelyn leaned closer.

Her face became very still.

“Some convictions are easier to forgive when the household is wealthy,” she said.

Soren said nothing.

“How many received this order?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Was yours the only infirmary?”

“I don’t know that either.”

Mary wrote both answers.

I was grateful he had not tried to make his certainty larger than it was.

“Do you believe Avar took your power?” Evelyn asked.

Soren sat with his hands between his knees.

“Yes.”

“Did he speak to you?”

“No.”

“Then how can you be certain?”

He considered the question.

“The blessing came when I took my vows. I renewed it through prayer. I felt it every day for eleven years.”

His mouth tightened.

“When I prayed after refusing the order, there was something there.”

“What?”

He looked at me.

“I don’t know how to describe it without sounding foolish.”

“Try.”

“A door held shut from the other side.”

The room was quiet.

I remembered Aurelia speaking about the bindings.

Another god.

Another closed way.

But I had not felt what he had felt.

“We can ask the Castellan what records survive,” I said. “And Maelin may know someone who has experienced the same thing.”

Soren nodded.

He did not look comforted.

I could not blame him.

When the others left, he remained.

“Your Majesty.”

I turned back.

“Will you ask her?”

I knew who he meant.

“What would you like me to ask?”

“If Aurelia will give me what I’ve lost.”

He looked ashamed almost as soon as he said it.

“I don’t mean—”

“You want to heal people.”

“Yes.”

“And you’ve heard that she gave Evelyn the ability.”

“Yes.”

I sat down again.

“I can tell her about you when I next have the chance. I can’t promise what she’ll do.”

“I understand.”

“Do you want to worship her?”

He looked toward the chapel window across the courtyard.

For a long time, he did not answer.

“I don’t know.”

Then he looked back at me.

“I’ve been praying to someone since I was a child. I don’t know how to begin speaking to someone else.”

I thought of standing in our damaged chapel.

Of wanting answers and being afraid of them.

“You can stay while you decide.”

“And the others?”

“Them too.”

He covered his face with one hand.

I waited until he lowered it.

Soren went back to the infirmary.

I went upstairs.

Evelyn sat beside the hearth with Carol asleep against her shoulder.

Garrick was awake in his cradle, moving his arms with considerable private purpose.

I sat on the rug beside him.

For a while, I watched him discover his own fingers again.

“Did he ask?” Evelyn said.

“Yes.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That I couldn’t promise him magic.”

She nodded.

Our son caught my finger.

His grip was stronger than it used to be.

“I keep thinking about that list,” Evelyn said.

“The exceptions?”

“Yes.”

She adjusted Carol carefully.

“They knew there were people they couldn’t afford to refuse.”

I looked at her.

My wife’s eyes remained on our daughter.

“We’ll need to know where else those orders went.”

“Mary is writing to Sabine.”

“And Maelin’s contacts.”

“Yes.”

She let out a slow breath.

Then leaned her head against the chair.

I stayed on the rug until Garrick released me.

The following morning, I found Soren in the infirmary kitchen.

He was cutting linen into strips.

Nessa stood nearby, examining his work.

“Too narrow.”

He held one up.

“For a finger.”

“For the size we keep in that drawer.”

He glanced at the drawer.

Then altered the next strip.

I waited until she had gone before approaching.

“How is Mara?”

“She slept for three hours.”

“That sounds better.”

“It is.”

He set down the shears.

For the first time since arriving, there was a little color in his face.

“Ilyen asked whether I could help with the afternoon examinations.”

“Can you?”

“Yes.”

The answer came immediately.

He heard it too.

His gaze dropped to the linen beneath his hands.

Then he picked up the shears again.

Later, Mary brought the first reply from Stoneford.

Maelin’s contacts knew of another infirmary that had received the same instruction.

Its keeper had refused.

No one had heard from him since.

A second note came with it, carried by a merchant who had left Halvane before the road closed under snow.

There were healers asking how to reach Greykeep.

Mary placed a clean sheet beside the message.

“What shall I tell them?”

I looked through the infirmary doorway.

Soren was helping Mara’s sister change the bedding while Maelin supported the patient in a chair.

He spoke to them as he worked.

Mara answered something I could not hear.

He laughed.

It was brief, and it surprised him.

I turned back to Mary.

“Tell them where the gates are. Who to ask for. Where they can rest along the way.”

She began writing.

“And when they arrive?”

I watched Soren tuck a clean corner beneath the mattress.

“We’ll make room.”

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