Lyra Fernbrook's Arc

Chapter 18 of 18

Dorian did not leave the herbal house. Elara told him the third step of the mending could wait, that the grove had held its wound for years and would hold it a little longer. He nodded without lifting his head from Lyra's hand. The iron heart still sat in his pack by the door, wrapped in cloth. He did not touch it. He watched Lyra breathe, and counted each breath, and thought of nothing past the next one. Elara showed him how to change the packing on the side wound. She showed him which leaf went under the binding and which went on top. His hands were thick and slow, but he learned. He boiled water. He wrung out cloths. He held Lyra up while Elara spooned broth past her lips. When Lyra could not keep the broth down, he wiped her chin and started again. The satchel on the table emptied and filled and emptied again as Elara sent him out for fresh yarrow at the grove's edge. At night he sat by the cot and spoke to her. He had no songs, so he made words instead. He told her the shape of her hand from the inside. He told her the green in her hair looked like the moss on the north stones of his forge. He said he had been afraid on the road with her bleeding on his shirt, and that the fear had not left him, and that if she went he would not know how to stay. He said it plainly, the way he said prices at the smithy. He said it again the next night, and the next. A small winged thing came in through the window on the fourth day and sat on the sill. Elara did not chase it. It watched Lyra sleep and left a single bright leaf on the blanket. It came back each morning after that. Dorian began to leave the shutter cracked for it. When Lyra first opened her eyes and held them open, the sprite was there, and Dorian was there, and Elara was at the hearth stirring a pot. Lyra healed slowly. The arm knit first. The side took longer. Three weeks passed before she could stand without holding the table, and another before she could walk to the door and back. Dorian walked beside her each time. He did not go to the ridge. He did not go to the smithy. He slept on a pallet by her cot and woke when she moved. On the last evening of the fourth week, Lyra sat up on her own and asked for the iron heart. Dorian brought it from his pack and set it in her lap. She turned it in her hands and looked at him a long time. She said they would finish the third step at the next dusk. He said he would carry her there if she asked. She said she would walk.