Thornwyn Mossbrook's Arc

Chapter 19 of 38

Thornwyn woke halfway and did not wake all the way. She heard the fire. She heard breath near her ear. She could not lift her head. The cold had gone into her hip and stayed there. The elf knelt beside her. He was the girl's father, the one who had waited a year outside her ward with a carved horse in a hollow log. He had her belt open and her trouser leg cut. His hands were fast but they were shaking. He pressed a folded cloth to her thigh and the cloth went red in one breath. "The moss is not holding," he said. "The wound is deep. I cannot stitch what I cannot see." The girl crouched at Thornwyn's other side. Her small hand still held two of Thornwyn's fingers. She had not let go since the chimera was unloaded. The chimera stood at the edge of the firelight, antlers low, watching. Thornwyn tried to speak and got only air. She tried again. "Staff." The elf looked at her. "Put it in my hand," she said. "Then yours over mine." He laid the earthy staff along her arm and folded her fingers around the wood. He put his palm on top. He had done this before, at dawn, when they wove the ward back together. He knew the shape of it. "The words are for closing flesh," she said. "Say them after me. Press when I press." She gave him the first word. He said it back. She gave him the next. His voice steadied on the third. The staff warmed under their hands. The heat crawled down her arm and into her leg. It felt like a hot iron laid inside the wound. She bit the inside of her cheek and did not stop. The piebald deer stepped into the firelight and lay down against her ribs. Its bandaged side rose and fell. It pressed its warm flank to her and did not move. She felt the torn thing at the bottom of the wound draw in. She felt the vessel close. The blood under the cloth slowed. Then it stopped. The elf finished the last word without her. He was watching her mouth to be sure. Thornwyn let the staff go. Her hand fell open. She was still cold. She was still weak. But the ground under her had stopped tilting. "Water," she said. The girl was already reaching for the cup. She held it to Thornwyn's mouth with both hands. Thornwyn drank. She looked past the girl to the elf. His face was gray. His own leg wound had opened again from kneeling. He had spent what he had on her. "Six riders," she said. "North of the ridge. They will circle back when they find no body." The elf nodded. He did not ask what came next. He was waiting for her to tell him. She closed her eyes and made herself think.