Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 55602 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 278(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55602 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 278(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
I thank Olyn again for separating the critical from the rest.
She whispers, “Without the herbs . . .”
I smile stiffly. “Soon.” I need her to keep her spirits too. Her positivity will pass on.
I keep my voice collected and encourage the family to sleep. When I shut the front door of the cottage, my sigh is long and foggy in the night air.
With heavy steps, I trudge to where the mother and daughter are waiting for me.
It’s a dimly lit place. Two rooms, and the air is thick. The smell of burning leaves in the hearth mostly masks the scent of rotting fish.
A gust howls through the cracks. Mother and daughter lie huddled on a rough-hewn bed of straw. The child is frail, feverish, with an arm around her mother. She chokes on a feeble whine.
The mother’s breaths are laboured, rustling, but she still tries. “The healer promised. Sleep now.”
I approach with a helpless, silent sigh, and make my presence known.
Swollen eyes shift to me, and the daughter pushes herself into a sitting position with shaky arms.
With trembling hands, I open a pouch hanging from my waist and pluck out a few shimmering capsules. I pass them to the girl and murmur for her to swallow them, they’ll help keep her symptoms from worsening. She takes the capsules and hurriedly tries to force them into her mother’s mouth. My throat tightens; I lay a gentle hand on her. “You take those ones. I’ll do what I can for your mother.”
I pull at every thread of magic within me, the pain sharp and unrelenting as it courses through my veins. I push it into her, desperate to feel some response—anything.
It’s a pebble dropped in a lake. Barely a ripple of effect.
Her breath falters.
“Mama? Mama?”
She manages a faint smile for her daughter, a tear leaking from her eye. “Love . . . you . . . always.”
I try again, with other herbs, maybe one of them will work . . .
Her breathing becomes shallower.
Her eyes grow vacant.
“Please,” I whisper, pouring useless spells into her. “Please don’t—”
The daughter throws her arms around her mother and sobs into her breast as she gives a last quiet breath.
I drop my hands, spell dissipating into a whiff, like a snuffed candle.
The daughter wails, and wails, and I stare listless until she collapses under the weight of her grief. I lift her into my arms. It breaks my heart to pull her away onto a straw mat in the next room, but seeing her lifeless mother is making her frantic, and it’s triggering her symptoms to worsen.
I’ve lost one. I can’t lose her daughter too.
I lay her down and cast a spell.
Empty cottages close to the luminarium begin to fill with critical patients. It’s a few hours before I leave them resting with volunteers stationed at each house.
Outside, shoulders drooping, head cast towards the packed dirt road, I stare absently at the intricate shifting shadows of tree branches and the moonlight reflecting in puddles from a recent shower.
A whinny catches my attention, coming from the massive sprawling oaks near the canal. A dark horse shakes its head from the tickle of an overhanging branch. Olyn’s horse, the one she lent Quin.
He’s here.
He must be close.
I splash through a crescent moon on my jog into the trees and come to a breath-catching stop. There—on a low, sturdy bough—Quin sits resting against the trunk, good leg bent on the branch, his wrist tapping against his knee, cloak well draped over the rest of him.
He stares through the branches to the scattered but clearing clouds and the stars twinkling behind them. The lines of his face are beautiful. Weary, but there’s quiet strength in them too—a strength that draws me close. Deep inside, I ache for his solace.
His attention turns to my approach, gaze glittering, but not with surprise I found him. Like he hoped I would, or expected me to. He swings his foot down, swivelling to making space. The tree is gnarled and ancient; bark snags at my clothes as I clamber onto the bough beside him.
He says nothing, and neither do I. My chest is heavy with images. Mother and daughter, clinging together. I shut my eyes, but it doesn’t help. I see the daughter sickly and sobbing. I hear her accusation. You promised.
The words burrow painfully in my chest. I don’t realise my breath is coming in and out too fast until Quin’s warm sigh tickles my cheek.
My whisper cracks, “I spelled the child to stop her crying. She was making her symptoms worse. I couldn’t . . .”
He wraps his cloak around my back, his arm steady as he pulls me closer. His hand moves in slow circles on my arm, the warmth of his touch sinking through all my shivers. My breath hitches at the tenderness, and I press my head against his shoulder, surrendering to the feeling of safety, just for a moment.