“I’ve told you a thousand times, you have nothing to feel guilty about. No one blames you for Uther.”
“Stop.”
His mouth snaps shut at the severity of my tone. Despite his gentle prodding, Farley knows better than anyone that Carys is not yet ready to forgive and forget my role in her husband’s death. For it was at my urging that Uther went into the palace; at my word that he raced headlong toward danger. If not for me, he would not have been on that bridge when the turrets crashed down upon it.
If not for me, he would still be alive.
It will take longer than a few weeks for such a wound to heal. I am not naive enough to believe Carys can ever forgive me, that our friendship will ever recover.
“I’ll pop by her shop later, after my rotation,” Farley assures me. “Make sure she’s holding up all right. See if I can get her to rest for a span while I watch over the babe.”
“You’re a good friend, Farley.”
“So are you, Ace. Only a matter of time until Carys sees through her grief and remembers that.”
We go our separate ways, Farley disappearing into the barracks, me continuing on past the stables to the old warehouse we converted into an infirmary some time back. It is dark inside, the space lit only by a handful of candles flickering in their sconces. The air smells of herbs and sweat and days-old blood. Most of the patients are asleep in their cots, but some moan lowly in pain as they thrash, their foreheads dotted with perspiration from the fevers that ravage their weakened bodies.
By the far wall, I spot Lestyn, a scrappy, bespectacled lad several years my junior, in his tan Life Guild uniform. He is technically still a trainee, as he had not yet completed his decade-long novitiate when the world came apart at the seams, but his skill has grown by leaps and bounds these past two months. His quick, capable fingers are currently tending to asoldier who took a Reaver axe to the shoulder—one of our last patients from the battle still to be discharged. Most would have died from blood loss or infection, but the man is of strong stock. He’s lingered for weeks in increasing agony as his spliced muscles slowly stitch themselves back together.
Lestyn glances up when he hears me enter, nodding a silent greeting, his elfin face hardly visible in the candlelight. I return his nod as I slip off my cloak, trading it for a freshly bleached apron on the hook beside the door.
Grabbing the salve of eucalyptus and camphor from my basket, I follow the sound of coughing toward the frail elderly woman reposed on a nearby cot. She is unlikely to last the night, her congested lungs failing a bit more with each passing hour. I cannot save her. Not now. But I can rub salve on her chest to ease her labored breaths and hold her hand as she slips beyond my reach. I can sop the sweat from her brow and close her eyes when they turn unseeing.
This is the hardest part of healing—knowing when it is time to stop. Admitting that the battle, however hard-fought, has been lost. Setting aside your tools and tonics to instead embrace the uncomfortable truth about living: namely, that it always comes to an end. Whether crushed in an instant beneath a fallen palace or whittled away in sluggish increments by the passing years, death is an inescapable inevitability. Try as we might to postpone its arrival, eventually it comes for us all.
I hope, when at last it takes me, I do not see it coming. I have no desire to look death in the face. Not when I fear I might see my own eyes staring back at me—two storm clouds of chaos ushering my shattered soul to the aether, no match for the maegic I have unleashed.
Upon myself.
Upon the world.
“How many timesmust I tell you, girl? My preferred poultice for infected wounds uses a pinch of ground marrow of mammoth. What is this you’re using instead?” Osain takes a sniff from the jar of salve I’ve just finished bottling, and grimaces in distaste. “Plain comfrey? Marigold? Have you no respect for the wisdom of your elders?”
I bite back a retort. “My apologies, Osain. But in my experience, yarrow leaves are far more effective than marrow dust—”
“Your experience?Bah!If we relied only on your experience, we’d have no patients left. They’d all be ash on the pyre.”
I press my lips together.
Muttering something about my general incompetence under his breath, the ancient healer hobbles away down the row of cots. He leans heavily on his cane as he goes, his arthritic fingers gnarled into a claw as they grip the handle. His spine is the shape of a crescent moon, a pronounced hunch rounding his shoulder blades.
Osain has been stitching wounds since well before I walked this earth—as he frequently reminds me—and was an active practitioner for decades before finally being forced into retirement several seasons back. When the city fell, he was all too willing to answer the call for aid.
He was altogether less willing to accept mine.
No matter how many fevers I ease, bones I set, brows I wipe, infections I lance, cuts I bandage…the old man seems ill-inclined to permit me into the lofty ranks of the Life Guild with any sort of grace. Left to his own judgment, he would have turned me away that first day I appeared at their makeshift field hospital and offered my healing services. I was no apprentice.Besides, I am a woman. Suited for midwifery, in his eyes, but not the stomach-turning business of surgery.
It was Lestyn, with his quick wit, owlish glasses, and lopsided smile, who pointed out that they had more patients than sets of hands, many of whom would need weeks of treatment. It was Lestyn, with his quiet fortitude, who reminded his aged master that, in the years since he last touched his scalpels, the profession had evolved to accept female novitiates—many of whom were well on their way to becoming accomplished healers when the hospital roof crushed those dreams to dust.
Osain had little choice but to accept this—accept me—however begrudgingly. But old prejudices are more stubborn than whooping cough. He has not warmed to me in the slightest, and I highly doubt anything I do will change that.
While Lestyn is far more welcoming, he is only a novitiate, in many ways still learning his craft, honing his skills. He defers to his elder in all matters. Osain’s word is law. Yet on the nights we find ourselves working without a hawkish, age-clouded gaze fixed upon us, I’ve found him to be a quick study, eager to learn my different methods and happy to listen whenever I have advice to dispense.
Most boys of thirteen are likely more concerned with courting pretty girls or practicing at the sparring pits. Not Lestyn. If he is not actively treating a patient, I’ll find him in a quiet corner with a book, glasses sliding slowly down the bridge of his nose as he soaks in knowledge from the pages like a sponge.
When he heard of the apothecary’s well-stocked shelves, he begged an invitation to my apartments. Now he is a near-constant visitor, ringing my bell at all hours, pounding down my door if I do not answer within the span of a breath. He bursts inside, uncoordinated as a newborn colt, his gangly limbs sweeping bottlesoff surfaces, his elbows knocking against doorframes and table corners, disturbing my peace and quiet.
In truth, I do not mind the disruption, however I might protest when he shows up unannounced, his face split by an unapologetic grin, his hands clutching the latest book he’s conquered. For I have been undeniably lonely of late. With Carys still consumed by grief, Jac and Cadogan off to secure the borderlands, Mabon leading the capital’s perimeter guard, and Penn thoroughly withdrawn in his own affairs, I have only Farley for companionship. And even he will soon be too busy for me, now that he is well enough to rejoin the Ember Guild ranks. His nights will be spent on patrol, not sitting in my parlor playing hands of twyllo, the tricky game of cards and wagers favored by Northlanders. A shame, as I’m finally getting skilled enough to win a few hands.