Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
Alwyn
Their small party arrived in Aefraya a few days later, and Iefyr brought them to the elder healer she had told them about: a man with short-cropped hair just starting to gray at the temples, a sign of his long life.
He met them just outside his practice near the top of the hill that led to the castle, right on the edge of the residential area, and introduced himself as Ferym.
He and Iefyr spoke quietly about what she had done so far, as Krujha gently helped Alwyn rise to his feet.
After a week of being carried in the cart, he was as stumbling and fragile as a newborn lamb.
The handful of steps from the threshold, through the dwelling, and into the exam room took all his effort; by the end, Krujha was all but carrying him.
While they had been on the road, Iefyr had changed the dressings on his hands each day; but Alwyn had avoided looking as much as he could, too sick at the thought of how bad it might be.
Now, as Ferym gently unwrapped the bandages, Alwyn forced himself to watch.
Red, shiny skin appeared, starting from his wrists and down to his palms, which were a mess of blisters, while his fingers looked sickeningly raw.
Somehow, though, it wasn’t as bad as he was expecting—some part of him had been bracing himself to see bloody stumps where his fingers had been, or flesh burned down to exposed bone.
It certainly didn’t look good, but he was relieved all the same.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t do as much here,” Iefyr said quietly, as Ferym inspected them. “All the sinews and bones in the hands... I didn’t trust myself to do more than draw out any burgeoning infection. I’d never encountered magical burns like this before, so...”
“You did well to bring him here,” Ferym said, though his bespectacled eyes remained fixed on Alwyn’s hands.
“With how deep the burns were, if you had targeted the wrong muscles, or in the wrong order, you could have impacted the range of motion. But they are clean, and I see no signs of infection. A perfect canvas to start with.”
For the first time, the sinking feeling in Alwyn’s chest started to lighten and lift. Maybe there was some hope for him after all.
Ferym continued to look him over in the exam room; only after a lengthy visual examination and extensive note-taking did Alwyn feel the first touch of the elder healer’s magic wash over him.
It felt cool and light, like water spreading through his veins.
He could feel it pooling in his hands at first, just settling there and sensing, until finally it started to spread upward through his arms and into the rest of his body.
It seemed to pause as it coursed through his chest.
“Oh,” Ferym said softly, his eyebrows raising slightly in surprise. “I see.”
Alwyn frowned. “What?”
“Your magic,” the healer said, and Alwyn could sense it probing a little deeper. “This is a terrible wound. I can tell you had great capacity, but it’s... empty, for lack of a better term.”
Alwyn’s heart sank all over again. He could feel it within himself—that hollowness had not diminished in the least from the moment that druid’s raven had dug its talons into his shoulder.
He wasn’t sure what he had expected the healer to say, but that he also seemed taken aback had to be a bad omen.
“Another mage did this to me,” Alwyn said softly, brows knitted together. “Can it be healed?”
“I haven’t seen anything quite like this,” Ferym continued, now closing his eyes in concentration. “I’m not sure. I’ll do some research, but that’s all I can promise for now.”
Alwyn remained silent. Who would he be without his magic? It had been the core facet of his identity for so long—he was Tessarion’s favored pupil because of his magical prowess. Now, he was unsure if he had any magic left at all.
“We can worry about your hands first, of course,” Ferym added after a moment, seeming to detect Alwyn’s disquiet. “We’ll have to take this slow to avoid any further damage. If I’m careful, I should be able to heal all the tissue with a very limited impact on your range of motion.”
“That sounds good,” Alwyn said, his voice small.
Krujha had remained beside him throughout the whole examination, his expression carefully neutral.
But when Alwyn looked at him now, a soft sort of sympathy crossed his face.
Alwyn wanted to bristle—to protest that he had no need of sympathy from him or anyone—but he pushed that instinct down.
Instead, he did his best to sit with it and feel glad that someone cared enough about him to feel compassion for him.
He didn’t have to pretend to be fine for Krujha to accept him.
“You’ll need to stay with me for a few days, perhaps a week,” Ferym said when he finally released his gentle hold on Alwyn’s wrists. “But I think after that you’ll be alright.”
“A week,” Alwyn echoed uncertainly.
“A week of downtime seems a small price to pay,” Krujha said, his voice light and almost teasing. “Besides, you need the rest, Alwyn.”
He managed a slight smile. “You’re right, of course.”
The healer set him up in a room on the ground floor of the dwelling, where he saw all his patients. The room was small, but full of natural light from a window that faced away from the main thoroughfare, keeping it quiet and calm.
“Goodbye, Alwyn. Good luck,” Iefyr said once he was settled.
“Where will you go now?” he asked, frowning.
“Back home,” she said, shrugging. “I live in Menserine. My practice is there, too. I’ll rest in the city tonight and be there in just a few days more.”
“Safe travels, then. And thank you,” Alwyn said. She gave him one last soft smile before she left.
“Typically, I only offer rooms for patients,” Ferym said cautiously a moment later. “And I’m not sure if these rooms would be comfortable for you, Krujha...”
Krujha grimaced. “I’ll find somewhere nearby.”
Alwyn felt his heart plummet to the bottom of his stomach. No, he needed Krujha here, needed him nearby—he couldn’t stand the thought of being here alone.
“Please stay,” he blurted out, his eyes darting between the two of them.
“I’ll come first thing every morning,” Krujha said, smiling. “It’s just a place to sleep.”
“Please,” Alwyn repeated, his throat feeling tight. “I don’t want you to leave.”
Krujha’s face looked pained now. He opened his mouth to speak, but Ferym interrupted.
“I suppose I can make an exception, since I have no other patients in residence at the moment,” he said, though he still seemed apprehensive. Alwyn was too relieved to care. “You can have the room next door. The bed will be too small, but...”
“I can sleep on the floor,” Krujha said, chipper as ever.
In the evening, Krujha came to Alwyn’s room to keep him company; but as they talked, Alwyn thought he seemed pensive, his mind clearly elsewhere.
Before, he might have just ignored it, letting Krujha bring up whatever it was of his own accord to avoid seeming too interested in the orc. Now there was no such pretense.
“Is something troubling you?” he asked; Krujha grimaced, glancing away, which was all but confirmation. He was sitting in a too-small chair next to Alwyn’s bed, and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat for a long moment, eyes downcast. When he met Alwyn’s gaze again, he looked almost guilty.
“I have something I need to tell you,” he said, making Alwyn stiffen with nerves.
What kind of bad news could Krujha have when they’d been in the city less than a day?
“I don’t know exactly if this is what I think it might be, or…
I don’t know. But that morning, back on the mountain, when I found you…
It felt like all your magic went through me when you were turning it off.
And I’ve had this feeling since then that I can’t really explain.
I think maybe some of it might still be with me. ”
Alwyn stared at him, his mind racing—this confession was the last thing he would have expected to hear. Was such a thing possible? He hadn’t heard of it, but neither had he heard of magical suppression like what the druid had done to him, which was clearly real.
“I remember,” he said faintly; Krujha’s words had sparked his memory, though most of his recollection of that morning was fuzzy. “It felt like everything was overflowing, but when you grabbed me, it was like your spark was a river that would lead out to the ocean. It drained everything away.”
Krujha nodded, managing a slight smile. “I don’t know about a river. But I think maybe you made my well a little deeper, if nothing else.”
Despite all his lingering confusion, Alwyn let out a faint, incredulous laugh. The thought of his magic being gone had been torturous—but if it was now with Krujha, instead of lost completely, that seemed like something he could live with.
“There are tests to gauge someone’s magical aptitude,” he said, his mind already racing. “I’m sure Ferym could take a look, too—”
To his surprise, Krujha shook his head quickly.
“No, no. We’re here to focus on your healing,” he said. “All of this can wait. It might turn out to be nothing, after all. I just… didn’t think it was right not to tell you, especially after hearing what Ferym said about your magic being wounded.”
Alwyn let out a slow breath. Maybe he was getting ahead of himself. Still, if Krujha had some magical ability now because of him, it was only right for him to be the one to foster it, to help Krujha grow his skill in whatever way he deemed best.
“You’re right. We don’t have to do anything now,” Alwyn agreed, and offered a small, placating smile. “But thank you for telling me. And I’d still like to at least teach you what I know when you’re ready, if that’s something you want to do.”
For a moment, Krujha only looked at him, his expression unreadable. Then, finally, a slow smile spread around his tusks.