Chapter Twenty-Eight
A ll of my muscles scream at me with each step I take, but I promised Thaliya I’d stop by the ward after training. I hope she’ll take it easier on me than Patton, who clearly expects more of me at my very first lesson. I’ll have to practice before I go to practice at this rate.
I enter the quiet ward where the smells of late autumnal sunshine and spearmint greet me. I wash my hands as Thaliya has taught me, scrubbing each finger and nail, then moving to the insides of each palm. I take time to scrub the outside as well and then up my arms. Thaliya has always stressed the importance of cleanliness, especially around the sick.
I find her tending to a young boy who’s firing questions off while she finishes tying his arm into a sling. She reminds him to keep off it and then looks to his companion, who must’ve accompanied him here, and repeats the instructions. They promise to return in several days to have the healing assessed.
Thaliya gives them one last look as they sprint across the room toward the back entrance then are gone. Most of the people she tends to come in from that door, rather than through the castle itself. The people of the village depend on Thaliya and her staff to see them through simple colds and mend them when they’ve broken bones as well. She and her team are the most skilled in the surrounding villages and care deeply about the villagers’ welfare.
The king keeps a blind eye, either because he knows and agrees with what Thaliya does or he has more important things to worry about than what the healing staff does in their free time—I’m not sure which.
Before we begin our lessons for the day, she cups my face between her palms, her gaze softening. “Oh child. You’ve grown into such a strong woman.” I look at her questioningly, not only are her actions out of character, but I usually feel anything but strong. For the most part, I’m still treated like a small child here. “You’ll see, just trust yourself.” She presses a kiss to my forehead and stands back. Her hands find my shoulders and squeeze my arms all the way down to grip my hands in hers, as if she’s seeing me for the first time and the last time all at once.
I suppose that’s how it is. I now know everything and she can be herself around me, fully. I smile back at her, and in this small moment, try to get across how much she means to me. Everything she’s done for me and everything she’s taught me has molded me into the woman I am today.
She leads me toward a sleeping child in a cot. His arms are bandaged from elbows to fingertips. He’s asleep, but the grimace on his small face tells me even in sleep he feels the pain. He has a thin layer of sweat along his brow, creating a halo across the pillow.
“He’s the smithy’s boy. An accident with the flames. He’s burned his hands. When he’s conscious, he worries he won’t be able to help his father in the forge and cries because his father can’t keep up with the king’s incessant demands.”
“That’s a lot of weight on such slight shoulders,” I respond.
She looks at me expectantly, as if there’s something I could do to help this poor boy. I unwrap his bandages to check the damage. His poor tiny hands. Big, angry blisters cover every inch of his palms, all the way up to his elbows. And that’s the best of it. In some spots, it looks as if his skin has melted away completely, giving way only to muscle and bone. The damage is so severe, he clearly won’t be able to help his father any longer, at least not in the way he’s used to. “Should I change his bandages?” I ask, even though his bandages look like they’ve just been tended to.
“I wonder if there’s something more you might do.” She nods, encouraging me. “Go ahead, rest your hands upon his chest, see what you can feel.” She motions toward the sleeping boy.
My eyebrows raise at her request, although now that I think about it, she always begins her examinations like this as well. I’d just assumed this was her way of comforting her patients before checking them over.
This is just like the young girl. My mind goes back to how that felt and I try to replicate it. She’s right, I’m able to begin by using my hands to read what was wrong on the inside.
I rub my hands together to create a little warmth before placing my hands on his chest. I watch him for a moment, silently asking permission before I begin. In his sleep he winces once more, so I move closer, sitting beside him on the cot.
I open the ties of his undershirt so I can access his chest. At first, only the warmth of his skin presses against my hands. Despite his injury, his heart thumps are strong under my fingertips.
I look at Thaliya for some guidance, but she nods for me to continue.
I close my eyes to help guide my focus. At first, nothing happens. Then a small hum begins deep down within my gut. The hum rises within my body and then swiftly moves down to my palms. A warmth washes over me, through my palms, and toward his chest as if I’ve become a cresting wave within the sea. The warmth is still within me, but it's also coursing through him and searching as well. Slowly, I realize I can guide this power moving through me, so I nudge it, urging it closer to his arms.
I gasp with surprise as my arms suddenly burn with all the pain he must be feeling. I push my focus past the fierce pain to keep from letting go. As the pain intensifies, I picture my arms and his own. How they looked when they were whole and unmarred. I picture his skin now blemish free. How his arms must’ve looked before the fire.
Ever so slowly, the burning recedes from my arms. The energy flows back up my body in a swirling wave from my center down to my feet. From there, it dissipates completely.
I open my eyes, hesitant to look at my hands. I’m unsure what to expect after that searing pain. My hands still rest on the boy's chest. I flip my palms up, back and forth, but there is no more pain and my hands appear fine.
I then find the boy’s hands, still resting on top of the loosened bandages. The blisters are gone. His hands are pink, but no longer angry with blisters. I flip his hands over as well, tracing along the lines of his palms, just to be sure. The skin is slightly scarred, but whole.
I look to Thaliya for confirmation of what I just achieved. Her eyes are wide with surprise.
The room begins to spin around her wide eyes and I feel a lightness within me. Darkness swallows the spinning room, and then it swallows me as well.
I awake in a cot with Thaliya sitting by my side and gently tapping against my cheeks. “Wake up, Dear, sweet Rowandine, wake up!” she repeats until my eyes flutter open.
Relieved, she slumps against the back of her chair and grabs my hand to squeeze it tight. “You fainted. You did well, but you fainted. That’ll pass. It’s clearer than ever. You have such a deep strength within you. We’ll continue to grow it and you will do the most impressive things. You just wait.” Her face relaxes with warmth and glows with excitement.
A strength within me? No one’s ever said anything like this to me. The words warm me like thick wool socks on a cold winter night. And suddenly, I feel the humming stirring deep within me again and hope she’s right.
“You’re exhausted. You’ll need to eat more now that you’re training. You must keep your strength up so you can continue to grow, or all will be for naught.” She shoves an apple at me and waits until I take a bite.
Remembering the boy, I sit up quickly and glance around the room. The cot he had previously occupied to my right is now empty. My eyes keep searching the room, expecting to find him somewhere else.
“He’s gone. He went home. He awoke shortly after you healed him and ran back to his father to share his good news. You have saved him as well as his family.”
I fall back into the bed, still lightheaded but relieved he’s okay. He’s more than okay. He’s healed. And I healed him. How in all the stars in the sky was I able to do that?
“He will be just fine, thanks to you. It’s you I’m more worried about. I didn’t think you’d jump all the way in with no direction. You clearly have more natural ability than even I detected. Which will make this both easier and more challenging. You have all the power within you, and from the looks of it, you’re also able to draw power from the earth as well. Now we must learn to harness it all.” She pokes and prods me, moving my limbs and making sure my reflexes are in working order.
Despite my efforts, my eyes close once more. No matter how hard I try to fight it, the curtain of sleep falls silently across my eyes. I drift down into a deep slumber.
The strange dreams return.
I feel the ground beneath me pulsing with a primeval energy, taking the pain I sent back into it and churning it to create something new. It redistributes the energy to find balance. I fall deeper into the earth and my dreams swerve and swirl into a new scene. A moment that seems more like a memory. The edges are sharp and clear rather than blurred like the images before.
I dream. Deeply. Of a small group of women. The power radiating off them like the sun’s rays on a cloudless day. They’re all huddled around a book, planning and laughing together. I see the importance of whatever they’re discussing in the set of their brows and worried glances, but they also seem to enjoy each other’s company. There’s a heaviness lurking unseen but clearly felt in the darkness surrounding them, pressing in from all sides. Suddenly, a warm glow burns from the middle of the circle. It's their hands. Looking closer, on each of their index fingers sits a ring. The glow becomes brighter and brighter.
I wake suddenly, sitting straight up in the cot Thaliya left me on and looking toward my left hand where the three-stoned ring still sits. Without a moment to waste, I discard the blankets wrapped snugly around me and take off back to my rooms.
I limp back to my chambers, cursing my legs for not being able to move faster. I feel as if I’ve spent the day being dragged behind a horse, rather than sleeping the afternoon away in the quiet ward. My muscles ache from being used in a way they’ve never been used. My mind and entire being is exhausted and wrung dry from exerting all my energies on healing that young boy.
And although I can barely stand up straight, I regret no part of today. For the first time since I was a child running through the gardens with Gryphon and Licia at my heels, I feel as if my day was spent exactly as I’d like.
This feeling of making decisions based upon what I desire is something completely foreign to me. I’ve spent my life being shuffled from one point to another, being told how to act, and what to say. I often find my mind has been changed. Not because of my own thoughts, but because someone has told me what to think instead of listening to myself to decide.
Maybe though, just because those thoughts are inside of me, doesn’t mean they are necessarily my own. The realization is foreign but the weight of the truth sits heavy upon me.
Today, I woke up knowing I wanted to learn to defend myself. I woke up knowing it was important to explore the part of me that enjoys healing. Today, I realize these things have been dreams of mine before I even knew to dream. I smile to myself, knowing although today was grueling and painful, the hurt echoes in all the right places. I guess I had to lose myself completely to those around me before I could begin to find myself.
I’ve come so far in just one day. I can't imagine what I’ll feel like days or a week from now. I try to picture my life after I leave the castle. Riding all day out in the fresh, almost-winter sun, sleeping under the stars, Gryphon and me finding our way north like explorers. It sounds like a dream. But I can’t pretend it’ll be all butterflies and flowers. I know what we’re up against. I know it's the real world we’re entering. And it sounds like anyone we meet will have a grudge against the king and anyone related to him. We’ll have to be careful; we’ll have to be ready .
I fling myself onto my bed, reaching under the mattress to pull out my small leather book. I flip through it, searching the pages. The dream reminding me of a page I’ve seen before. It’s one of the first few pages. There, carefully illustrated, is a circle of women. Here, on the page, they’re dancing rather than talking as they were in my dream. But the mood is somehow the same. I can just make out the lines of rings on their fingers.
I could kick myself for not being able to read all the hand-written notes around the picture. I can feel the importance of it. Does this mean there’s others with rings like this? Does my ring belong to someone else? Or is it somehow meant for me?