Transmutation
Five days. Five days of sitting beside Rion’s bed, watching him stare at the ceiling or the wall or the fire, anywhere but at her.
Lark came every morning and stayed until evening.
She brought him food from the guesthouse kitchens, meals that Pippa had carefully selected for their restorative properties.
She brought him water and tea and a pile of books that sat on the table beside his bed, unread.
This last concerned her far more than she was willing to admit.
She brought him news of the others, of Noctis, of the city beyond the healing halls.
She brought him everything she could think of except the one thing he actually needed.
And what that thing might be, she simply didn't know.
He responded in monosyllables. Yes. No. Thank you.
His voice was flat and uninflected, the words emerging as if from a great distance.
He was polite in the way that strangers are polite, courteous in a way that required nothing of him.
When she spoke, he listened, or at least appeared to listen, his single eye fixed on the wall that seemed to hold more interest than her face.
The man who had reached for her that first morning, whose hand had lifted from the blanket in an instinctive gesture of connection, had retreated so far into himself that she could no longer find him.
She sat in the chair beside his bed, talked to fill the silence, watched him not watch her, and each day she left feeling more bereft than the day before.
On the fifth evening, she returned to the guesthouse and sat in the common room, staring at nothing while Pippa and Darian exchanged worried glances over her head.
Noctis padded over and rested his head on her knee, whining softly, and she buried her fingers in his fur, trying to feel anything other than helplessness.
She didn’t know what to do. Fighting she understood.
Running she understood. Years of survival had taught her how to face enemies and escape danger, to keep herself alive against impossible odds.
But this? Watching someone she cared about disappear into themselves while she sat uselessly beside them?
There were no enemies to fight here. No threat to outrun.
Just Rion, hollow and distant, and her own growing dejection.
The feelings were starkly familiar and ones she wished she could just ignore. But that was simply not an option.
That night, she lay awake for hours, Noctis warm at her feet, and tried to think of someone who might have answers. Someone who understood healing and trauma and the locked doors of the mind.
By morning, she had decided.
The fourth terrace was easy enough to find.
Lark followed the winding streets upward, past workshops and greenhouses and homes built into the mountainside, until she reached the address on Morena’s parchment.
The house was modest, constructed of the same gray stone as everything else in Springhope, with window boxes full of early spring herbs and a door painted a deep green that had faded slightly in the mountain sun.
She stood outside for longer than she should have, her hand raised to knock, her courage threatening to fail her.
But she was not here for herself. She was here because Morena was a healer and might have advice about reaching someone who did not want to be reached.
That was the justification she had constructed during the walk up, the reason she could offer if anyone asked.
The truth was more complicated, as the truth usually was.
She knocked.
Morena answered almost immediately, as though she had been waiting nearby. Her expression shifted from surprise to hope and finally cautious pleasure in the space of a heartbeat.
“Larkindel. Please come in.”
The interior was warm and cluttered in the way of someone who lived alone and accumulated the detritus of a full life.
Books lined the walls, interspersed with jars of dried herbs and small, curious objects that caught the light.
A fire burned in the hearth, and two chairs sat before it, and on a small table between them a pot of tea steamed gently as though Morena had known to prepare it.
Perhaps she had.
“Sit,” Morena said, gesturing to a chair. “Please.”
Lark sat. This time, when Morena offered her a cup of tea, she accepted it. The warmth seeped into her hands, and she found herself grateful for something to focus on other than the conversation she had come to have.
Morena settled into the opposite chair and waited. She did not press, did not fill the silence with questions or pleasantries. She simply sat with her own cup cradled in her hands and let Lark find her own way to speaking.
“I need advice,” Lark said finally. “About Rion.”
“The fire witch. Your companion.” Morena’s voice was carefully composed. “How is he?”
“Alive. Healing. His body, at least.” Lark stared into her tea.
“But he won’t talk to me. Won’t look at me.
I sit with him for hours every day, and he responds to everything I say with one word or none at all.
It’s like he’s not even there anymore. Like whatever they did to him hollowed him out and left nothing behind but politeness or silence. ”
She had not meant to say so much. The words spilled out of their own accord, carrying more feeling than she had intended to reveal.
“You’ve been visiting him every day,” Morena said.
“Yes.”
“And you feel you’re failing him, like there should be more you can do to bring him back, and you’re not doing it.”
Lark’s hands tightened around her cup. “I don’t know how to help him. I’ve never known how to help anyone. This …” She shook her head. “I don’t know what to do with this.”
Morena was quiet. When she spoke again, her voice was gentle but direct.
“You care for him. As more than just a companion or a fellow traveler.”
The words touched a sore spot. Lark’s first instinct was to deny it, to deflect, to wrap herself in the familiar armor of detachment. But she was tired, and Morena’s eyes were kind. Maybe after everything she was finally learning that not every truth needed to be hidden.
She said nothing, which seemed to be confirmation enough.
“I thought so.” Morena set down her tea and leaned forward slightly. “Larkindel, what you’re feeling right now, this helplessness, this sense that you’re failing him, it’s normal. It’s what happens when you care about someone who is suffering and you can’t make the suffering stop.”
“I should be able to do something.”
“You are doing something. You’re showing up. Every day, you sit beside him and let him know that he’s not alone. That matters more than you realize.”
“It doesn’t feel like it matters. It feels like I’m talking to a wall.”
“I know.” Morena’s voice was soft with understanding.
“But healing from trauma isn’t a straight line.
It’s not a wound you can stitch closed and watch mend day by day.
The mind protects itself by shutting down, by retreating from anything that might cause more pain.
What you’re seeing isn’t rejection. It’s self-preservation. ”
Lark looked up. “You said his magic closed itself away. A door locked from the inside.”
“Yes. And in a sense, he’s now done the same thing with everything else.
His emotions, his connections, his ability to be present with the people who care about him.
It's all retreated to the same safe place his magic went.” Morena paused.
“He’s not pushing you away because he doesn’t want you there.
He’s pushing everyone away because he doesn’t know how to be present yet.
The wanting will come back. But it takes time. ”
“How much time?”
“I don’t know. Everyone heals differently. Weeks. Turns. Perhaps longer.” Morena must have seen the disappointment in Lark’s expression, because she added, “I know that’s not the answer you wanted.”
“No. It isn’t,” Lark said. “So if I can’t fix this, if I can’t make it better, is there anything I actually can do?”
“Keep showing up.” Morena’s voice was firm now, certain. “Keep being there. Demand nothing from him, don’t expect him to respond, just let him know that you’re not going anywhere. Eventually, when he’s ready, he’ll reach for you. And you need to be there when he does.”
Keep showing up. It sounded so simple. So passive.
Everything in Lark rebelled against it, against the idea of sitting and waiting while Rion suffered.
But she had no better answer. And Morena had been a healer her entire life.
If anyone understood how broken people put themselves back together, it was she.
“All right,” Lark said quietly. “I’ll keep showing up.”
Morena smiled, small and sad, but not without pride. “Good.”
The tension in the room softened. Lark realized she had been holding herself in check since she arrived, braced for something, though she could not have said what. Now that tension had eased. She took a sip of her tea and found it had cooled to exactly the right temperature.
“Can I ask you a question?” The words spilled out before she had fully decided to speak them.
“Of course.”
“My mother. What was she like?” Lark paused. “I don’t know who she was. Not really. I loved her, but she could be distant, as if she were troubled by things I didn’t understand. Now I know why, but as a child …”
Morena’s expression changed, tenderness surfacing in her eyes. “You want to know the person, not the mother.”
“Yes.”
Morena settled back in her chair, her gaze drifting to the fire.
“Alisse was serious. That’s what everyone noticed first about her.
Even as a child, she was solemn, focused, always thinking three steps ahead of everyone else.
Our mother used to say she was born old, that she’d never been young a day in her life. ”
“That sounds lonely.”