11. Chapter 11
The forge door opened and Isla stepped inside, tripping over a loose cobblestone she’d avoided a hundred times before. Her brain felt like someone had turned the volume up unbearably loud, even as the thick heat of the forge wrapped her in its soothing familiarity.
Oren’s low voice greeted her from across the room, where he stood shining a blade behind the counter. Isla rubbed her wrist absentmindedly. She could still feel the warmth where Vaelin’s fingers had been, her skin now strangely cool in their absence.
Oren scanned her face, his brows knitting. “Isla?”
“Vaelin — that fae,” she said, “He found me again, in the forest.”
She began to pace the uneven stone floor, the warmth in the room settling on her shoulders like a comforting blanket.
She twisted her ring anxiously as she recounted Vaelin’s tale to Oren, fingers running over the smooth, plain stone.
When she’d finished, both her breathing and thoughts had slowed, as though the retelling in the familiar environment of the forge had helped ground her.
But still, a gnawing tension scraped at the back of her neck, mingling with the growing unease she’d become so accustomed to.
Oren stood silent, a statue in the storm, arms folded across his chest.
“I know,” she said, reading the skepticism in his expression, “But he said this illness has made it all the way to Vaelora, potentially into the other realms. The fae don’t get sick, Oren.
” She curled her fingers into fists, annoyed to find them shaking slightly.
“People are dying. It’s moving so fast. It’s not responding well to treatment —”
“I know,” he cut her off, his expression grim.
“But why me? How could this have anything to do with me?” she asked no one in particular, turning her palms up in a pleading gesture. “I’m just… I’m just another healer. There are dozens of healers.”
Oren offered no explanation, holding her gaze as her thoughts spun. She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes until tiny stars appeared behind her eyelids.
Oren’s voice cut through her spiralling thoughts, “So, you’re not going?”
Isla let out a sharp laugh of disbelief, “To Dunovar? Are you out of your mind? I have responsibilities here, Oren. I can’t just drop everything to follow someone I just met halfway across the continent on a whim.”
“You could see Lyra,” he said quietly.
Isla’s stomach twisted sharply, an old wound grazed.
“Bold of you to assume she’d speak to me,” she noted, voice tight.
“It would be nice to see her,” she conceded, thoughts drifting to the last time she’d spoken to her younger sister — they had not parted on the best of terms. Then she shook her head, dismissing the option.
“No, I can’t just drop everything and leave. ”
“Isla…” Oren began, dragging a scarred hand over his short-cropped, black hair. “You are important in Rowanmere. People depend on you, and you are one of our best healers.” His brown eyes pierced her with a meaningful stare, “But you are not our only healer.”
She frowned, crossing her arms as if to protect herself, that persistent feeling of unease creeping up her neck.
Oren sighed, drumming his fingers on the worn counter. “I don’t need to tell you that your responsibilities are self-imposed. No one expects you to be everything to everyone. And since your parents… it’s gotten worse. You’re taking on too much.”
Isla winced, as though he’d reopened a freshly sealed wound. She swallowed, fighting to tamp down the mixture of anger and anguish that threatened to drown her.
Oren continued, his voice low and measured. “Your self-sacrifice can be admirable, but it comes at a cost, Isla. How long has it been since you slept a full night? Took a day off? Larissa and the others can take on more, but you don’t let them,” he pushed, concern bleeding into his tone.
Isla stiffened, shifting at the uncomfortable truths as they settled beneath her skin like needles.
“They say healers make the worst patients. How much longer can you keep working yourself to the bone before you break?”
“So you’re saying I should go?” she said, eager to steer the conversation onto another path.
Oren shook his head. “I’m not telling you what to do. That’s your decision to make, and I’ll support you either way. I’m just asking you to consider whether you’re truly as anchored here as you think you are.”
“I can’t just abandon everyone, Oren. Half the town is sick —”
“—with an illness you cannot cure,” he countered. “Unless… you can.”
Isla blinked, her lips parting for a response she didn't have.
“You told me once, after Lyra left, that Dunovar was a haven for scholars like her - full of logic and meticulously kept historical records. You said Lyra might finally feel at home there. If the fae healers haven’t found a way to cure this illness, and our healers can only slow its symptoms…“
“The Scholars may be our last hope,” Isla finished, numbly.
Oren stepped out from behind the counter.
“You asked, why you?” He shrugged, “I don’t know.
” He settled his hands comfortably on her shoulders and gave them a gentle squeeze.
“What I do know is that you are a healer to your core. So, what does that mean to you? Are you called to treat those in Rowanmere alone? Or, does being a healer mean doing everything you can to find a cure that could heal the entire continent?”
Isla's chest squeezed and she loosed a shaky breath, comforted by the solid weight of his hands at her shoulders. Thoughts warred within her, each coming faster than the last. Her responsibilities to her family, the town, her patients, the other healers. But… didn’t she owe it to them all to do everything she could to find a cure?
Assuming there was one... She had no idea why or how she had been drawn into this, but she pictured Vaelin in her mind, an ominous, prophetic storm cloud.
“Finding you was no coincidence,” she whispered, without context.
Oren merely squeezed her shoulders again. “Whatever you decide,” he said.
And she nodded, grateful.
An hour later, Isla stood at the workbench that leaned against the side of her home, deep grooves carved into the wooden table from years of use by both Isla and her mother before her.
An array of glass jars and herbs adorned the small shelves, carved directly into the stone wall of the cottage.
She reached for a bottle as leaves whispered over the rooftops, the willow that stretched overhead swaying in the gentle breeze.
Despite the evening nearing, the summer humidity hung thick in the air, and Isla relished the cool shade the ancient tree provided.
She moved through the familiar motions with ease, bundling and hanging herbs to dry.
She chopped others into smaller pieces, grinding them in a mortar and pestle before transferring them into jars where they would be steeped in boiling water or mixed with oil to make salves and ointments.
She sighed, surveying her work, flexing her stiff and reddened fingers.
Five bottles of silverleaf, two of lavender oil, and one of valerian root and moonleaf.
She reached for the small amount of crushed sage and willowbark she’d managed to gather.
Not enough, she thought grimly. Frowning, she rolled her neck in an effort to ease the tension that seemed to have made its permanent home in the centre of her upper back.
An almost unnoticeable shift in the wind kissed the back of her neck, leaves crunching softly under the weight of footfalls. Isla sighed. “You again,” she said, without looking up.
“What are you doing?” Vaelin asked.
“Working. And you’re lurking. Again.”
Glancing over her shoulder, she saw that he leaned casually against the willow, watching her.
His hair shifted lightly in the breeze that seemed to curl around him.
The layer of dust she had noted earlier on his clothes had dulled the leather of his jerkin and vambraces.
Dirt marred the cuffs of his tunic, and a thick crust of mud clung to his boots.
Only the weapon at his hip defied the miles he had travelled, its steel gleaming as the dying sunlight glanced off its edge.
He remained annoyingly expressionless, eyes flickering over her workbench.
“You’re wasting time,” he said. “We need to leave.”
Isla marvelled at his entitlement as she turned back to her workbench, shaking her head. The wind picked up, the willows branches groaning quietly as they swayed. Gravel crunched beneath heavy footfalls at her back.
"Cough. Swelling. Fever. Death,” he intoned in time with each step he took, the words striking her like physical blows. "No treatment beyond a modest slowing of symptoms. We need answers, and Dunovar is our last hope for a cure. You are our last hope.”
His voice was low and laced with an emotion she couldn’t quite place.
She gripped the edge of the workbench, her nails digging into the worn wood as she said nothing.
She willed her hammering pulse to slow, the breath to keep flowing through her lungs as her throat constricted.
Villagers flashed through her mind: Neve, bedridden as the fever ravaged her small body.
Gerard and Vera, whose coughs had worsened, burrowing into their lungs.
Hannah, Clive, Luke and Leona and their new babe.
Oren, Blake, and Cael... Lyra. She squeezed her eyes shut as she pictured her younger sister.
Had the illness made it across the sands?
Vaelin's voice low and urgent, tinged with something like furious desperation. “You say there are people here you love, people who you are responsible for. What kind of healer would leave them to suffer — to die — when there may be a cure?”
The accusation snapped something in Isla and she whirled, piercing him with a glare. He was closer than she’d thought, and she tamped down on the urge to startle, pressing her back against the edge of the workbench.
This close, his eyes seemed to swirl with clouds, a storm threatening to break. She swallowed.
“No one has died,” she said.
He sighed, his breath ghosting over her face. “Not yet,” he ceded, eyes drifting over her face, snagging on her eyes for a moment. “But they will. And I expect you’ll take it personally when they do.”
He held her stare for what felt like an age, the air thickening with tension. His chest rose and fell with measured, even breaths and that muscle feathered in his jaw again, just visible beneath the thin layer of stubble that dusted his face.
He turned away abruptly, the spell broken.
When he'd reached the willow again, he called over his shoulder, “I leave at dawn for The Pass. I’ll meet you at the inn in the morning.”
“Your audacity is astonishing,” she snapped.
He paused then, one hand splayed on the trunk of the ancient tree, the other where it seemed to habitually rest on the hilt of his weapon. He glanced over his shoulder briefly, and then he was gone, cloak trailing behind him like a shadow, taking the wind with him.