Chapter 22 #2
The surgeon who’s been taking care of Lyric, Biel, arrives just as River and Amado do, and River calls to her, “Is it Lyric Aharté the welcome surgeon has come to find?”
Biel pauses and bows. She’s a tall scarecrow of a woman, finely and simply dressed, with short hair slicked back in a solid shell. Her assistant bows hastily, too. The younger healer is skittish and awkward until blood appears, then calms almost preternaturally.
“Yes, small king,” Biel says.
“Allow an escort,” an says, gesturing to ans chest. “Amado, go to the great hall. This River will bring Lyric when the physicians finish.”
“Chimera is glad to take advantage of River’s hospitality,” Amado says lightly, and the second-in-command of River’s combat-mercenaries splits off to lead the Chimera contingent, and another dashes away to alert Roc of their arrival. Roc will entertain Amado until River and Lyric arrive.
“What is the status of healing in Rivermouth?” River asks as an and Biel fall into step.
River leads her the most direct route, using a series of narrow wooden bridges looping over the first courtyards of ans fortress.
Though in ans mother’s day, every wall raised high and the courtyards were enclosed by security nets and force-domes, River prefers a more open aesthetic and rebuilt the Rivermouth fortress as if there were no wars to worry about, no assassinations, no regular violence near and in ans home.
With the hope Roc prized so highly—the hope that had long fed River’s soul—River designed a home an could love.
Then an hired the finest combat-designers an could find, using the substantial water rights profits, to have ans fortress design map redesigned to be nearly impenetrable by aggressive design.
Eliri had approved everything, treating the project as though the fortress were a giant human subject to be analyzed.
(River lives to interest Eliri, because when she is interested she sleeps better, she leans into an more, she loses the haunted edge from her gaze.)
The Rivermouth fortress looks like a wide-open paradise of water gardens and courtyards, lifting bridges, ponds and spiral stories, all built for natural beauty, but to the designer’s gaze it’s intricately protected.
Lyric lives in a small private courtyard with a rock-and-gravel garden alongside a plain grass meadow.
His rooms have a central circle window and a broad porch, as well as a small private kitchen, though Lyric has already asked to join the household in the shared kitchens for meals as soon as he’s allowed by this very healer.
Biel gives River a knowing look, then answers, “All is as River king has no doubt read in recent reports.”
“And Biel’s expert opinion?”
“Bodies heal apace, feelings and minds much more slowly.”
“Because it was a festival disrupted?”
“Because there is no enemy. What justice can there be when the spider mines were left over from a war eight years finished?” The physician shrugs one shoulder.
River sweeps heavy hair over ans shoulder, careful to flick the mass so the feathers fall smoothly. An believes there is an enemy, and Chimera is here to tell an who. But if Amado is being so cagey, it won’t be an answer for the majority of people so much as a problem for a secret few to solve.
River, Biel, and her assistant find Lyric meditating in the grass of his courtyard, seated beside the small peace pool designed with an especially intricate array in the tiles to obfuscate the energy caused by ripples and negate them.
Toss a pebble into the water, and within the space of a single breath, any ripples smooth into glass-like stillness.
River thought Lyric would appreciate it.
“Is Lyric Aharté ready to see?” Biel calls by way of greeting.
Lyric turns and opens his unbandaged eye. With a gentle smile, he stands. “Welcome,” he says. “River,” he adds.
The young man wears a simple robe that falls past his knees and a pleated skirt, both in soft pink.
The color warms his taboo fairy skin. Under the afternoon sun, his shaved head gleams where scars have already formed in starbursts from the left side of his face, which is covered by a broad eyepatch bandaged loosely against his head.
The bruises have healed, and most of the abrasions are sleek new skin or shallow scars, no longer dark with scab or slick with ointment.
An additional few scars peek from the collar of his robe and slice down his left shoulder and upper arm.
River has seen the damage to his upper back as well, where the scars will remain substantial without additional surgery.
Since he woke up, Lyric spends hours stretching and moving through slow combat formations and apparently has already regained most of his movement.
Biel claims if he keeps it up, he’ll never even be sore in the winters.
The only thing they’re waiting on is for his donated eye to fully communicate with his brain and see all the details of the world.
“Inside,” Biel says. “River can be sent away, as well.”
River wants to stay, and meets Lyric’s gaze. The other shakes his head. “Lyric does not mind the benefactor’s presence.”
Biel sighs in what is nearly a snort and waves her assistant on. The assistant hurries into Lyric’s room first with the box of supplies to begin setting up.
“Would Lyric like to see it today?” Biel asks Lyric.
“Lyric hasn’t seen it?” River can’t help interjecting.
“Waiting for the eye to… see itself,” Lyric says with a tone that’s nearly shy.
“Has Lyric Aharté practiced the strengthening exercises this physician recommended?” Biel asks.
Lyric leads them up the shallow steps to his porch. “Yes. All feels strong, sensitive. When washing this morning there was color in addition to light, but this priest waited.”
Biel nods approvingly.
“Lyric does not mind if River sees the new eye even if Lyric does not?” River says in ans best bored drawl.
Lyric smiles again. The blood-red flecks in his fairy eye seem to spark. He says, “River’s eyes are more interesting than these.”
Inside, Biel instructs Lyric to sit on the bed and relax while she takes his force pulse and his heart pulse, then has her assistant remove the bandage and patch, while Lyric keeps both eyes closed.
He is to open both at once, so that neither adjusts separately but they work in conjunction as eyes are supposed to.
River takes it upon anself to fetch the round mirror from its stand on the wash basin in the small bathing room attached. But first Biel shoos an back. She tells Lyric to slowly look at her with both eyes.
Lyric takes a deep breath and does so. His lids flutter, and he locks his gaze onto Biel. “It’s blurry, but not more so than after a long sleep or rubbing.”
“Pain?”
“Muscle ache, nothing acute.”
“Focus on this finger,” Biel says, lifting a stick-thin cool brown finger. She moves it slowly and Lyric follows.
River cannot look away.
Though River has spent little time in the presence of Iriset Sunderer, seeing her bright gold-brown eye against the skin of Lyric’s face, beside that red-flecked fairy eye, is stunning.
It takes considerable willpower for River to remain still.
In the scheme of aesthetic redesign in the crater city, this is very small, but knowing the circumstances makes it amazing.
Eliri whispered to River, before the Moon-Eater dragged her away, that Eliri could not have done it, no matter how desperately she’d have wanted to save River, had their places been changed.
“Instinct, River. Iriset acted as the Moon-Eater might, not as a designer. Not science, but desperation. It should not work,” she’d added, breathless.
Eliri does not get breathless. River had been jealous not to be the cause.
Biel uses an everflame stylus to test Lyric’s reactions to light, then holds up a series of cards and asks his opinion on colors and shapes.
She has him close one eye and then the other, then has him focus out the window on farther-away objects before focusing again on her cards.
She nods sharply. “Very well, this physician is satisfied. Lyric Aharté ought to look at the donation.”
Lyric glances immediately at River, who steps into the space Biel hastily abandoned. An stands with the mirror raised to ans chest where it will be level with Lyric’s face as he perches on the bed.
Lyric’s mouth drops open on a fast gasp, and his fingers dig into his own knees. “Iriset!” he whispers hard and fast, then leans nearer to the mirror. He raises a hand and nearly touches his own new eye before twitching his whole face back.
River shoves the mirror at Biel and sits down next to him, taking Lyric’s hand in a death grip. Lyric is cold, and trembling. He looks desperately at River. He says something in the fairy language, and River hears his wife’s name.
“No one explained?” River asks, though it is less a question for obvious reasons. An tries to be gentle. An hadn’t been explicit, either.
“I knew—Lyric knew Iriset operated suddenly, fast in the street. Saved my—this—life with surgery, but not that the eye is… Is Iriset well?” He stumbles through Sarenpet, twisting to seek out the mirror.
River squeezes his hand. “Eliri says Iriset Sunderer is recovered, excited to design a new eye.”
Lyric, staring in the mirror as though haunted by it, laughs softly, but it is a hollow laugh. “Yes,” he murmurs.
“Don’t cry,” Biel orders suddenly, and it’s true, tears redden the edges of Lyric’s donated eye, the lip of the bottom lid darkening.
Tearing away from the mirror and River, Lyric covers his eyes with cupped hands. “Apologies.”
Biel and her assistant pack up. River remains quiet as Lyric struggles to breathe his long, regular meditations.