And the darkness above her … it was different from what she had spied in Lord Westfall’s body. The opposite of that blackness. The darkness above her was that of creation, of rest, of unformed thought.
Yrene stared into it, into the womb of Silba herself. And could have sworn she felt something staring back. Listening, while she thought through all Lord Westfall had told her.
Things out of ancient nightmares. Things from another realm. Demons. Dark magics. Poised to unleash themselves upon her homeland. Even in the soothing, warm waters, Yrene’s blood chilled.
On those northern, far-off battlefields, she had expected to treat stab wounds and arrows and shattered bones. Expected to treat any of the diseases that ran rampant in army camps, especially during the colder months.
Not wounds from creatures that destroyed soul as well as body. That used talons and teeth and poison. The maleficent power coiled around the injury to his spine … It was not some fractured bone or tangled-up nerves. Well, it technically was, but that fell magic was tied to it. Bound to it.
She still could not shake the oily feel, the sense that something inside it had stirred. Awoken.
The ringing of the bells flowed and ebbed, lulling her mind to rest, to open.
She’d go to the library tonight. See if there was any information regarding all the lord had claimed, if perhaps someone before her had any thoughts on magically granted injuries.
Yet it would not be an injury that solely relied upon her to heal.
She’d suggested as much before leaving. But to battle that thing within him … How?
Yrene mouthed the word into the steam and dark, into the ringing, bubbling quiet.
She could still see her probe of magic recoiling, still feel its repulsion from that demon-born power. The opposite of what she was, what her magic was. In the darkness hovering overhead, she could see it all. In the darkness far above, tucked into Silba’s earthly womb … it beckoned.
As if to say, You must enter where you fear to tread.
Yrene swallowed. To delve into that festering pit of power that had latched itself onto the lord’s back …
You must enter, the sweet darkness whispered, the water singing along with it while it flowed around and past her. As if she were swimming in Silba’s veins.
You must enter, it murmured again, the darkness above seeming to spread, to inch closer.
Yrene let it. And let herself stare deeper, move deeper, into that dark.
To fight that festering force within the lord, to risk it for some test of Hafiza’s, to risk it for a son of Adarlan when her own people were being attacked or battling in that distant war and every day delayed her … I can’t.
You won’t, the lovely darkness challenged.
Yrene balked. She had promised Hafiza to remain, to heal him, but what she’d felt today … It could take an untold amount of time. If she could even find a way to help him. She’d promised to heal him, and though some injuries required the healer to walk the road with their patient, this injury of his—
The darkness seemed to recede.
I can’t, Yrene insisted.
It did not answer again. Distantly, as if she were now far away, a bell rang, clear and pure.
Yrene blinked at the sound, the world tumbling into focus. Her limbs and breath returning, as if she’d drifted above them.
She peered at the darkness—finding only smooth, veiling black. Hollow and empty, as if it had been vacated. There, and gone. As if she had repelled it, disappointed it.
Yrene’s head spun slightly as she sat up, stretching limbs that had gone a bit stiff, even in the mineral-rich water. How long had she soaked?
She rubbed at her slick arms, heart thundering as she scanned the darkness, as if it might still have another answer for what she must do, what lay before her. An alternative.
None came.
A sound shuffled through the cavern, distinctly not ringing or trickling or lapping. A quiet, shuddering intake of breath.
Yrene turned, water dripping off the errant strands of hair that had escaped the knot atop her head, and found another healer had entered the Womb at some point, claiming a tub on the opposite end of the parallel rows flanking either side of the chamber. With the drifting veils of steam, it was nearly impossible to identify her, though Yrene certainly didn’t know the name of every healer in the Torre.
The sound rasped through the Womb again, and Yrene sat up farther, hands bracing on the cool, dark floor as she stood from the water. Steam curled off her skin as she reached for the thin robe and tied it around her, the fabric clinging to her soaked body.
The Womb’s protocol was well established. It was a place for solitude, for silence. Healers entered the waters to reconnect with Silba, to center themselves. Some sought guidance; some sought absolution; some sought to release a hard day’s worth of emotions they could not show before patients, perhaps could not show before anyone.
And though Yrene knew the healer across the Womb was entitled to her space, though she was prepared to leave and grant the healer privacy to weep …
The woman’s shoulders shook. Another muffled sob.
On near-silent feet, Yrene approached the healer in the tub. Saw the rivulets down her young face—her light brown skin and gold-kissed umber hair nearly identical to Yrene’s own. Saw the bleakness in the woman’s tawny eyes as she gazed at the darkness high above, tears dripping off her slender jaw and into the rippling water.
There were some wounds that could not be healed. Some illnesses that even the healers’ power could not stop, if rooted too deeply. If they had come too late. If they did not mark the right signs.
The healer did not look at her as Yrene silently sat beside her tub, curling her knees to her chest before she picked up the healer’s hand and interlaced their fingers.
So Yrene sat there, holding the healer’s hand while she silently wept, the drifting steam full of the clear, sweet ringing of those bells.
After untold minutes, the woman in the tub murmured, “She was three years old.”
Yrene squeezed the healer’s damp hand. There were no words to comfort, to soothe.
“I wish …” The woman’s voice broke, her entire body shaking, candlelight jumping along her beige skin. “Sometimes I wish this gift had never been given to me.”
Yrene stilled at the words.
The woman at last turned her head, scanning Yrene’s face, a flicker of recognition in her eyes. “Do you ever feel that way?” A raw, unguarded question.
No. She hadn’t. Not once. Not even when the smoke of her mother’s immolation had stung her eyes and she knew she could do nothing to save her. She had never once hated the gift she’d been given, because in all those years, she had never been alone thanks to it. Even with magic gone in her homeland, Yrene had still felt it, like a warm hand clasping her shoulder. A reminder of who she was, where she had come from, a living tether to countless generations of Towers women who had walked this path before her.
The healer searched Yrene’s eyes for the answer she wanted. The answer Yrene could not give. So Yrene just squeezed the woman’s hand again and stared into the darkness.
You must enter where you fear to tread.
Yrene knew what she had to do. And wished she didn’t.
“Well? Has Yrene healed you yet?”
Seated at the high table in the khagan’s great hall, Chaol turned to where Princess Hasar sat several seats down. A cooling breeze that smelled of oncoming rain flowed through the open windows to rustle the white death-banners hanging from their upper frames.
Kashin and Sartaq glanced their way—the latter giving his sister a disapproving frown.
“Talented as Yrene may be,” Chaol said carefully, aware that many listened even without acknowledging them, “we are only in the initial stages of what will likely be a long process. She left this afternoon to do some research at the Torre library.”
Hasar’s lips curled into a poisoned smile. “How fortunate for
you, that we shall have the pleasure of your company for a while yet.”
As if he’d willingly stay here for a moment longer.
But Nesryn answered, still glowing from hours again spent with her family that afternoon, “Any chance for our two lands to build bonds is a fortunate one.”
“Indeed,” was all Hasar said, and went back to picking at the chilled tomato-and-okra dish on her plate. Her lover was nowhere to be seen—but neither was Yrene. The healer’s fear earlier … he’d been able to almost taste it in the air. But sheer will had steadied her—will and temper, Chaol supposed. He wondered which would win out in the end.
Indeed, some small part of him hoped Yrene would stay away, if only to avoid what she so heavily implied they’d also be doing: talking. Discussing things. Himself.
He’d make it clear to her tomorrow that he could heal just fine without it.