Three days had passed since the clearing.
The bruise beneath my ribs had faded to an ugly yellow. My lip no longer split when I smiled, and I could close my right hand without pain shooting into my wrist.
Lysandra called that progress.
She did not call it permission.
"If you hit that post again, I'll have it turned into firewood."
I lowered my wooden sword.
Across the training yard, Mira pressed her lips together.
"You're enjoying this," I told her.
"A little."
Lysandra held out her hand.
Reluctantly, I offered my wrist.
She examined it with the same expression she used when someone arrived claiming an injury had healed simply because they were tired of having it.
I had seen that expression several times over the past three days.
Usually directed at me.
"Does this hurt?"
"No."
She pressed somewhere else.
I flinched.
Her eyebrow rose.
"That one does," I admitted.
"How fortunate we discovered it before you decided to challenge a tree."
"I was being careful."
"You were being determined. They aren't always the same thing."
Mira lost her battle with a smile.
I looked at her.
"You could help."
"I am helping. I'm keeping you from lying to the healer."
"Traitor."
"You've only known me properly for three days. You should have checked my character first."
Lysandra released my wrist.
"Footwork. Balance. Nothing that involves striking until I examine this again."
I glanced at the practice post.
"Elara."
"Footwork," I agreed.
She nodded and returned to the hut.
Mira waited until the door closed before holding out her hand.
"What?"
"The sword."
"You don't trust me either?"
"I trust you to decide that one little swing won't count."
I surrendered it.
She looked far too pleased with herself.
---
Training became the shape of my days.
Before work, I practiced stepping around stones Mira arranged in the yard. After work, I repeated turns until I no longer had to look down to know where my feet were.
When Lysandra allowed it, I ran short stretches along the path beside the hut.
Nothing near the clearing.
Nothing alone.
I worked until my legs shook, rested because someone made me, then started again.
At first, I told myself I was preparing for the tournament.
That was only part of it.
Every time I closed my eyes, I could still feel fingers closing in my hair.
I remembered the path being blocked.
The moment I realized that leaving was no longer something I could simply choose to do.
I wanted to become strong enough that it would never happen again.
There was no sensible way to measure that.
So I counted steps instead.
Ten clean turns.
Twenty.
One more without stumbling.
One more until the memory loosened its grip.
Lysandra noticed.
Of course she did.
On the second evening, she found me repeating the same sequence after Mira had already gone inside.
"How many?"
I stopped.
"How many what?"
"Times have you done that?"
"I wasn't counting."
That was a lie.
We both knew it.
She approached slowly and stood beside the stones.
"You're favoring your left side."
"My right side still aches."
"Then your body is telling you something."
I stared down at my boots.
"If I stop every time something hurts, I'll never improve."
"Pain from effort is one thing. Pain from an injury is another. Learn the difference."
I swallowed.
She waited.
Finally, I said, "I don't want to freeze again."
The words sounded smaller aloud.
Lysandra's expression changed.
I wished I hadn't said them.
"I saw them blocking the path," I continued. "I knew what they were doing. And I still stood there trying to think of something to say that would make them let me leave."
"You were looking for a way out."
"I should have shouted."
"Perhaps."
I looked up.
She didn't soften the answer into something easier.
"Perhaps someone would have heard," she said. "Perhaps you'll call sooner if you ever feel threatened again. We can talk about that. But you cannot train yourself into being responsible for what they chose to do."
My throat tightened.
Lysandra nudged one of the stones back into place with her shoe.
"Learning to protect yourself matters. So does allowing yourself to recover."
For a while, I said nothing.
Then I stepped away from the stones.
"Good," she said.
"I hate when you're right."
"You must find me very difficult to live with."
That startled a laugh out of me.
She smiled and led me inside.
---
I didn't know exactly when Mira became my friend.
There was no announcement.
No moment when she held out a hand and asked whether I wanted one.
It happened through small things.
She started setting aside the less chipped cup for me.
I learned that she hated the smell of boiled valerian and would invent reasons to leave the room whenever Lysandra prepared it.
She learned that I ate the edges of bread first.
Apparently, this was unacceptable.
"The middle is the best part," she told me.
"That's why I save it."
"And if someone interrupts you?"
"Then I still have the best part."
She considered that.
"You're strangely stubborn about food."
"I've had practice."
Her expression shifted, but she didn't make me explain.
I liked that about her.
She could be curious without turning every silence into a question.
Sometimes we worked beside each other for half an hour without speaking. At first, I worried I was supposed to fill those spaces.
Then I realized she was comfortable in them.
I began to be comfortable too.
By the third afternoon, she had taken to accompanying me outside with a basket of mending while I practiced.
"I don't need supervising," I told her.
"Good. I'm terrible at it."
She settled beneath the eaves.
A few minutes later, when I rushed a turn and stumbled, she looked up.
"You're doing that thing again."
"What thing?"
"Moving the top half of you before the bottom half has agreed."
I stared at her.
"That is not a proper training term."
"Did you understand it?"
Unfortunately, I had.
I adjusted my stance and tried again.
This time, I stayed balanced.
Mira returned to her sewing.
"You're welcome."
---
Lysandra had reported the attack.
She told me that much the morning after it happened.
A written account had gone to Beta Garrick, along with a record of my injuries. He had asked for the names of the girls who had accompanied Maera, and I had given descriptions where I couldn't give names.
There had been no decision yet.
Waiting was its own kind of discomfort.
Every time footsteps stopped outside the hut, I wondered whether someone had come to tell me I had caused trouble.
Once, Mira found me staring at the doorway.
"She hasn't been here," she said quietly.
I looked at her.
"I wasn't—"
"You don't have to pretend with me."
I let the denial die.
"Has she said anything to you?"
"No. She's been avoiding me."
"Is that unusual?"
"Only when she thinks I know something she would rather keep quiet."
Mira pulled a stool closer.
I looked down at the leaves we were sorting.
"I'm sorry if this makes things worse for you."
She was quiet for a moment.
Then she took the bundle from my hands.
"Elara, I need you to hear me properly."
I looked up.
"Maera was unkind to me before you ever entered that clearing. You haven't caused it, and you aren't responsible for keeping her pleasant."
"She's your sister."
"Yes," she said. "And you're my friend."
I forgot what I had been about to say.
Mira's expression grew uncertain.
"Unless you object."
"No."
The answer came too quickly.
Her mouth curved.
"No," I repeated, more quietly. "I don't object."
"Good. Then you can help your friend finish these before Lysandra notices we've spent more time talking than working."
She returned the herbs.
I bent over them to hide my smile.
For the rest of the afternoon, that one word stayed with me.
Friend.
It felt unfamiliar.
I hoped she would say it again.
---
My wolf began to return in pieces.
Not words.
Not yet.
But when I woke on the third morning, there was a faint warmth beneath my ribs that had nothing to do with the healing bruises.
I lay still, afraid that reaching too quickly would make her withdraw.
Hello.
A quiet movement.
Then nothing more.
I let it be.
Later, while Mira argued that my attempts at footwork resembled an irritated heron, I felt something almost like interest.
It was gone before I could be certain.
But I told Lysandra.
She was grinding dried roots when I mentioned it.
Her hand slowed.
"Did she speak?"
"No."
"Did you feel frightened?"
I shook my head.
"Then let that be enough for today."
I leaned against the table.
"You say that a lot."
"What?"
"That something is enough."
Lysandra resumed grinding.
"You seem to need reminding."
I watched her for a moment.
There were questions I wanted to ask.
Whether she had ever known a wolf to become silent after a dream.
Whether childhood memories could return so vividly that a smell in the woods made them feel present.
Whether she believed me.
But she had listened every time I spoke.
She had never called me foolish.
For today, I tried to let that be enough too.
---
That evening, I completed the footwork sequence twelve times without catching a stone.
On the thirteenth, I clipped one with my heel.
Mira looked up from her mending.
"Tragic."
"I was doing well."
"You still are."
"I hit it."
"Yes. The stone has suffered terribly."
I laughed, then pressed a hand to my side when the movement pulled at the bruise.
Mira immediately straightened.
"I'm fine," I said.
She gave me a look so much like Lysandra's that I pointed at her.
"Don't start."
"Then stop making that face."
"What face?"
"The one people make when they say they're fine and aren't."
I took a breath.
The ache eased.
"Better?"
I nodded.
"Then finish for tonight."
I looked at the stones.
I could do one more clean attempt.
Leave it on something better.
But Lysandra's voice returned to me.
Learn the difference.
I stepped away.
Mira smiled without making a victory of it.
Somehow, that helped.
Inside, Lysandra checked my wrist again. This time, the pressure hurt less.
"Tomorrow," she said, "we can try a few controlled movements with the sword."
I looked up.
"Really?"
"A few."
"How many is a few?"
"Keep negotiating and it becomes none."
Mira laughed into her cup.
For the first time in days, I went home thinking about what I might manage tomorrow instead of what had happened in the clearing.
---
Long after Elara left, Lysandra remained at her worktable.
The hut had settled into its nighttime sounds.
Water simmered above the low hearth. The shutters creaked whenever the wind changed. Somewhere in the rafters, a small creature scratched, paused, then scratched again.
Mira had gone to bed.
Lysandra should have done the same.
Instead, she measured dried leaves into a bowl and checked the list of medicines needed by the patrols.
More salve.
More binding cloth.
Another preparation for fever.
The missing wolves had not returned, and every day brought another request to prepare for injuries no one could explain.
She reached for the pestle.
Her thoughts strayed to Elara in the yard that afternoon.
The girl had stopped when she needed to.
A small thing, perhaps.
Lysandra knew how much effort it had taken.
She crushed the leaves slowly, adding a little oil.
The scent rose sharp and green.
Then changed.
Smoke.
Lysandra lifted her head.
The hearth was burning cleanly.
She looked toward the lamp.
Its flame stood steady.
Still, smoke thickened in her throat.
Her fingers tightened around the pestle.
"No," she whispered.
The room tilted.
The bowl slipped beneath her hand.
And the hut was gone.
---
Heat struck her face.
Lysandra stood in a narrow street beneath a sky darkened by smoke.
A house burned to her left.
Fire poured through its windows, consuming curtains that lifted and curled in the draft. Somewhere beyond it, timber broke with a sound like thunder.
People ran past her.
A man carried someone whose bare feet hung motionless against his legs.
A woman stumbled, recovered, and disappeared between two buildings.
Lysandra turned toward a scream.
She couldn't find its source.
There were too many.
She tried to move.
Her feet carried her nowhere.
The vision held her in place.
She knew that feeling.
The terrible helplessness of being allowed to witness and nothing more.
Then she saw the child.
A little girl stood near the edge of the street, beside a fallen beam.
She wore a pale dress.
One sleeve had slipped from her shoulder. Dirt marked her bare knees, and her hands were clenched so tightly that the fingers looked almost bloodless beneath the soot.
She was crying.
Not quietly.
Great, frightened sobs shook her small body, leaving her gasping between them.
Her mouth moved.
Lysandra couldn't hear what she was saying.
A shower of sparks drifted from the roof overhead.
The girl flinched and covered her head.
Lysandra tried to reach her.
Her hand passed into smoke.
"Move," she said. "Child, you must move."
The girl didn't look up.
Of course she didn't.
Lysandra had no voice here.
No hands that could help.
She could only watch as the child searched the chaos with the desperate certainty that someone ought to come for her.
A shape moved beyond the smoke.
A woman.
Lysandra caught a glimpse of loose hair, a torn sleeve, blood darkening the fabric near an elbow.
Then the burning roof shifted.
The woman vanished behind a curtain of sparks.
The little girl screamed.
Lysandra strained to see through the smoke.
For one instant, the child turned toward her.
Wet cheeks.
Ash caught in her lashes.
Eyes wide with terror.
Then a voice cut through the noise.
"Elara!"
The child's head snapped around.
"Elara, run!"
---
The bowl shattered.
Lysandra caught the edge of the table as the hut rushed back around her.
Her knees struck the stool.
For several seconds, she could do nothing but stand bent over, dragging air into lungs that expected smoke.
The lamp was still burning.
The water still simmered.
Broken pottery lay around her shoes.
She stared at it.
A few crushed leaves clung to the oil spreading between the pieces.
"Elara," she whispered.
Her voice sounded painfully loud.
She pressed a trembling hand against her mouth.
The child's crying lingered.
So did the voice.
Not a name Lysandra had supplied after waking.
Not a resemblance she had tried to find.
Someone had called to the girl.
Elara.
She pulled out the stool and sat before her legs could give way.
The vision was already beginning to loosen.
That was how it happened sometimes. Details sharp enough to hurt would fade while she was still trying to put them in order.
She reached for paper.
Her first attempt at writing left a crooked mark.
Lysandra steadied her hand and tried again.
A child. Pale dress. Burning houses.
She paused.
Fallen beam. Woman with blood on her sleeve.
Her eyes closed.
Elara's voice returned from three mornings earlier.
There was a fire.
Lysandra opened her eyes and wrote the name last.
For a long time, she looked at it.
She had seen too little to know where the street was.
Too little to know when it had burned.
But Elara had described a child, a woman, and flames.
Now Lysandra had stood in the midst of them.
---
A door opened behind her.
"Lysandra?"
Mira stood in the doorway, a shawl gathered around her shoulders.
Her gaze moved from the broken bowl to Lysandra's face.
"What happened?"
Lysandra looked down at her hands.
They were still shaking.
"A vision."
Mira came closer at once.
"Are you hurt?"
"No."
"Do you need water?"
After a moment, Lysandra nodded.
Mira brought a cup, then crouched to gather the larger pieces of pottery.
"Leave those until morning."
"They're beside your feet."
Even now, Lysandra almost smiled.
Mira set the shards safely aside.
"What did you see?"
Lysandra looked toward the paper.
"A child."
Something in her tone made Mira stop.
"Someone we know?"
"I'm not certain."
The answer felt inadequate, but certainty would have been dishonest.
She had not seen the girl grow into the young woman who worked at her table.
She had heard a name.
She had recognized details Elara had already told her.
That was enough to frighten her.
It was not enough to explain anything.
Mira drew up the other chair.
"Was the child hurt?"
"Frightened," Lysandra said. "Terribly frightened."
Mira waited, offering the same patient silence Lysandra had taught her to give their patients.
At last, Lysandra folded the paper.
"If I still look tired in the morning, don't let Elara convince you I need examining."
Mira's expression softened, though concern remained in her eyes.
"She would enjoy that."
"Yes. Far too much."
But after Mira returned to bed, Lysandra stayed at the table.
Beyond the window, the village was dark and quiet.
Somewhere among those buildings, Elara was sleeping.
Lysandra hoped she was sleeping peacefully.
She unfolded the paper and read the details once more.
There were questions to ask tomorrow.
Careful questions.
Questions that would not place Lysandra's memories inside Elara's uncertain ones.
Until then, she would keep what she had seen exactly as it was.
A child in a burning street.
A woman trying to reach her.
And a name that had followed Lysandra back into the light.