Chapter 12 – Packing for Exile
We did not stop until the sun was high and the horses were swaying.
Only then did Rowena raise a fist and lead us off the road into a hollow beneath an ancient yew grove, its branches so thick no snow reached the ground. A frozen stream trickled nearby. The twenty survivors dismounted in near silence; the only sounds were the creak of leather and the ragged breathing of the dying.
I slid from the saddle and the world tilted violently.
The axe wound had clotted in the cold, but every heartbeat forced fresh blood through the frozen crust. My left arm was a dead weight; the fingers had gone purple and would not answer when I tried to close them. Numbness crawled up to the shoulder like frostbite.
Evelyn caught me as my knees buckled.
"Rin. Rin, look at me."
Her voice came from very far away.
She tore my sleeve the rest of the way off. The gash gaped (white tendon shining, muscle shredded, bone scored). Blood welled dark and slow.
Rowena swore. "That's days of work, even for a master healer. We have Tomas."
Tomas (sixteen, freckled, hands shaking) was already kneeling, opening the small healer's kit with fingers that wouldn't stop trembling.
"I—I can close the skin and stop the bleeding," he whispered. "But the deep damage… nerves, tendons… that will take weeks, maybe months. And I'll burn myself out doing even this much."
Evelyn's face went feral.
"Do the skin and the bleeding," she ordered. "Everything you can. Now."
They laid me on a bedroll. Someone built a fire. Evelyn never let go of my right hand.
Tomas began the working.
It was not the clean, golden warmth of storybook healing.
It was pain (raw, tearing, endless).
He sang in the old tongue, voice cracking on every note. Silver runes on his forearms flared white-hot, then bled light into the wound. Flesh crawled together with wet, sucking sounds. Blood slowed to an ooze, then to a seep. Skin knitted in a ragged line, angry red and swollen.
But inside, nothing changed. The deep tissues stayed severed. My fingers stayed cold and dead.
Halfway through, Tomas screamed (a thin, broken sound) and collapsed sideways, runes going black, nose bleeding, eyes rolled back to whites.
Rowena caught him before he hit the ground.
"Enough," she growled. "He's given everything he has. The rest will scar and ache until a true circle can finish it."
Evelyn's grip on my hand was bruising.
I forced my eyes open. The world swam, but her face anchored me.
"I'm still here," I rasped.
She pressed her forehead to mine, tears falling hot onto my cheek.
"You are never allowed to do that again," she whispered, voice splintering. "Never."
I managed a crooked smile. "Occupational hazard."
She laughed once (wet, furious, relieved) and kissed me like she could pour life back into the ruined arm through my mouth alone.
Rowena gave us one minute. Then she was barking orders: fresh horses, bandages soaked in frostroot salve, a sling made from a torn cloak.
When they lifted me back into the saddle behind Evelyn, my left arm was bound tight to my chest, throbbing with every heartbeat, fingers still corpse-white.
But the bleeding had stopped.
And the hand (though useless now) was still attached.
Evelyn reached back, threaded her gloved fingers through my good ones, and squeezed once.
"We'll finish the healing in the north," she said, fierce and certain. "There are circles at Caer Veyral older than the kingdom. They will make you whole again."
I rested my cheek against her back, feeling her heartbeat through layers of wool and steel.
"I already am," I murmured.
She kicked the horse forward.
Eighteen days left.
My arm would hurt like fire for every one of them.
And I would ride through every single one with her (scarred, half-broken, and still the blade she had chosen).
Because some things are worth bleeding for.
And she was worth everything.