Ch. 210 What Liora Chose

Chapter 210: What Liora Chose

Liora was packing when Evelyn found her.

She had laid her needles in their cloth roll and set the jars of salve beside her travel bag.

“I thought you were staying until the treatment room had walls,” Evelyn said.

“That might be a while.”

“It might.”

“I’ve been here longer than I told Southmere I would be.”

Evelyn sat on the bench beside her.

“I wrote to Ressa yesterday. She says the healer covering your visits is managing, though she expects you home eventually.”

“Eventually is an uncertain word.”

“I know.”

Liora tied the needle roll.

“Is there something you came to ask?”

“Yes. I would like you to work at the new chapel.”

Liora’s hands went still.

“The teaching?” she asked.

“And the care. You see things I don’t, and people listen when you tell them why a method works.”

“I have patients in Southmere.”

“I know. I’m asking whether there’s a way to serve them and work here. You might visit regularly. Someone from here could take lessons back.”

Liora considered the jars on the bench.

“Did Mary put this on a page already?”

“No.”

“That will trouble her.”

“She can write down your answer when you have one.”

Liora looked toward the open chapel door.

“I need to speak with the people at home.”

“Of course,” Evelyn said.

She stood.

“I wanted you to know the offer was there before you finished packing.”

I met Evelyn outside.

“How did she take it?”

“She hasn’t answered.”

“Will she?”

“When she has spoken to Southmere.”

I glanced back at the bench.

“She knows you want her.”

“Yes.”

“Was that difficult to say?”

“A little.”

I took her hand.

“Then I’m glad you said it.”

Across the yard, Dorian was examining the new cover Perrin had made for the western beacon.

He held it up to the light, turning it until he found a seam.

Perrin saw his expression.

“It won’t let rain through,” he said.

“I haven’t said anything.”

“You found the seam.”

“I’m checking whether you meant to leave it.”

Perrin took the cover back and looked at it himself.

By midday, Liora had postponed her departure.

She sent Ressa a letter asking whether Southmere could spare her for part of each month. Evelyn offered to send a second healer with her when she traveled home.

Ilyen read the proposal.

“I would like to go,” she said.

“You’ve been before?” Liora asked.

“Only for market day.”

“That doesn’t count. You saw the square.”

“I would like to see more.”

Liora smiled.

“You will.”

She folded the letter.

“I haven’t accepted the position.”

“I know,” Ilyen said. “I still want to go.”

Aurelia found Liora washing the teaching cloths later that afternoon.

Thesra was with her.

I had come for Evelyn and stopped at the doorway when I heard Liora say, “I do not want someone else deciding what I can promise.”

“Neither do we,” Aurelia replied.

They saw me.

“You may come in,” Liora said. “They’re making an offer.”

I entered.

“What sort?”

“A blessing,” Thesra said. “If Liora wants it, we may be able to strengthen her healing.”

I looked at Liora.

She wrung out a cloth.

“That is the part I’m willing to hear more about.”

They sat at the clean table.

Aurelia explained what she could give.

A blessing might let Liora sense when an injury was mending badly and lend a little of her own strength to healing it. Thesra could help her recognize where illness had spread through a body.

“It would not tell you every cause,” Thesra said.

“And it would not replace what you already know,” Aurelia added.

“What happens when I use too much?” Liora asked.

“You become tired. You might make yourself ill if you continue past that.”

“Could I hurt someone?”

“Yes,” Thesra said. “You could mistake what you feel. That is why we would teach you slowly.”

Liora nodded.

It was the answer she had wanted them to give.

“What would I owe you?” she asked.

“Nothing you have not chosen,” Aurelia said.

“People use that sentence and mean different things.”

“Then ask me again after we’ve written down what the blessing does and what it doesn’t.”

Thesra leaned back.

“You may refuse it. You may also accept and later decide not to use it.”

“Can I give it back?”

“We think so,” Aurelia said. “We would examine the working with you before we promised exactly how.”

Liora folded her arms.

“You haven’t blessed anyone this way before.”

“Not together,” Aurelia said.

“That belongs on the page too.”

I could almost hear Mary approving.

Evelyn arrived before the conversation ended.

Liora told her about the offer.

“What do you think?” she asked.

“I think it should be your decision,” Evelyn said.

“If I accept the position here, would you expect me to accept the blessing?”

“No.”

“And if I take the blessing but return to Southmere?”

“You would still be their healer.”

Liora looked at Aurelia.

“I want to speak to Mary.”

“She’s in the council chamber,” I said.

“Of course she is.”

Mary made three pages.

On the first she recorded what Aurelia and Thesra believed the blessing could do.

On the second she listed what they had yet to learn.

On the third she wrote Liora’s questions, leaving space beneath each for an answer.

“You have made the offer sound less attractive,” I told her.

“I have made it possible to read,” Mary replied.

Liora took all three pages.

“I’ll send a copy to Ressa.”

“Take these,” Mary said.

She had already made another set.

Liora looked at her.

“How did you know?”

“You told Evelyn you needed to speak with Southmere.”

The blessing became the subject of the next pantheon meeting.

Nara pointed to the line saying Liora could stop using it.

“If she cannot return it safely, we should not promise that she can.”

“I agree,” Aurelia said.

Maelin asked who would teach Liora after the blessing was given.

“Thesra and I,” Aurelia answered. “Evelyn may wish to join us.”

“I do,” Evelyn said.

“Will you teach her even if she works in Southmere?” Nathaniel asked.

“Yes.”

He nodded toward Mary’s draft agreement.

“Then that belongs here as an example. Help given should not disappear when someone leaves Greykeep.”

Mary wrote it in the margin.

Liora watched her.

“You’re still using me to improve the agreement.”

“Yes,” Mary said.

“I suppose I am doing the same to you.”

We went beneath the eastern wall the following morning.

Evelyn had finished tracing the connection that carried warmth toward the nursery.

She showed me where it ran near the branch I supplied.

“They don’t touch now,” she said. “If we enlarge this channel, they might.”

“Can we move yours?”

“Mine stays where it is.”

I looked at her.

She smiled.

“I can separate the lines at this fitting. The Castellan will give your branch more room.”

Aurelia examined the work before anyone touched it.

The Castellan placed his hand against the outer wall.

“We’ll make the change in two parts,” he said. “If the first does not hold, we stop.”

That sounded sensible.

I was beginning to like sensible plans.

I held my usual contribution steady.

Evelyn lifted the warmth line clear of the shared fitting. It was delicate work, though she kept her hands still enough that I could barely see her moving.

The Castellan adjusted the bronze.

A low note traveled through the wall.

I felt the branch open beside my power.

For a moment, I wanted to fill it.

“Not yet,” Evelyn said.

“I know.”

“You leaned forward.”

Aurelia laughed softly.

I waited while Evelyn settled the warmth line into its own channel.

Then the Castellan asked me to increase my contribution by the smallest amount we had measured.

The bronze brightened.

The warmth line remained steady.

We checked the nursery afterward.

Helena had the children beside the window.

Carol was turning the pages of her cloth book. Garrick Valewood sat on the rug while his namesake brought him every block in the room.

“Any change?” Evelyn asked.

“In the children?” Helena replied. “He has given his grandfather too many blocks to hold.”

“In the room.”

“No.”

The air was warm.

The wards beneath it felt where I expected them to be.

Aurelia examined the connection without touching either child.

“Separate,” she said.

Garrick placed another block on his grandfather’s knee.

“I can confirm that these are joining,” the elder Garrick said.

The stack fell.

Our son applauded.

That afternoon, Dorian took two guards to fit the beacon cover.

Eliza went with them.

When they returned, the cover was wet on the outside and dry beneath.

Perrin inspected it with an expression of great concentration.

“Well?” Aldren asked.

“It held.”

“I can see that.”

“I wanted to check the seam.”

Dorian put a hand on Perrin’s shoulder.

“I had questioned it.”

“And?”

“You meant to leave it.”

Perrin grinned.

The guards carried the old cracked cover back to the workshop to see whether any of its metal could be used again.

Ressa’s answer arrived three days later.

Liora read it in the chapel with Evelyn and Ilyen beside her.

“She says they can spare me for part of each month,” Liora said. “They want Ilyen to come and see how they work.”

“I would like that,” Ilyen replied.

“There’s another page.”

Liora unfolded it.

The people of Southmere had written down the visits they needed her to keep making. They had named two apprentices willing to travel to Greykeep.

At the bottom, Ressa had added a question.

Will the blessing change whose healer you are?

Liora read it twice.

“No,” she said.

Evelyn waited while she took up her pen.

Liora accepted the position at the chapel that evening.

She would spend part of each month in Southmere and return there whenever someone needed care that could not wait. Ilyen would travel with her on the first visit.

She had not decided about the blessing.

Aurelia thanked her for considering it carefully.

“That sounded almost like praise,” Liora said.

“It was.”

“I thought you might be disappointed.”

“I would have been worried if you had answered before reading the pages.”

Thesra came to collect her copy of the agreement.

“Do you want another lesson tomorrow?” she asked Liora.

“About the blessing?”

“About feeling a working without taking it into yourself.”

Liora considered.

“I can learn that before I decide.”

“Yes,” Thesra said.

“Then I’ll come.”

After supper, Evelyn and I walked through the chapel foundation.

More stones had been laid. I could make out the entrance now, and the turn of the passage leading to the treatment room.

“She’ll be good here,” I said.

“She already is.”

“You asked her to stay anyway.”

“I wanted her to know she could.”

Evelyn stopped at the place where her teaching room would stand.

“Liora asked whether she would become our healer or Southmere’s.”

“What did you tell her?”

“That I didn’t want her neighbors to lose her because we built a larger room.”

I put my arm around her.

The foundation lay open to the evening air.

Beyond it, the new road was still marked with stakes.

There was a great deal left to build.

At bedtime, Carol wanted me to read the cloth book twice.

Garrick brought his boat and sat beside us.

When I reached the page with the house, Carol lifted the door with one finger.

“Who is coming home?” I asked.

“Liora,” she said.

I looked at Evelyn.

“She heard us talking.”

“She listens,” Evelyn replied.

I turned the page.

Garrick put his boat on the book.

“That isn’t in the story,” I told him.

“Boat.”

Carol looked at the little cloth house.

Then at her brother.

“Boat home,” she decided.

It remained there until the story was finished.