Ch 211 The First Answer

Chapter 211: The First Answer

Liora left for Southmere with Ilyen on a morning that threatened rain.

She carried the three pages Mary had made about Aurelia and Thesra’s proposed blessing.

Ressa’s letter lay inside the same bag.

“Will you decide while you’re there?” Evelyn asked.

“I’ll speak to the people who would have to live with my answer.”

“That may make it harder.”

“It ought to.”

Ilyen checked the strap on her pack for the third time.

Liora noticed.

“You can bring everything you’ve packed.”

“I’m making sure I can carry it.”

“You’ve been making sure since dawn.”

They set out before the morning bell, with Eliza’s map and enough food for the journey.

The chapel was quieter without them.

Evelyn taught the morning lesson. Nara kept the water warm, and one of the students took Liora’s place demonstrating how to bind a wrist.

He did it too tightly.

“I can feel my fingers,” Nara said. “I would like to continue feeling them.”

He loosened the cloth.

Afterward, Evelyn sorted the lesson pages and patient records into separate boxes.

Mary had found someone willing to learn the record work.

Her name was Ada. She arrived carrying her own pen.

“I haven’t promised to do it forever,” she said.

“I’m glad you told me. Also did Mary tell you will be compensated for your work?” Evelyn replied.

Ada looked at the boxes.

“She didn’t, but now that you mention it...I did promise Mary I would learn what belongs in each.”

“That will help us today.”

At the new chapel, Eleanor had begun raising the first wall.

Perrin brought a line of stone along its base while Aldren checked the fit of each piece. The entrance was still an open space between two short lengths of wall.

Evelyn stood inside it.

“This looks narrower than the drawing.”

“It is the width on the drawing,” Eleanor said.

“Can someone carry a patient through it?”

“Two people can.”

“What if they have to carry a bed?”

Eleanor measured the opening.

Then she took down the stone at one edge.

“Now they can.”

Perrin picked it up.

“Where does this go?”

“Farther along.”

He carried it there.

Aldren looked at Evelyn.

“Ask while we can still move things by hand.”

“I intend to.”

Mary arrived with the plan for the adjoining road.

“The chapel entrance has moved,” she said.

“Only a little,” Eleanor replied.

“It changes where carts can stop.”

“Can you move that mark?”

Mary examined the stakes.

“Yes.”

I held the new one while she set it in the ground.

“Will the road stay where it is for an entire day?” I asked.

“Once we lay it,” Mary said.

“That sounds like a promise.”

“It is a strong intention.”

I appreciated her caution.

In the lower training chamber, Caldris had removed Perrin’s practice door.

I stopped at the threshold.

“Where did it go?”

“Back to the workshop,” he said.

“I was beginning to like it.”

“You learned what you needed from it.”

“That has never prevented Aurelia from making me do something eleven more times.”

Aurelia looked up from the table.

“Sometimes twelve.”

Veyra had placed a shallow dish of water between two stones.

Its surface was still.

“Today,” she said, “you will feel where cold begins before it reaches the air.”

I looked at the water.

“Is this another basin?”

“It is much smaller.”

“That was not my concern.”

I let my power approach the dish.

It was easier to feel cold forming than it had been a week ago.

A thin line appeared at the edge of the water.

“Stop there,” Veyra said.

I did.

The line remained.

“Can you let it melt without warming the entire dish?” Aurelia asked.

I tried to draw back the strength I was holding.

The ice grew.

“That was the wrong direction,” I said.

“Yes.”

I loosened my working instead.

A drop of water ran down the side of the dish.

On the third attempt, the line melted without the rest of the water changing.

Caldris put a finger into it.

“Still cold,” he said.

“It began cold,” I replied.

He seemed satisfied.

After the lesson, Aurelia asked me to sit.

I did not like that.

“Maelin has been watching your power in the wards,” she said. “You’re continuing to change.”

“Closer?”

“Yes.”

I looked toward the dish.

“I can hardly melt a little ice correctly.”

“That skill matters,” Veyra said. “It will matter more when you can make a great deal of it.”

“Do I have enough time to learn?”

“We’re using the time you have,” Aurelia said.

She did not know how much that was.

Neither did I.

I had chosen to prepare. I still wanted the choice.

Evelyn and I went to the eastern wall in the afternoon.

The Castellan showed us the separated lines beneath the nursery.

He asked me to increase my contribution in three small steps.

The first brightened the bronze.

The second gave the wall a low hum.

At the third, Evelyn lifted a hand.

“Hold.”

I did.

Above us, the warmth line remained where she had placed it.

Aurelia checked the connection.

“Separate,” she said.

The Castellan made a note.

“Can we keep it this way?” I asked.

“Not today. I want to examine the southern branch under the same amount before we make it permanent.”

I returned to my usual contribution.

The warmth upstairs did not change.

The southern branch led toward the gate.

Eliza was there when we arrived, reviewing the watch roster.

“You’re examining my wall,” she said.

“The castle’s wall,” I replied.

“I stand beside it more often.”

“That is difficult to dispute.”

The Castellan traced the branch while Evelyn checked its older fittings.

Eliza waited until they finished.

“Will you change anything?”

“After the measurements,” the Castellan said.

“Tell the guards before you do.”

“Yes.”

“The bells too.”

“I know.”

“I’m saying it aloud so you know I know.”

The Castellan inclined his head.

That seemed to satisfy her.

By the second evening, Liora had not returned.

She had not been expected yet.

I still caught Evelyn looking toward the southern road during supper.

“She took enough food,” I said.

“I know.”

“And Ilyen knows how to send a message.”

“I know that too.”

“You can worry anyway.”

“I am.”

Carol climbed into Evelyn’s lap with the cloth book.

She opened it to the page with the house.

“Liora home?”

“Soon,” Evelyn said.

Our daughter considered the little door.

Then she closed it gently.

Liora and Ilyen returned the next afternoon.

They came with two apprentices from Southmere, a bundle of clean linen, and a basket of apples Ressa had insisted they take.

Ilyen looked pleased with herself.

Liora looked tired.

“Was there trouble?” Evelyn asked.

“No. There was a great deal to learn.”

One apprentice was a young man who had helped with the village’s winter fevers. The other was a woman who had tended births beside Liora for several years.

Evelyn showed them where they could stay.

Liora carried the apples to Beatrice.

“Ressa says these are for the children,” she told her.

“Then I’ll put most of them where the children cannot reach.”

“A sound plan.”

That evening, Liora came to see Aurelia and Thesra.

Evelyn was there. Mary sat with the three pages open.

I stayed near the door.

“I spoke to the people at home,” Liora said. “They’re willing for me to divide my time.”

“And the blessing?” Aurelia asked.

“They told me I should decide that part myself.”

She placed Ressa’s letter on the table.

“I want to learn what it feels like before I accept it fully. Can you make the first working small enough that I can refuse the rest afterward?”

“Yes,” Thesra said.

Aurelia nodded.

“We can begin with sensing. We will not give you strength to spend until you have learned where it ends.”

Liora sat down.

“Then I want to begin.”

They did not call a gathering.

They asked everyone else to leave the room except Evelyn and Mary. Liora wanted them there.

I went upstairs.

The twins were awake, and Helena had given them the apples after cutting them into pieces.

Garrick offered me one.

“Thank you.”

He took it back before I could eat it.

Carol held up hers.

“For me?”

“No. See.”

She moved it an inch above her palm.

Then she lowered it and took a bite.

“She made you watch,” Helena said.

“She did.”

“She has been doing that all afternoon.”

I spent longer with them than I intended.

Garrick Valewood joined us and read the boat story from a book he had brought from Valewood. Our son objected when the boat reached a shore he did not like.

“You cannot change the page,” his grandfather told him.

“Again.”

“You want to hear it again?”

“Again.”

Garrick Valewood looked at me.

“You named him accurately.”

I did not tell him Evelyn had chosen the name with me.

He already knew.

He began the story again.

Evelyn came up after the children had fallen asleep.

“How is Liora?”

“Tired. She felt the mending in an old injury on her own hand. Thesra showed her how to withdraw from it.”

“Did she want to continue?”

“Tomorrow. After rest.”

“And Aurelia?”

“She is well.”

Evelyn sat beside me.

“Liora said she could feel something without knowing what to do with it. She wanted that written down before she slept.”

“Mary did?”

“Immediately.”

I took her hand.

“She chose it.”

“She chose this much,” Evelyn said. “That mattered to her.”

The next morning, Liora showed no new power to the students.

She taught the same lesson she had planned before leaving for Southmere.

One apprentice held the cloth. The other described a patient they had treated together. Ada wrote down the account for the chapel records.

Aurelia stayed near the back.

When Liora reached the part of the lesson concerning an injury that would not close, she paused.

“You may see signs that trouble you,” she told the students. “Ask someone else to look too. If I’ve learned anything this week, it is that noticing more does not mean I understand everything I’ve noticed.”

Aurelia smiled.

Evelyn met my eyes across the room.

I thought Liora had said exactly what she meant.

In the afternoon, Nathaniel brought Mary another road account.

He and Ivara had found a mention of the cart’s second stop, farther south than the old house.

“The driver recorded one passenger,” he said. “No name.”

“Can we follow the route?” I asked.

“Eliza says she can send someone when the watch has enough people to spare.”

“Could I hear whether anyone there remembers?”

“You would have to know whom to ask,” Nathaniel said.

He was right.

I folded the page and returned it to Mary.

“Then we find the driver’s family, or the people who kept that stop.”

“We’ve begun,” she said.

The work would take longer than following a voice.

I could live with that.

That night, Aurelia and Thesra returned to Liora’s room.

Evelyn went with them.

Liora could still sense the old injury in her hand. She could also stop sensing it when she chose.

Thesra asked whether she wanted to practice once more.

“Yes,” Liora said.

“And afterward?”

“Afterward I’ll sleep. Tomorrow I’ll decide whether to go farther.”

I heard this from Evelyn later, while we folded the children’s clothes.

“She sounds like you,” I said.

“Because she wants to sleep?”

“Because she intends to ask questions first.”

Evelyn placed a newly mended little shirt on the shelf.

“They are good questions.”

I put the last garment away.

Outside, the western beacon burned behind Perrin’s new cover.

I could feel the wind around it without reaching into its flame.

In the nursery, Carol murmured in her sleep. Garrick answered, then settled.

More walls were rising on the dry rise. The people within them had come from different roads and would make different choices about where they belonged.

I closed the cupboard and went with Evelyn to bed.