Chapter 95 – Without Touching

The light was already burning when Kai closed his eyes.

He had watched the guard make the light. Tomas had drawn the solid screen between them before she chose where to hold it. Now there was only her voice from the other side and the scrape of a breakfast bowl being cleared farther down the ward.

"Ready when you are."

He waited for the pressure he remembered.

Nothing arrived.

Two mornings had passed since Elise's visit. The carrier had returned that evening to say the four of them had reached the pool together. June and Elise had stayed there with the volunteer; he had come back with a laundry delivery. Nia had made him repeat the part about Elise complaining that June walked too slowly.

Yesterday, Kai had slept through much of the afternoon. There had been no test. The guard had needed her rest after a long watch, and Kai had needed his after the dressings were changed.

This morning his waist hurt less when Tomas raised the bed. He had finished breakfast before asking about the screen.

The guard had agreed to three attempts.

Her name was Sana. He had finally asked while she fetched the stool.

Kai tried to find the light now, somewhere beyond his left hand. The ache at the shoulder was easy to locate. The faint warmth at the wrist took more attention. He found that, stayed with it, and waited for the separate pressure to announce itself.

He was beginning to hold his breath.

He let it go.

"I can't tell where it is."

"On your left," Sana said. "Same place as when we started."

He opened his eyes. Tomas moved the screen enough for him to see the pale light hanging over her palm.

It had not gone anywhere. He had been waiting for it to arrive.

"Leave it there," he said. "Let me look for a moment."

Sana rested her elbow on the stool's back. Without the constant motion of her hand, the light stayed almost perfectly still. It was no bigger than a plum, white at the center and hazy at the edges.

Kai watched it while breathing normally. There was a slight sense of pressure along the outside of his wrist, too faint to separate from the rest when he searched hard for it.

He stopped searching and kept looking.

The pressure remained through an inhalation. Then an exhalation. When a kitchen worker dropped a spoon, his attention went to the sound and he lost it. He found it again by looking at Sana's hand.

"All right," he said. "Hide it again."

Tomas put the screen back. Sana chose a position out of sight, then told him to begin.

This time Kai waited through several ordinary breaths before deciding anything. He did not try to send the warmth farther up his damaged arm. He let himself notice the ward as well: voices, a draught against his cheek, the blanket resting on his knees.

The faint pressure was among those things. It did not grow stronger because he wanted it to.

"Right," he said.

Sana confirmed it after extinguishing the light.

On the third attempt he found it to the left, already present when he began paying attention. He followed the sensation for four breaths before naming the direction.

Sana put out the light. The pressure disappeared.

"That's my three," she said.

Kai wanted to ask for another. Instead he asked what keeping the light on cost her.

"Less than using it to see half the street. More than sitting here doing nothing. I've got a watch tonight."

"Thank you."

She stood and took the stool with her. Tomas wrote down the first failure as well as the other two results, then checked whether the attempt had changed the pain in Kai's arm.

It hadn't.

Kai kept his eyes closed after they moved the screen away. He could still pick out the ordinary warmth near his palm. The pressure from Sana's light was gone, even though she was still talking to someone by the cupboard.

He had been able to tell them apart without waiting for one to hurt.

***

Mara arrived near midday with two of the water crew.

The message desk had told Kai that morning. Ruth had received his update and passed the clinic address and copies of the notes to Mara through the next crew. Mara had sent word back that she would try to come. At the gate, she handed over a parcel of dressings before anyone brought her to the beds.

She stopped beside Nia first.

"Ruth said you found your sister."

Nia looked at the blue sweater across her blanket.

"She came here. She wants to know when I can visit her."

"What did you tell her?"

"That I'll ask when I can manage the journey. I didn't give her a day."

Mara pulled up a chair. Nia told her about the visit, including the argument over the sweater. Kai listened while Tomas went to find Sayegh. He liked hearing Nia tell someone who hadn't been there. She left out most of the arrangements and remembered which word Elise had corrected in the letter.

When Mara turned to him, her gaze paused on the raised bed and the cup beside his face.

The cup sat in a padded ring on a tray clipped to the bed frame. A bent drinking straw reached his mouth. Tomas had found the lid and straw after Kai asked whether the cup could be kept where he could use it without lifting it. A folded towel stopped it sliding in the ring.

Kai took a drink while she watched.

"That's new," she said.

"Since yesterday. They move it away before lowering the bed."

The first time, he had drunk too quickly and had to stop. Now he could take a mouthful and let go without calling someone back across the ward. It was a small piece of the day he no longer had to arrange around another person's hands.

Mara checked the notes on the chair before asking about his arm.

He told her about the light.

"Something outside you?"

"At the wrist. But coming from her side of the screen. I can feel it while the light stays still now. Twice this morning."

"And your own warmth?"

"Still there when she stops. Different."

Sayegh joined them with the hand sketch. The two women compared their observations, then Sayegh examined Kai while Mara watched. They did not repeat every painful movement. When Kai asked about the wound at his waist, Sayegh showed Mara what she was seeing and explained the next dressing change.

The edges needed more time. The dressing was cleaner than it had been.

Mara's return crew would leave after collecting the clinic's requests. Another healer was covering her urgent patients, and Priya had taken the rest of her list. She had enough time to talk properly, not enough to stay for the afternoon.

"I don't want another healing attempt," Kai told her. "I'd like you to watch what happens with the light."

Mara read Tomas's account of the morning test.

"If she's willing. I can watch. I can't tell you what you felt."

Sana had come back from eating. She listened to the request, then looked at Mara.

"He wants it small. I can do that for a little longer. Afterward I'm going to sleep."

Sayegh asked Kai whether he felt ready for another short attempt. He did. She left Tomas with them and returned to the beds near the doors.

***

They began without the screen.

Mara wanted to see where the light was in relation to Kai's arm. Sana brought the stool alongside his left hand, well away from the marked wrist supported across his stomach. Tomas moved the drinking tray out of the way.

The light floated over Sana's open palm. It was smaller than before.

Kai could feel it easily at this distance, though there was no warmth on his skin. The sensation was a rounded pressure beyond the heel of his hand, separate from the slow warmth along the old path inside it.

"Closer to the fingers," he said. "Please."

Sana moved her hand. The pressure shifted with it.

He shut his eyes, opened them, then shut them again. He could keep its position through the change.

His left fingers lay still on the padding. He had stopped trying to make them reach it.

Mara asked him to describe what he noticed. He did, slowly. When he reached a part he could not explain, she waited rather than offering him a word.

He could feel two things: the warmth near his palm and the pressure of the light beyond it. When he concentrated on one, the other became harder to notice.

He tried keeping both in mind through an exhalation.

The warmth gathered at the heel of his hand. He eased his attention toward the fingers instead of leading it into the forearm. There was less sensation there, and then a brief resistance that seemed to lie beyond his skin.

Sana drew in a breath.

Kai opened his eyes.

The light had pulled to one side. While he watched, it rounded out over her palm again.

"Did I do that?" he asked.

"I don't know," Sana said. "Something pushed it."

Mara leaned forward without touching either hand.

"Did your arm move?"

"Not that I felt."

"I was watching," Tomas said. "It stayed on the support."

Sana made a fist. The light disappeared. She opened her hand and made it again, holding it in the same place.

"I can move it myself," she said. "But I wasn't trying to."

Kai looked at the gap between his fingers and the light. There was room for Mara's hand to pass through without touching either of them.

He remembered touching the penalty line beside Nia. He had felt something outside his body then too, but he had put his hand into it and forced the damaged path to answer. That had nearly put him on the ground.

Here, his hand had stayed on a folded towel.

"Can we try once with you holding it still?" he asked Sana. "I'll tell you when I start."

"Wait," Mara said. "Tell me what you're going to change."

He described where he had kept his attention and the brief resistance beyond the fingers. She asked about his shoulder. It felt no different. He had not tried to pull warmth from his chest or drive it through the entire arm.

Mara looked at Sana. "Rest your forearm. Then we can see if your hand moves."

Tomas brought a second folded towel and put it over the stool's back. Sana rested her forearm there, palm up, and made the light above it. Mara shifted her chair until she could see both hands and the gap between them.

Kai began with his eyes open.

The familiar warmth settled near his wrist. He followed it toward the heel of the palm, waited until he could feel the light beyond it, and breathed out.

Nothing changed.

He tried to find the brief resistance again. The warmth had already begun to fade. He could still see the light, and looking at it was making him want to reach farther than he had before.

He stopped.

"I lost it. Give me a minute."

Sana let the light go. Nobody told him to push harder.

Tomas brought the cup back long enough for him to drink. Kai looked toward Nia. She was awake, watching over the end of the sweater.

"You shut your eyes the first time," she said.

He had.

Seeing the light gave him a location to chase. With his eyes closed, he had waited until he could feel it where it was.

"Same place again?" he asked Sana.

She settled her arm on the towel and made the light. He watched her place it, then closed his eyes.

This time he waited. The warmth was faint, but he could distinguish it from the pressure outside his hand. He kept the two sensations separate until an exhalation brought the warmth toward his palm.

Then he pressed against the nearer edge of the pressure.

It yielded a little.

"Now," he said.

"It's leaning away from you," Mara said.

He held the sensation for the end of that breath, then eased his attention back to the wrist.

"And it's back," Sana said. "My hand hasn't moved."

Kai opened his eyes. The light was round again.

Tomas had been watching his arm. Mara was still looking at the space above Sana's palm.

"Again?" Kai asked.

Mara asked him to rest first. When his breathing was settled, they put the screen between him and Sana, leaving Mara where she could see both. Sana kept her forearm supported. Kai closed his eyes and waited several breaths before starting.

He found the light. The warmth near his palm took longer to gather, but he did not need much of it.

He pressed outward and said when he felt the resistance give.

"Moved," Mara said.

He let it go.

"Back."

He lay still, waiting for the sharp continuation up his arm. Nothing followed. The warmth thinned near the palm. His shoulder ached as it had before they started.

Sana extinguished the light.

"That's enough from me."

"Enough from him too," Mara said.

Kai didn't argue. He wanted to keep the exact sequence in his head before fatigue blurred it.

***

Tomas wrote while the three of them compared what they had noticed.

The light had flattened on the side nearest Kai and leaned away, less than the width of a finger. Sana had felt pressure against the skill, though nothing touched her skin. Mara had watched it deform and recover while both hands stayed still.

One attempt had done nothing. The next two had produced the change when Kai reported pressing outward, including the one behind the screen.

Kai made Tomas add the first, accidental movement as a separate observation.

"I didn't know what I was doing that time."

Mara nodded. "Write what he did after he knew. That's what he needs to repeat."

Sana flexed her fingers and stood.

"You can try it again when I'm rested," she told Kai. "Ask me first. I don't want that happening while I'm lighting a crossing."

"I will."

She took the stool back to the cupboard. Mara watched her go, then looked at Kai's hand.

"You felt it too?" he asked.

"No. I saw it."

He looked at her for a moment before the distinction settled.

Since the first core, he had spent so much time describing things no one else could check. Pain, pressure, a path inside his arm. This time Mara had been able to watch what he did beyond his fingers.

He could not yet make the light. He could barely disturb one held beside his bed. But he had done it twice on purpose, and stopped both times without the surge that had injured him before.

"I want to learn that before I use another core," he said. "Starting it. Letting go."

Mara copied the short account onto the back of the treatment notes she would take with her. The originals stayed on the chair.

"Then don't make the next attempt bigger just because this worked. Try it rested, the way you did today."

"Same distance?"

"To start. You can change one thing when you know what the first thing does."

The crew called from the doors. Mara put the copy in her bag and told Tomas how to reach her through the next water delivery. She stopped to speak to Sayegh before leaving with both escorts.

Kai asked for the cup to be put back.

He drank, let the straw slip from his mouth, and looked at the space beside his left hand. There was no light there now. The notes recorded where Sana had held it, how she had supported her arm, and which attempts had worked.

Tomorrow he would not have to guess where to begin.