Luminous

The Choice Again (2/3)

After a hurried breakfast, most of the entourage left the inn seemingly to join the festivities as usual. In actuality, their aim was to find wagons and gather supplies for the journey home.

Dad being crippled, Meya being pregnant, the Hilds weren't assigned any duties. Not to mention as one of Coris's closest associates, Meya couldn't be seen scurrying around preparing to flee. She was confined to the lavish prison Coris provided her, chained to Mum desperately finding excuses for why Meya shouldn't worry for the family, subjected to Dad brooding in the corner, mourning his lost pride.

Maro was ready to succeed Dad as breadwinner. Marin and Meya would marry soon. Morel was in Hadrian. Jason had agreed to take Marcus along on his caravan. Myron had begun his apprenticeship with Yorfus. With only Mistral still home, Mum could leave the house and win some bread on her own, lighten Maro's load.

Yet-she didn't have to, nor did Maro! Nothing needed to change, yet everything would change. How could Meya not concern herself, when she was given a solution to all their troubles with her choice of husband?

Worse, after lunch, Jason visited, accompanied by a Tyldornian healer. He brought naught with him but a belt of leather, two dozen gleaming needles of pure silver sheathed neatly in every fold.

Dad wanted none of the bizarre treatment at first, but Jason had his trust, and a golden tongue. In no time at all, he had Dad sprawled on the mattress, the healer drilling needles into his flesh, all the way from his hip to his leg.

Dad gritted his teeth every time a new needle sunk deep into his muscle, then softened in bliss when the descent stopped. Meya couldn't make sense of it. How could stabbing heal? But, Dad was no longer in pain. That was all that mattered.

"How is it, Mirram? Better?" Mum strained her neck to see past the old healer's back. Dad breathed slow, looking as if he were asleep, but he finally nodded. Mum whipped around to Meya with a smile. Laughing in relief, Meya spun to the healer.

"This is it, then?" she demanded, breathless, as the healer edged back and flipped his hourglass. "We vent all the pain knotted up in there, and Dad's gunna prance about like a stag again?"

To her horror, the healer shook his silvery-white head.

"The needles only bleed the pain. The eye of the pain remains." Out of the folds of his tunic he drew a wooden doll carved and inked with countless lines and dots, each labeled with minuscule Tyldornian runes. He set it on the carpet before Meya, tapping his finger on the line slicing down the doll's back.

"The bones of his spine are crumbling. They're coming loose, grating on his nerves that connect to his legs. Were they rusty cogs in a golem, you just needed some oil and a wrench. But you can't oil a man's spine, not even with surgery."

Meya slumped back, staring numbly at the doll. Like a river, the nerve line sped from its back to its hip, branched in two, then traveled on down to its toes. They could only dig a leak for the pain, but all the while, the lake would refill and fester, and the cycle would repeat. There was no end, no panacea. Not even with surgery?

"So, he'll have to keep doing this? Every day? For the rest of his life?" Meya whispered, tears burning in her eyes once again. The healer simply sighed.

Mum peered down at the rows of unused needles sparkling in their holster, then Dad's pincushion-like leg, then lastly the healer.

"Does it take long to learn this art? Doesn't look complicated," she added, rather unwisely, her eyes fixed upon the needles again. The healer swelled and flushed.

"One needle out of place, and you might as well have run a sword through his heart. Why do you think I charge fees so high?" he snapped. Mum jolted, eyes wide in terror at her blunder. A white-hot flash of anger gripped Meya. How dare he-!

"I'm so sorry, Master Healer. I didn't mean-I was just-" Mum blustered. Jason shot Meya a silencing yet sympathetic look as he pinned the rearing Dad down with a hand on his shoulder. He leaned across Dad to the healer, head bowed in plea,

"They'll leave for Crosset tomorrow. Isn't there anything they can do?"

The healer met Jason's similarly beady, black eyes, glanced at the panic-stricken Mum, then deflated as he understood their desperation, nodding.

"You won't find a needle-master in those parts, but there are simple exercises that may ease the pain and right the body over time. If you'll stand, I'll teach you. And you can teach him."

Mum eagerly stood up, carefully stretching and contorting her limbs after the healer's example. Even Jason followed suit, just in case. Meya, however, couldn't move. She couldn't care for such makeshift remedies, couldn't possibly be sated. Latakian herbs wouldn't work. Tyldornian arts wouldn't work. Surgery wouldn't work. What of Nostran? What of something else entirely? Something other than medicine?

A hard, sharp tip scraped against her leg through the fabric of her pocket-Graye's white peacock quill. Daybreak tomorrow, they would leave this city. This was her last chance. She must take it. She must try, at least.

⏳

Meya hadn't had a night this long since the Famine, when it was supposed to be just until second sleep, and her belly was full and warm. She waited for Dad's snores to settle into a steady rhythm, for Mum to cocoon herself with Dad's half of the blanket, then rose soundlessly to her feet. She crept to the door on her toes and turned the knob, opened it as wide as it would allow her to before squeaking.

Down the hallway, down the stairs, across the hall, out the door, across the courtyard, through the wrought-iron gates, she glided like a spirit. She couldn't feel her feet. She couldn't feel the ground pressing against her soles. She didn't know how much time had elapsed. When she came to herself, she was standing barefooted on moonlit cobblestones, a cloak over her nightdress, Graye's feather in its pocket.

Her hands trembling, she pulled the cloak to her and drew out the feather. Her hair was undone, so she simply tucked it over her ear.

One breath, two breaths, three breaths she waited. The square was black and white, empty but for shadow and light. Had the whip given up? Had he nodded off? Poor man had waited an entire day and half the night, after all. Should she find her way to Graye's mansion herself?

Just as she raised her foot to take her first step into the night, the clip-clop of hoof and metal on stone echoed nearer and louder. A chunk of shadow detached from the silhouette of a large tree, washed by moonlight to reveal a charcoal-gray carriage, which glided to a stop before her. The whip dismounted and opened the door, revealing a mouth of pitch blackness.

Shivering, yet not from the night's chill, Meya braced her foot on the ice-cold step and plunged headfirst into the dark. Familiar black cushions awaited her. The journey was long, solitary and silent, but their comfort couldn't lull her to sleep.