Blood-Bound [ Lore of Penrua: Book I ]

49

It was a welcome relief to be apart from Matei for the first time. Mhera had lost track of time since her misfortune in the dungeon, but as she worked with Aun in the garden, weeding, she tried to filter back through all that had happened to get a sense of how many days had passed. The night in the dungeon bled into the first morning they had spent together in Eovin's chambers. They hadn't been there more than a night; they had left immediately for Rhea's cottage, and their second full day together had been there. She thought, although she wasn't certain, that they'd spent two days in the forest walking, and had only come upon Uachi in the dark of night on that second day.

Did that mean she had been in Matei's company only seven days? Eight? Mhera couldn't believe it. It felt like it had been a lifetime. The days dividing her from her past were so dark and fearful that they seemed to have divorced her completely from the woman she had been.

But now that she and Matei had parted in peace, could she go home?

It was too early to ask. Matei had softened, certainly, but she knew it was because he was home in Hanpe, not because of any true friendship between them. She would bide her time and ask him when it seemed safe. If it ever seemed safe. For now, her chief concern must be surviving in Hanpe among enemies.

"You've done this before," Aun said, breaking into her thoughts.

Mhera looked up from where she knelt, her hands in the dirt. "Yes. We could not grow much at the Haven, but what we could, we did."

"I should have thought your days were fuller of prayer and contemplation than gardening."

"Enough of both," Mhera said. "Sewing, mending, cooking, cleaning. Anything that needed to be done."

"Well, autumn nears. Soon enough, we'll be harvesting and taking to the indoor work of preserving and preparing medicines."

"Do you really use magic in your remedies?"

Aun smiled. "More or less. It probably isn't what you think. I can't lay hands on someone and fix them up. Would that I could."

Mhera smiled back. "No, I imagine not. Perhaps Matei would have more patience for your ministrations if it were all so easy."

"A man of action, he is, and less concerned for himself than he should be," Aun said, shaking her head. "But yes, there's some magic in it. I don't fully understand it myself. We've all of us different talents, you see. Certain things come more naturally to some of us than to others. For me, it's making things grow." She reached out and touched a leaf. "I spend a lot of time here, putting energy and ... well, it's hard to describe. Purpose. Putting energy and purpose into the plants. I do the same when I bring them together in salves and teas and so on."

Mhera looked around the garden at the neat rows of herbs and flowers. "So the magic helps along what's already there."

"That's the short of it, I think. I'm learning. There isn't much written on the subject, at least that I've seen. Matei says he might be able to find more for me. For all his stubbornness, I think he values what I do."

Mhera thought of the lorekeeper and his hidden library stacked with books. She thought of Physicker Naelis at the palace and wondered whether the woman's remedies were touched by magic. It would have had to have come from a bloodstone, if so.

The teas and tinctures had seldom helped Mhera, suggesting that they were not magical, after all. But Mhera had a malady that could not be healed.

"There. We've been working for a while now, Mhera, and I'm hungry. Shall we go to the longhouse for lunch?" Aun stood up, shaking out her apron. She leaned down to pick up a small basket she had filled with some of the weeds they had plucked. "These, I'll take to the cook. Weeds in a garden, food on a plate."