The Weaver's Source

Epilogue

I saw trees, the tiny birds bobbing from one branch to the other, twittering sweetly to one another. I could hear water trickling nearby, feel the earth between my clawed toes. Looking down to see them didn't alarm me. They felt natural and the tail that swung behind me felt like a normal extra limb.

I twitched my ears and wriggled my nose as I inhaled the cool air. The thick scent of grass on the gentle wind. But no just grass. A smoky scent and sweet taste. Thick and alluring.

I began following it instantly, loping through the long grass and flowers laden with pollen. I whistled and sung as the earth sang beneath my feet. I felt the magic swirling there, the power and life. It filled me with joy. I leapt down the hill, darting between the trees, following the scent that called to me. Soon I found its source.

I whistled as I approached the man sitting on a fallen rock blossoming with fungi. His back was broad and covered in a thick shredded black cloak and long curled hair. A long familiar charm littered sword lay at his feet with two shorts swords on either side. I trotted to his side and lowered my head, staring at him with golden eyes and fluttering my ears happily, enjoying the sight of his scarred face and patchy beard. The man looked up at me a smiled, stroking my nose with gentle fingers as he gazed at me with black eyes.

I knew this man. I felt my heart swell at the sight of him.

"Lyra." Grigore murmured in a deep voice.

I purred and pressed my nose hard against his mouth. But then I heard a voice. Louder than before but it didn't come from the man in front of me. I raised my heard sharply and glanced about the pale woods.

"Lyra." An sharp elderly voice said in the wind. "Lyra, wake up!"

Suddenly I felt woodlands fade away and Grigore was swallowed by a bright light as my body was shaken hard. I snapped my eyes open and Nanny Rutt was there, leaning over me with her sharp nose close to me. When she saw my left eye flutter open, a look of relief came over her craggy features.

"You still scare me. I know you're out of danger but it still looks like your dead when you sleep." She sighed heavily as she leaned back.

I shifted my weight but suddenly I didn't feel so light and free as I had done in my dream. My body felt still, cold and heavy with aches and pains feasting at my flesh. My face was the worst. It ached horribly and pulsed with fire. When I raised my hand to the bandages covering my right eye, Rutt swatted my hand away.

"Don't go messing about with it. Leave it."

"It hurts." I muttered wearily.

It hadn't stopped hurting since Sorin hacked at my face three weeks before. I doubted it ever would.

"I know but messing with it will only make it worse. Your body is still healing. Sorin did a right number on you and that blade of his was cursed."

I didn't need reminding. I still remembered the pain of my flesh cooking and my face being split open. I remembered the pain of Rutt and Grigore gathering me up and trying to heal me in that dead hall and later Rutt's home. They had so far managed to heal most of the burns, but Sorin's blade had been cursed, refusing to let my skin heal easily and, worse, my eye was destroyed. I'd never see through that eye again. But Nanny Rutt continued to work, trying to lift the curse and encourage my skin to heal from the burns. It was hard work but she was winning to some extent. I had only a few pocked marks left my breasts and shoulder. Weeks of healing which should've taken months.

But while my burns were fading, my body and magic remained weak. I had been bed-bound and unconscious for two weeks and my magic was drained in its constant battle against Sorin's cursed wound; desperately trying to get it to mend when it refused to adamantly. I wasn't sure how much longer it would need.