Ch. 219 Liora Makes Her Choice

Chapter 219: Liora Makes Her Choice

Liora asked for the blessing on a morning when no one needed healing.

She found Evelyn in the temporary chapel, sorting clean bandages with Ilyen.

“I’m ready to speak with Aurelia and Thesra,” she said.

Evelyn set down the cloth in her hands.

“About the blessing?”

“Yes.”

Ilyen looked at Liora for a moment.

“You said you wanted another week.”

“I did. I’ve had one.”

“Have you decided what you want it to do?”

“I want to hear a person’s hurt clearly enough to help. I don’t want to carry it home after they leave.”

Evelyn nodded.

“I’ll ask them to come.”

I heard about it when I arrived with a box of supplies.

The box was heavy enough to make me wish I had lifted it from the lower yard.

Evelyn took one end.

“You could have used a working,” she said.

“I know.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I picked it up before remembering what was in it.”

We set it down beside the shelves.

Liora watched us.

“Will you stay?” she asked me.

“If you want me here.”

“I do. You ask questions when everyone else thinks they’ve explained enough.”

Evelyn smiled.

“That is one way to describe it.”

Aurelia and Thesra arrived together.

Thesra carried a small basin and a folded towel.

Aurelia looked at Liora.

“Before we begin, tell me what you understand us to be offering.”

“A blessing that may strengthen my healing and help me notice what needs care.”

“And what do you expect it to cost?”

Liora considered.

“My time. Practice. Perhaps more of my own strength if I use it badly.”

“Yes,” Aurelia said. “What else?”

“I don’t know.”

“That is an honest answer.”

Thesra placed the basin on the table.

“We don’t know every way it will settle in you, either. We can begin with a little. You can refuse more.”

They showed her the working before asking her to accept it.

Aurelia let a faint warmth gather above her palm.

Thesra held a second thread beside it.

The two touched without becoming one.

“What is yours?” Liora asked Thesra.

“Discernment. I can help you notice when a person needs assistance and when someone is telling you to act because they expect obedience.”

“That sounds useful outside healing.”

“It is.”

Liora looked at Aurelia.

“And yours?”

“Compassion. A steadier reach toward healing. Neither will decide for you when to use your hands.”

Liora stood very still.

“All right,” she said.

Evelyn asked her to sit.

Thesra moved the basin closer so Liora could see their reflections in the water.

“Keep your attention on yourself,” she said. “Tell us if you lose that.”

“I can do that.”

Aurelia rested two fingers lightly against Liora’s wrist.

Thesra held her hand above the basin.

The water brightened.

I felt the working open.

Small.

Careful.

Liora drew a breath.

“What do you notice?” Aurelia asked.

“Evelyn.”

My wife leaned forward.

“What about me?”

“You’re tired.”

“I am.”

“And your left hand hurts.”

Evelyn flexed her fingers.

“I held a jar too tightly this morning.”

Liora looked alarmed.

“I didn’t mean to reach for it.”

“You didn’t hurt me,” Evelyn said.

Thesra lowered her hand.

“Now tell me something about yourself.”

“My feet are cold.”

“Good.”

“My shoulders are tight.”

“Good.”

Liora shut her eyes.

“I want to fix Evelyn’s hand.”

“I know,” Aurelia said.

“Do I have to ignore it?”

“No. You can ask her.”

Liora opened her eyes.

“Would you like help?”

“Later,” Evelyn said. “I want you to finish this first.”

The brightness in the basin held steady.

Liora looked down at her own hands.

“My feet are still cold,” she said.

Thesra smiled.

“Then you are still here.”

The blessing settled slowly.

Aurelia withdrew first.

Thesra followed.

For a moment, Liora looked as though she expected them to begin again.

“That is enough for today,” Aurelia said.

“That was very little.”

“Yes.”

“Will it last?”

“We will find out together.”

Liora considered this.

“May I try healing something?”

“After you eat,” Evelyn said.

“I had breakfast.”

“That was hours ago.”

I looked at the light coming through the windows.

“It has been two hours.”

“You can both eat,” my wife said.

Neither of us argued.

Beatrice sent bread and cheese to the chapel.

She also sent a note asking whether the blessing meant Liora would now forget meals more often.

Liora read it aloud.

“That seems unfair.”

“You forgot lunch twice last week,” Ilyen said.

“I was working.”

“That was Beatrice’s point.”

Miren came in while we ate.

She took the empty chair beside Aurelia.

“How do you feel?” she asked Liora.

“Hungry.”

“You have food in your hand.”

“I know. I didn’t notice before.”

Miren nodded as if this answered more than the question she had asked.

Later, Evelyn let Liora look at her sore hand.

Liora asked permission before touching it.

She found the strained place.

Then paused.

“What is it?” Evelyn asked.

“I can ease it. I could keep going until it feels entirely well.”

“Which do you think I need?”

“The first.”

“Why?”

“Because the strain will return if you grip another jar the same way.”

Evelyn’s mouth moved.

“That is an answer I dislike.”

“It is still my answer.”

Liora eased the ache.

The working lasted only a moment.

Then she let go.

Evelyn flexed her hand.

“Better.”

Liora looked down at her own.

“And I still know which hand is mine.”

Thesra stood beside me as Liora and Ilyen put away the dishes.

“You were watching the edge,” she said.

“I wanted to know whether she could stop.”

“She did.”

“Will the blessing make her stronger?”

“With practice.”

“And if she decides she wants no more?”

“Then she has no more.”

I looked at Thesra.

“Can she give back what she received today?”

“Not in the way you return strength from a shield. It will become part of what she can do. She can choose never to use it.”

“Did you explain that to her?”

“Yes.”

Liora looked up from the shelf.

“She did. More than once.”

In the afternoon, Mary came to the chapel with a drawing of the larger building.

Evelyn spread it across a table that had just been cleared.

“This entrance is wide enough for a cart,” Mary said. “Eleanor checked it.”

“And the treatment room?” Ilyen asked.

“Two rooms. One for examination, one where someone can stay overnight.”

Liora traced the corridor with a finger.

“Where will people wait?”

“Here.”

“They’ll hear everything said in the treatment room.”

Mary looked at the wall on the drawing.

“You’re right.”

She made a mark.

“We can turn the doorway.”

“It will make the corridor narrower,” Evelyn said.

“Still wide enough for a stretcher,” Mary replied. “I’ll ask Eleanor to confirm.”

Ilyen nodded.

It was the fourth change she had requested that week.

Mary had made room for every one that the ground and the budget allowed.

Miren studied the overnight room.

“May I ask for something?”

“You may,” Mary said.

“A window someone can open themselves.”

“There’s one on this wall.”

“Can they reach it from the bed?”

Mary measured the drawing with the side of her pen.

“No.”

“Then a low latch.”

Mary wrote it down.

Aurelia glanced at Miren.

Miren kept looking at the plan.

I thought of Adela’s room at the high court.

The request sounded small.

It was not.

When I left the chapel, I found the twins in the lower yard with Helena and Garrick Valewood.

Our daughter was trying to place a ribbon around the carved horse’s neck.

The horse was in Garrick’s hands.

“No,” he told her.

“Horse needs it,” Carol said.

“He says no.”

Helena looked at me.

“Would you like to decide whether the horse needs a ribbon?”

“I wouldn’t presume to know.”

Carol turned toward me.

“Papa.”

“I think you should ask Garrick if you may borrow the horse.”

“I did.”

“Did he say yes?”

“No.”

She seemed disappointed that I had understood the situation.

Garrick Valewood reached into his pocket.

He produced a short piece of blue ribbon.

“Perhaps your boat would like one,” he told his grandson.

Garrick looked at the ribbon.

Then at his sister.

“No.”

Their grandfather put it away.

“You were right,” I said to Helena. “No one here needs my decision.”

“Give it another hour,” she said.

Mary found me near the yard gate.

She carried two books.

One was her work ledger.

The other held the plans for Aurelia’s winter birthday.

“People have begun asking about the decorations,” she said.

“Did you tell them they can make whatever they like?”

“I did. Now they want to know where they may hang them.”

“That seems reasonable.”

“It would help if we knew how much room to leave in the hall for the children’s games when their birthday comes.”

“That is months away.”

“Which is why I’m asking before every table has been moved.”

I looked at the twins.

Carol had begun tying the ribbon around her own wrist.

Garrick watched with suspicion.

“Leave more room than last year,” I said.

Mary wrote it down.

At supper, Liora told the others what she had chosen.

She spoke about the small blessing and the lesson with Evelyn’s hand.

No one asked whether it made her a priestess.

A farmer visiting from Southmere asked whether she would still come home.

“Yes,” Liora said. “Greykeep is giving me a place to learn. I’m still coming back.”

The farmer nodded.

“Good. My mother likes the way you explain her medicine.”

“That is because she tells me when I speak too quickly.”

“She tells everyone.”

Liora smiled.

Aurelia sat beside her with a cup of tea.

She said nothing on Liora’s behalf.

That night, Evelyn inspected the drawing of the new chapel once more.

“The window was a good thought,” she said.

“Miren remembered what it’s like to be unable to leave a room.”

“Yes.”

Evelyn set the plan aside.

“Liora remembered to ask me before touching my hand.”

“You sound pleased.”

“I am.”

“Even though she told you to stop gripping jars badly?”

“Especially then.”

She flexed her fingers.

“They’re right, you know. Both of them.”

I drew the blanket over her knees.

“What do you think Aurelia will call Liora now?”

“Liora.”

“That simple?”

“For now.”

A soft knock came at our door.

Mary stood outside with the building plan.

“I’ve moved the overnight bed beneath the window,” she said.

“Will the latch be reachable?” Evelyn asked.

“Yes.”

“From either side of the bed?”

Mary stopped.

She examined the drawing.

“I’m going to need another minute.”

I let her use our table.

Evelyn fetched her a lamp.

Across the passage, the nursery was quiet.

For a little while, Mary worked and we sat with her, deciding where someone lying in a strange room ought to be able to reach.