Ch. 268 We Need More Goats

Chapter 268: We Need More Goats

Io embraced Evelyn.

Then held her at arm’s length exactly as Ilyen had.

“You look different.”

Evelyn glanced at me.

“I am beginning to dislike that sentence.”

Io’s eyes brightened with power.

Not intrusive.

Perceptive.

She saw the gold.

Her hands tightened around Evelyn’s arms.

“Oh.”

“That is also becoming common,” I said.

Io ignored me.

“How long?”

“Several days since we understood. Perhaps longer since it began.”

“And you waited to tell me?”

“You were helping Concordia’s council prepare the ward keeper chamber.”

“There is a gate.”

Ilyen nodded.

“That was my argument.”

The two women looked at one another.

An alliance formed against Evelyn.

Ignatius and Garrick greeted each other by disappearing.

They reappeared on the other side of the gate chamber.

Seraphina touched Carol’s golden current.

A small flame bloomed between them.

Not burning.

First Flame surrounded by healing light.

Evelyn separated their hands gently.

“Ask first.”

Seraphina looked at Carol.

“Again?”

Carol nodded.

They touched fingertips.

The light returned.

Smaller.

Controlled.

Io watched them.

“They’ve improved.”

“Yesterday Garrick sent his boot through a sealed wall,” I said.

Io looked toward the boys.

“Improvement is uneven.”

That was fair.

Io had come to see the preserved district.

Evelyn had written to her after the discovery.

The message reached Concordia the same evening.

Io had attempted to visit the next morning.

A council dispute delayed her.

She brought copies of Concordia’s infirmary plans.

Records concerning the First Flame’s effect on mortal bodies.

And three books on divine-mortal transformation from Aurethar’s collection.

Aurethar entered in human form carrying the books.

He looked at Ilyen.

“You are the healer.”

“One of them.”

He placed the books on the table.

“One recommends bloodletting.”

Ilyen pushed it aside.

“One recommends sleeping beneath a dragon’s heart.”

She pulled it back.

Aurethar smiled.

“It is metaphorical.”

She pushed it away again.

We entered the preserved district as a larger group.

The door admitted Io by name.

It paused at Aurethar.

“I am Aurethar,” he said. “Dragon. Guardian. Uninterested in owning your healers.”

The door remained closed.

He thought.

“I seek knowledge and will accept refusal.”

It opened.

Aurethar glanced at Evelyn.

“Your door is demanding.”

“Not mine.”

The golden current brightened.

Io noticed.

“It agrees every time you refuse ownership?”

“Yes.”

“That is wonderfully inconvenient.”

Evelyn smiled.

“I thought so.”

The district admitted the four children together.

This required three adults to stand ready.

Nothing happened.

At first.

Ignatius touched one lantern.

Fire warmed it.

Seraphina touched the white road.

A line of First Flame followed the old healing current.

Carol added gold.

Garrick folded the distance between two empty infirmary beds.

The powers met.

The preserved district rang every bell.

Not an alarm.

Recognition.

The children laughed.

Every adult did not.

Aurethar knelt and placed both hands against the road.

“Enough.”

His voice carried the weight of ancient fire.

The four powers settled.

The twins—both sets—looked at him.

“You may explore one domain at a time.”

Garrick pointed toward the garden.

“Grow?”

“One.”

Ignatius pointed toward the kitchen.

“Fire?”

“Later.”

Carol looked at Evelyn.

“Heal?”

“Only if someone is hurt.”

Seraphina considered the adults.

Thor moved away from her.

Nobody blamed Thor.

Io and Evelyn walked through the garden together.

Ilyen accompanied them.

I followed at a respectful distance.

Then Io turned.

“Farther.”

“I am not listening.”

“You are divine. You can hear us from there.”

“That is not my fault.”

Evelyn pointed toward the meeting hall.

I joined Aurethar.

He sat beneath one of the covered paths with all four children.

This appeared dangerous.

It remained safer than listening to a conversation after being asked not to.

Io waited until I was out of ordinary hearing.

She knew that no longer meant much.

Still, I respected the boundary.

The women later told me enough.

Evelyn explained her fear again.

Not every detail.

Enough.

Io listened without interruption.

When Evelyn finished, she took her hand.

“I understand.”

“You won’t grow old either,” Evelyn said.

“No.”

“So you cannot understand all of it.”

“No,” Io agreed. “But I understand waking beside someone whose divinity changes what the future means.”

“Lexander is divine too.”

“Now.”

Io looked toward the children.

“There was a time when I remembered being Frigg and he did not fully remember Odin. There were days when I wondered whether one of us would become too much of what we had been and stop being who we chose.”

“What did you do?” Ilyen asked.

“We kept asking.”

“Asking what?”

“Do you still choose this? Do you still choose me? Do you still recognize yourself?”

Evelyn looked toward the steward charter.

“Every seven years.”

Io followed her gaze.

“Seven years is too long for some questions.”

“I thought that.”

“Ask whenever fear makes the answer feel uncertain.”

Ilyen nodded.

“That is medically imprecise but emotionally useful.”

Io smiled.

“I will accept that.”

Evelyn showed Io the golden current.

Not by healing.

By choosing it.

Light gathered in her open palm.

Io placed her hand beneath it without touching.

Her own power answered.

Fertility.

Marriage.

Household bonds.

Not obedience between spouses.

The lives people continued building after vows were spoken.

The gold stretched between them.

Io inhaled.

“This is not only healing.”

Aurelia approached.

“What do you feel?”

“Continuance.”

The word quieted the garden.

Ilyen frowned.

“Life extension?”

“Not exactly.”

Io studied the light.

“Evelyn’s power does not merely repair what is damaged. It protects the possibility of what comes next.”

Aurelia touched her own domain.

Compassion.

Forgiveness.

Healing.

Evelyn’s current ran beside it.

Related.

Distinct.

“If a wound closes,” Io said, “the person must still decide how to live afterward. Evelyn’s power recognizes that part.”

Ilyen considered.

“Recovery.”

“Yes.”

Evelyn looked at the light.

“That sounds like healing.”

“It is what healing is for,” Aurelia said.

The golden current strengthened.

Not because they named a domain.

The Castellan detected no independent divine domain within Evelyn.

But something had become clearer.

She was not lengthening her life by refusing death.

Her body renewed itself because her work had become tied to continuation.

Recovery.

The next day.

The life after injury.

The marriage after fear.

The city after abandonment.

The god after failure.

The road after closure.

I thought of Aurelia forgiving Maelin and Thesra.

Of Edrin returning.

Of Greykeep opening its gates again and again.

Evelyn had carried that work before anyone gave it a name.

“Does this make sainthood safer?” I asked when they called me back.

“No,” Ilyen said.

“More understandable?” I tried.

“Yes.”

“That is something.”

“It is.”

Evelyn sat beside me.

Io took the seat across from us.

Aurelia remained near the garden path.

“Would it allow her to live as long as I do?” I asked.

Io considered.

“It might allow her to keep becoming.”

“That was not the question.”

“It may be the only honest answer.”

I disliked how often honest answers failed to include numbers.

Mary’s influence had not reached the entire world.

The first patients arrived that afternoon.

Not because the infirmary had opened.

It had not.

A boy fell from a cart outside the preserved district while his family waited for a tour.

His shoulder bent incorrectly.

He screamed when anyone moved near him.

Ilyen reached him first.

Evelyn followed.

Aurelia stopped at the door.

She waited.

The boy’s mother looked at her.

“Please.”

Aurelia entered.

They carried him to the nearest bed.

Ilyen examined the shoulder.

“Dislocated.”

The boy cried harder.

“I know,” Ilyen said. “It hurts. We will move it once. Then it should hurt less.”

Aurelia offered healing.

The mother accepted.

The boy did not answer.

Evelyn knelt beside him.

“Do you want the pain quieter before Ilyen moves your arm?”

He nodded.

Golden light gathered.

Not enough to repair.

Enough to give him room to breathe.

Ilyen set the shoulder.

The boy shouted.

Then stopped.

His breathing slowed.

Aurelia healed the torn tissue.

Not completely.

Ilyen bound the arm.

Evelyn explained what movements to avoid.

Io distracted the boy by showing him a thread of light shaped like a bird.

The four children watched from the doorway.

Ignatius attempted a larger firebird.

Aurethar extinguished it with two fingers.

“Later.”

Ignatius frowned.

The boy on the bed laughed.

That helped more than the bird.

When the family left, the district’s first patient record appeared.

Only after the mother gave permission.

No names.

A fall.

A dislocated shoulder.

Pain eased.

Joint restored.

Care instructions given.

No worship requested.

No debt created.

Ilyen read it.

Then looked around the infirmary.

“It can open.”

Evelyn stared at her.

“You said no patients.”

“I said not until it was clean.”

“It is?”

“No.”

Ilyen pointed toward the washstand.

“But it can open after we clean it.”

That was approval.

Ilyen accepted Evelyn’s offer before supper.

Not the steward’s role.

Leadership of the restored infirmary’s mortal healers.

Shared with Liora.

Subject to review by the city council and the healers themselves.

She requested permanent rooms for apprentices.

A supply budget.

Authority to refuse unsafe divine treatments.

Two goats.

“Two?” I asked.

“Mallow becomes lonely.”

Mallow was eating flowers in the garden.

“She appears occupied.”

“Two goats.”

Mary wrote it into the provisional plan.

Negotiations remained possible.

Io stayed through supper.

She and Evelyn sat together in the great hall.

Ilyen joined them.

The three women compared notes about healing, children, and husbands who asked too many questions.

I was near enough to hear my name.

Lexander’s followed.

Aurethar’s did not.

He looked pleased.

Thor and Melody opened a barrel.

Eliza moved it into the correct room before objecting.

This saved time.

The children ate together beneath the table.

At least we believed they ate.

Most of the bread vanished into a fold.

Mallow found it later.

Before Io returned to Concordia, she embraced Evelyn again.

“I am coming tomorrow.”

“You have a kingdom.”

“So do you.”

“I do not.”

Io looked around Greykeep.

“That argument is becoming difficult to maintain.”

Evelyn smiled.

“Tomorrow.”

“And if the gold changes?”

“I send word.”

“Immediately.”

Ilyen nodded.

“Immediately.”

My wife looked at me.

“I appear to have acquired supervision.”

“You created a pattern.”

“That is what Ilyen said.”

Io gathered Ignatius.

Lexander had not come, but the boy called for him as soon as the gate opened.

Seraphina hugged Carol.

Garrick attempted to go with them.

The gate refused.

He stared at it.

“Not invited,” the Castellan said.

Our son looked toward Io.

She considered.

“Tomorrow.”

Garrick accepted this.

The gate remained closed.

A useful reminder that future invitation was not present permission.

Mary would have approved.

That night, Ilyen remained at Greykeep.

Her old room had been preserved.

Not by magic.

Mary had never reassigned it.

Ilyen stood in the doorway.

“You expected me back?”

“Yes,” Mary said.

“When?”

“Eventually.”

“That is not a date.”

“It was sufficient.”

Ilyen entered.

Mallow followed.

The goat immediately claimed the chair.

No one argued.

Evelyn and I put the twins to bed.

Carol wanted the golden light.

Evelyn created a small glow above the cradles.

Not healing.

Continuance.

A reminder that morning followed night.

Garrick reached toward it.

Then stopped.

“Ask,” Carol told him.

Our son looked at Evelyn.

“Touch?”

“Yes.”

He folded the distance.

The light moved between both children.

It did not diminish.

“Ilyen thinks the infirmary can open,” Evelyn said.

“She also thinks it needs cleaning.”

“It does.”

“And goats.”

“One goat may be enough.”

“I would not challenge her immediately.”

My wife smiled.

The gold softened around her hands.

“How do you feel?” I asked.

“Tired.”

“Anything else?”

“Hopeful.”

That answer no longer frightened me as much as it had.

Not because hope was safe.

Because she had people who would help her inspect it.

In the rooms below us, Ilyen unpacked tools that had served villages without gods.

In the preserved district, the first patient record waited without a name.

Across the gate, Io carried her children home and planned to return the next day.

Aurelia sat with the copied charter.

Maelin searched for the author marked only by an M.

Thesra added new questions about continuance and choice.

The work around Evelyn had grown.

Not into a cage.

A circle of people willing to ask whether every change remained hers.

For the first time since she confessed her fear, neither of us counted the years before sleep.