The Hands That Stay

“Let’s get out of here.”

Maeril tried to take one step, lowering her foot from Thiarel’s supporting hands.

Her injured leg folded beneath her.

Pain drove up from her shin and emptied the strength from the rest of her body. The sphere tipped sideways. She tried to set her foot again, as if the failure were only one more mistake that concentration could correct.

Rishi caught her before her burned shoulder struck the grate.

His arm went behind her back without dragging the charred cloth. His other hand held her head against his chest, keeping her neck from snapping sideways.

“Don’t move.”

“I can—”

The words ended in a short breath. Her heart beat hard against her throat. Both hands trembled where they gripped his robe.

Sirael came to her other side. She took Maeril’s weight beneath the uninjured arm and said nothing.

Thiarel knelt at the fallen leg.

Her fingers moved along the shin without pressing the break. When the bone shifted beneath the skin, Maeril’s whole body tightened.

“Straight,” Thiarel said.

Sirael pulled both empty scabbards from her belt. Thiarel padded them with folded cloth and bound one to either side of the leg. It was only enough to survive the corridor.

Maeril watched her do it and lost several heartbeats somewhere between one knot and the next.

“Water,” she whispered when the world returned. “Just a little.”

“Not while you’re sick,” Rishi said.

“I’m not—”

She gagged against an empty stomach.

Rishi waited until the spasm passed. “Not yet.”

For a moment, she hated him for being right.

They lifted her.

Rishi kept her close to his center, one arm supporting her upper back. Sirael matched each step from the other side. Thiarel carried the splinted leg in both hands so the shin did not bend when the others turned.

They moved with care rather than speed.

Seamwarden went ahead with the fallen weapons still braced against one shoulder. They read the dark passage with their free hand against the wall and cleared loose pieces of stone from the path. At each narrowing, they stopped and made room before the others reached it.

The Loom stayed behind them.

Maeril could still feel it in the cold air touching her burns. Every draft found the raw skin beside her horn. She held her head rigid because the smallest movement pulled at her scalp and made the corridor roll.

Light shone on wet stone ahead.

She turned her good eye into Rishi’s shoulder.

“It’s loud in my skull.”

“Close your eye,” he said. “I have your weight.”

She drew air too quickly. The exhale caught halfway and escaped as a thin sound she had not meant to make.

“Sorry.”

Sirael’s grip tightened beneath her arm.

“Stop apologizing.”

Maeril wanted to ask what Sirael had to be angry about. The answer went missing before she found the words.

Cold sweat ran beneath what remained of her robe. Her jaw shook against Rishi’s shoulder.

“Are we out?”

“Not yet.”

They turned once, then again.

The corridor reset around her.

“Are we out?”

Rishi answered in the same voice. “Almost.”

Maeril stared at Seamwarden’s back. The lines beneath their bark were dim, but steady. She knew why Seamwarden was there. A few steps later, she had to learn it again.

Thiarel adjusted the splinted leg to clear a ridge in the floor.

Pain cut through the fog.

“I died,” Maeril said.

“Yes. You came back when I called.”

“I didn’t hear you.”

Thiarel lifted the leg a little higher as they passed over broken stone.

“You do not have to remember it now.”

Maeril pressed her lips together until the corridor stopped shaking.

Root-arched stone opened ahead.

They were back beneath the Ever-Tree. Its light shifted on the pool and struck Maeril’s open eye. Nausea rose. She raised one hand to shield her face. Tears escaped the burned eye she could not open.

“Here,” Thiarel said.

Seamwarden set the recovered weapons beside a broad root.

They lowered the supply bag beside them and eased their burned foot off the stone onto moss.

Rishi and Sirael lowered Maeril onto the moss beside the warm stones, keeping her back straight. Thiarel set the splinted leg down last.

The moment the moss held her weight, Maeril reached for the blackened edge of her cloak.

Fabric had fused to the burns along her shoulder and chest. She hooked two fingers beneath it and pulled.

Rishi caught both wrists.

“No.”

“It’s stuck.”

“I know. Don’t tear it.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“You were.”

Her anger rose clean and bright. Then her stomach turned again, and she let her hands go slack inside his.

Sirael settled beside her uninjured shoulder. “I have her.”

Thiarel filled a shallow hollow in the stone with water from the pool. She held her palms above it and murmured until steam barely lifted from the surface.

Rishi opened his healer’s pouch beside the basin.

Everything had a place: folded cloth, soft inner dressings, shears, needle and waxed thread, splint ties, compress wraps, cooling gel, honey-resin salve, and small packets of herbs for pain and nausea.

Thiarel placed her own field pouch beside it. Loose bundles of leaves and roots filled the space where Rishi kept ordered rows. She did not search through them. She drew out what he would need and arranged it on the flat stone.

She pulled a folded mantle over Maeril’s legs to keep her warm.

Seamwarden sat beside the basin and unfolded the clean cloths. A blackened finger caught in one; they freed it carefully before passing the cloth to Rishi.

“You said you would rest.”

“I can pass the cloth from here.”

Thiarel set a cup of warm water within reach of their sound hand.

Rishi leaned over her, blocking the pool’s reflection with his body.

“Name.”

Maeril blinked at him. “You know my name.”

He waited.

“Maeril.”

“Where are we?”

“The Ever-Tree.”

Her answer came too fast. She frowned, looking past him at the roots as if checking her own work.

“What happened?”

“I remember being inside the Loom.”

The rest vanished.

Fear sharpened her face. “How bad?”

Rishi put two fingers against the pulse at her throat.

“Your leg is broken, and you’ve hit your head. We will dress the burns here. The rest I am still checking.”

Maeril watched his face. He did not look away from her.

He listened to her chest, then felt the temperature of her skin. He lifted one finger where her open eye could find it.

“Follow.”

Her gaze moved with his hand. It jerked halfway across and lost the fingertip.

“Too fast,” she said.

He had barely moved.

Rishi slowed. “Tell me if there are two.”

“There aren’t.”

“Does the grove tilt?”

Maeril swallowed. “Only when it feels ambitious.”

Her attempt at a smile collapsed into another tremor.

Rishi moved to the leg. He touched each toe, asking what she could feel and watching the color return beneath his thumb. She answered yes to each touch.

Her face emptied. “Ask me again.”

He repeated the check without hurrying her. Her toes moved when he asked, though the answer came slowly. He loosened one of the temporary ties before it could steal blood from the foot.

Maeril looked toward the passage.

“Are we out?”

Rishi moved close enough that she did not have to search for his voice.

“We’re out.”

She stared at him until the answer held.

Then he began the work the corridor had not allowed.

Seamwarden wrung out a warm cloth and passed it to Rishi. He laid it over the edge of the fused cloak, and Maeril flinched.

“It stings.”

He waited until the cloth cooled before taking another from Seamwarden. Thiarel kept the water warm. Gradually the fabric loosened where force would have taken skin with it.

Rishi lifted his shears.

“Small pieces.”

Sirael held Maeril still without pressing the burns. Rishi cut away one narrow strip at a time, laying each on the spoiled cloth Seamwarden held ready.

Soak. Wait. Cut.

The cloak came apart in blackened sections.

Where fibers lifted cleanly, Rishi removed them. Where charred wool had sunk into the wound, he stopped.

“Just pull it free,” Maeril said.

“No.”

“Rish.”

“Those pieces stay until the next dressing.”

“I dislike that answer.”

“You may keep disliking it.”

He cut around the embedded cloth and left it undisturbed.

The exposed burns ran from Maeril’s shoulder across her upper arm and one side of her chest. Some had blistered. Others shone wet beneath the soot. Lightning marks branched between them in dark lines.

Rishi laid cool compresses over one small area at a time. He kept the rest of her covered and watched for deeper shivering.

Maeril gasped at the first touch.

“I can’t keep still. I am trying, Rish.”

“I know. We can stop between dressings. Tell me when it is too much.”

“Then stop a moment.”

He laid the compress aside. Sirael loosened her hold without taking away the arm Maeril leaned against.

Maeril waited for her breathing to slow, then reached for Rishi’s wrist and brought his hand back.

When the heat eased, he spread a thin layer of Thiarel’s cooling plant gel across the clean wounds. Honey-resin salve followed where no dirt remained. He covered each section with soft cloth treated so it would not bind, then wrapped it in linen without tightening across her ribs.

Maeril watched his hands through her open eye.

When he moved toward her face, she turned away.

“No. That part is fine.”

“One eye is closed.”

“It’s resting.”

“I won’t force it open. First, the circlet needs to come off.”

Maeril held still while he freed the loose hair from the band and lifted it past her horns. Her open eye followed the green stone.

“Keep it safe.”

“I will.”

He folded it into clean linen and tucked the bundle inside his robe. Only then did she turn her face back toward him.

Rishi did not pry the lid open. He poured clean water along her cheekbone and let it run across the burned skin and lashes. Soot gathered in the cloth beneath her ear.

Tears continued to leak from the closed eye.

“That isn’t crying,” Maeril muttered. “My face has become dramatic.”

“Of course.”

He placed a soft patch over the eye without pressing it. She followed the tie with her fingertips, then let her hand fall.

“Will I be able to see?”

“I don’t know yet, Maeril. I need to let it settle before I can look.”

Seamwarden took the stained cloth from beneath her cheek and laid a fresh fold in its place.

The burned hair beside her left horn came next.

Rishi eased the singed strands away from the raw scalp, washed away the soot, and covered the skin with a soft dressing.

Maeril looked toward the dark water.

“It will grow back poorly.”

“I wish I could tell you what will happen to it. Tonight I can keep the wound clean.”

“Another answer I dislike.”

“I know. So do I.”

Thiarel brought two straight branches. She padded them with moss and folded cloth while Rishi cut away the temporary splint.

He kept Maeril’s foot straight and set the branches along either side of her lower leg. One tie went above the break, another below it. He checked her toes between each knot.

When he lifted the shin to settle the last pad, pain erased the grove.

“Stop.”

Rishi stopped with her leg supported between his hands.

Maeril dragged air through clenched teeth. He waited until she could look at him again.

“Now. Slowly.”

He resumed with smaller movements. The bone settled between the padded branches. Pressure that had been gathering at one point spread across the length of the splint.

Relief did not feel good. It felt less impossible.

Maeril sagged into the moss.

The strength that had carried her through the chamber was gone. Shivering returned despite the mantle over her. Thirst thickened her tongue, while nausea warned against more than the smallest sip.

Rishi lifted her head and gave her water a mouthful at a time.

The first made her gag. He waited. The second stayed down.

Sound sharpened as she lay still. Each drip into the pool struck against the inside of her skull. Cloth moving beside her sounded close enough to tear.

“Everything is too sharp.”

Rishi sat near her shoulder and blocked the pool’s light. He took her hand.

“Your body is coming out of the fight. The pain may worsen before it settles.”

Maeril looked at him through one exhausted eye.

“If this becomes a lesson about sacred endurance, I will haunt you.”

“Only me?”

“The Loom is beneath my attention.”

“Fair.”

Some small tension left her fingers.

Her eyelid began to fall.

She fought it.

“You may sleep,” Rishi said.

“I did that already. It went badly.”

“I will wake you to check your head. Seamwarden will be here too. You won’t wake alone.”

“Cruel man.”

“Yes.”

Her eye closed.

Rishi kept two fingers at her wrist. Heat was building beneath the bandages, the first inflammation from the burns. He noted the change and the cadence at which he would check it again.

Sirael and Thiarel moved beyond the pool and spoke together in low Elvish. Sirael pointed toward the passages. Thiarel looked back at Maeril, objected, then listened while her sister answered.

They returned together.

“Stay here,” Sirael told Rishi. “We will find the way out and return with proper supplies.”

Thiarel crouched beside the splinted leg for one last check. “We will be quick.”

“Thank you for bringing her back.”

Thiarel rested a hand on his shoulder before she stood.

Sirael looked at Maeril.

“I remember the swords. I could not put them down.”

Rishi looked up at her. “You turned the blades. I saw you fight it.”

“I could feel every cut.”

Her hand closed against her thigh. Thiarel waited beside her until she turned toward the passage.

Then the sisters left the grove.

Seamwarden set the last cloth within Rishi’s reach and settled beside Maeril’s shoulder, their burned foot extended on the moss.

“I’ll stay.”

Seamwarden smiled and rested two careful fingers on the linen over Maeril’s shoulder.

Her eye fluttered beneath its lid. She did not wake.

Rishi kept her hand in his and listened to her breathe.