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Propping his elbows on the armrests of the wheelchair, he managed to wiggle enough to change his trousers and undershorts. By the time he donned the clean shirt, his legs throbbed with fresh pain. But the pain was worth it to feel clean again.

Not that he’d admit that to Adry. She was already at her bossiest right now.

When he wheeled himself from the water closet, he found Adry standing in the center of his now clean room, that bag over her shoulder again. She dug into it, pulled out a vial, and held it out to him. “Here’s a healing potion. Drink up. We’re going outside.”

Merrik took the vial, but he didn’t uncork it. The weight that had temporarily lifted at being clean settled in his chest again. “I cannot get out of this room.”

“You can’t do the stairs.” Adry gave a shrug, as if that wasn’t as big a deal as it was. “But you can lower yourself down on the rope from the balcony. Just sit on it instead of standing.”

The rope. He hadn’t even given it a thought. Decades ago, he and Fieran had rigged a rope with a wood slat tied to one end so that Fieran could come up or Merrik go down without traversing through the main part of the house and disturbing the rest of Merrik’s family.

“That might work.” The words came out grudging. She’d already been right too much that day as it was.

Adry grinned and headed for the double doors that opened onto his balcony. After downing the vial of healing juice, he wheeled himself after her.

The balcony was a semicircle with a living railing growing leaves around the sides. At the very end, a gate in the railing provided an easy way to reach the rope that hung from a pulley attached to the large branch above them.

After opening the gate, Adry reached out and snagged both sides of the rope. She held out the end with the slat to him.

Merrik grabbed it. While it was awkward, he wiggled his way onto the slat. When Adry handed him the other side of the rope, he pulled on it, lifting himself out of his wheelchair. Adry kept a hand on the rope, so he didn’t swing wildly and hit the railing or open gate.

Once he was safely dangling over mid-air, Adry fully released the rope. “I’ll meet you at the bottom with your chair.”

He gave her a nod before he began lowering himself down hand over hand. After days of lying in bed and the toll his injuries had taken on his body, his arms were shaking by the time he reached the ground.

Adry beat him there, and she positioned the chair under him so that he could lower himself onto it. He released the rope with a sigh.

“Now what?” He stared into the forest, taking in the uneven ground and the thick grass. Neither of those things were conducive for wheeling his chair. His arms already shook with exhausted weakness after getting himself this far.

“You tell me.” Adry shrugged and gestured ahead of them. “You’re the one with plant magic. I was thinking you could just…make yourself a path somehow? Maybe grow a set of roots to create rails like for a train? If that doesn’t work, I guess I could incinerate all the grass so at least it would be bare dirt.”

He grimaced. He didn’t want her to kill a bunch of plants if he could avoid it.

It took a great deal of his waning arm strength to wheel his chair to the nearest tree. But once he did, he pressed a hand to its trunk, the bark comfortingly rough beneath his palm.

His magic surged within him, controlled now that his emotions weren’t as unruly as before. Sending his magic into the tree and down to its roots, he encouraged the tree to send large, broad roots out into the quiet depths of the forest, spaced the width of his chair.

When he pushed forward again, the chair rolled easily against the smooth surface of the root. He’d shaped them so that they gripped the wheels, preventing them from slipping off.

Adry strolled silently beside him, giving him the space he needed as they worked their way deeper into the forest.

She’d known that he could do this. That with a little nudge from her, he could get himself out of his room and into the forest with his magic. Just as she’d known that he would feel much better once he was clean.

He couldn’t find the words to express what that meant to him. More than what she’d meant it to, most likely, but that was a problem for his heart to figure out a different day.

Once they reached the end of the roots he’d grown, well out of sight of anything or anyone else, Merrik halted. This time, he didn’t need the bossy nudge from Adry. Pressing a hand to a nearby tree, he used magic to bend one of the branches, wrap it around his waist, and lift himself from the wheelchair. He then lowered himself to the ground on a patch of soft moss and grass.

Releasing the branch, he lay on his back and heaved a long sigh, closing his eyes. He sent out just a tendril of his magic, letting it filter through the moss, the grass, the trees, until he could sense all the life thrumming around him.

There was just something steadying about the trees. Some of them had been towering trunks long before his dachasheni had been born. They’d stood strong while the world changed around them, unbowed and undaunted, still reaching for the sunlight above.

He’d needed the peace of the forest, the quiet of the trees, to steady him in a way nothing else did.

And Adry had known that.

Of course she had. She knew him as well as any sister would, even if he no longer saw her as a sister. What he felt for her was so much more than that.

He didn’t know how long he lay there, soaking up the sense of the forest around him and letting that peace filter into his soul. He hadn’t pieced together the shattered remains of himself, but in those moments, he at least gathered the shards together again instead of feeling so scattered.