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“Yes.” Aunt Illyna strode into his room and set the bag on the floor beside the bed. “Of course I would come myself for you.”

Merrik swallowed, his gaze dropping to the floor. He wasn’t used to everyone going so out of the way for him. He was usually the one quietly doing that for others. “Linshi.”

Aunt Illyna knelt on the floor beside the bed. “All right. Can you swivel your legs to hang off the side of the bed?”

Merrik hesitated, a strange tension filling him.

Aunt Illyna looked up at him, holding out her hands, both wooden and flesh. “It is nothing I have not seen before.”

With a deep breath, Merrik swiveled and pulled the blanket back. He was now, thankfully, dressed in shorts and a fatigue shirt rather than the skimpy hospital gown. Yet the shorts still left both his mutilated ankle and his missing foot rather visible.

When he glanced up, Aunt Illyna wasn’t staring at his legs. Instead she was still peering up at him, studying his expression. When he met her gaze, she held out both of her hands to him, as if presenting them for inspection. “When you were growing up, did you find my lack of a hand disgusting?”

“No! Of course not.” Merrik shook his head. “You were just…”

“Your aunt who was missing a hand,” she finished for him, a wry twist to her mouth.

“But I was not disgusted as a child. If anything…” He winced, remembering it now. “We always found it fun, how you could change hands for doing different things.”

Now that he was an adult and facing the reality of missing a limb, he didn’t find it so fun.

Yet Aunt Illyna had never tried to hide her hand. If anything, she had leaned into their awe and showed off how she could swap hands for different things. Nor was her missing hand the sum total of his memories of his aunt.

There was the time when he, Fieran, and Adry were all young adolescent elves and they spent the day with Aunt Illyna, picking out scents and making their very own specialized shampoo and conditioner from scratch. And the time he, Fieran, Adry, and Louise had stayed with Uncle Lance, Aunt Illyna, and their son Bennett while their parents attended an event. Merrik didn’t even remember what the event was. But he certainly remembered the minor explosion Uncle Lance caused when teaching them basic chemistry, and Aunt Illyna making sure none of them were actually harmed.

Aunt Illyna flexed the fingers of her wooden hand, hints of green magic glowing around them. “Perhaps my lack of a hand defined me in your mind. It was how you identified me. And, yes, it is an integral part of who I am. But it is not all of who I am. This is not all of who you are either.”

A lump formed in Merrik’s throat, and he couldn’t manage anything else but a tiny nod.

She gestured as her voice took on a stronger undercurrent. “You will walk again. You will do many of the same things you did before. Yes, there will be challenges. Some things will be harder. You will need more tools to do the same things you used to do without a thought before. And, yes, there will be things that will be difficult, if not impossible, now. But you will thrive. You will find joy. This will not steal the things that truly matter in life.”

The words meant far more, coming from her. She’d been through the loss of a limb, and she’d done it at a time when the elves had ostracized their wounded warriors. There had been no foundation to step in and give her a specialized limb. Had there been anyone to walk her through this as she was doing for him?

“Linshi.” Merrik’s voice came out hoarse past the squeezing in his throat.

“Now, I have one of the all-purpose walking legs started for you.” Illyna dug into her bag and pulled out a wooden leg. It had a leather cuff that was attached to a wooden calf and a foot that moved on ball bearings and springs. “I took the measurements from Fieran, but I will need to take final measurements from you for a few last tweaks.”

Merrik briefly squeezed his eyes shut. Fieran. He’d had a part in the creation of this leg, even if it was small. Despite the continued ember of anger that still burned in Merrik’s chest, this was a reminder that his friend was still his friend.

“This one is a good starter leg.” Aunt Illyna demonstrated the leg’s and foot’s range of motion. “It will function without the use of your magic, but your movements will be smoother as you learn to use your magic to walk. Eventually, you might find you need more specialized limbs or a different design. The foundation, of course, will be happy to work with you for your specific needs.”

Merrik nodded again, his brain already starting to feel somewhat swirling and overwhelmed. He had a lot to learn about the new life he was entering.

But he could do this. He would learn the tools, learn the process, and learn how to walk again.

Aunt Illyna fitted the cuff onto his stump, showing him how to buckle it on. She also explained how he would need the cuff to be resized as the remnants of his calf muscles atrophied, now that they no longer had a foot to move, and his stump shrank in size.

After pulling out a measuring tape and taking a few measurements, Aunt Illyna packed the tape and the leg back in her bag. When she reached into the bag again, she revealed a cuff that had a six-inch stick instead of a full leg attached to it. “This is a practice cuff, not for walking. You can put it on while you are lying in bed or walking with crutches on your other leg and practice sending your magic down through your stump into the wood.”

Merrik took the practice cuff, turning it over in his hands. This was his next move forward, even before he learned how to walk again.

“It will not be natural at first, given how we elves are trained to send our magic out through our hands instead of having it burst outward in all directions.” Aunt Illyna gestured to his leg. “I would advise starting in small increments at first. Not only are you unused to using your magic this way, which will tire you out magically, but your stump will not be used to wearing a cuff yet. Work yourself up to both things slowly.”

Slow enough, anyway. He could take a little discomfort.

Something in his expression must have given him away because Aunt Illyna shot him a stern look. “I mean it. Do not rush the process or exhaust yourself. Hurting yourself will not help anything.”

“Fine. I will follow orders.” Merrik gave her a lopsided attempt at a smile.