Page 7

He and Fieran had always been inseparable. More, Merrik was the kind of loyal best friend—no, brother—who would have fought with Fieran to the end. If Fieran crashed, then of course Merrik had as well.

Mama continued, as if not realizing that she’d just tilted Adry’s world on end, “He’s alive, but…he’s lost one of his legs below the knee.”

Adry slumped with her back to the wall, her legs and hands shaking. She squeezed her eyes shut on the hot tears, her throat closing so tightly that there was no way she could respond.

Merrik had lost a leg. She tried to process that. Tried to wrap her mind around what he must be going through right now.

“They’ll be sending him to Estyra for recovery once he’s more stable.” Mama’s voice steadied somewhat, although it remained raw. “Patience and Kari will be boarding a train shortly to head to Estyra. I hate to ask, but⁠—”

She turned her head enough to speak into the telephone. “Of course I’ll be there for them. Whatever Aunt Patience needs.” Whatever Merrik needed, but Adry didn’t say that out loud. She couldn’t admit the way she was now secretly relieved to be stuck in Estyra where she didn’t have to choose between Merrik and Fieran.

It should’ve been an easy choice. Her brother or the man who’d grown up like her brother but wasn’t.

And yet her heart would’ve chosen Estyra. She would’ve wanted to be here with Merrik. Despite the fact that he saw her as just a sister. That he would never feel the same way about her that she did about him.

Was that wrong of her? That she would rather be here in Estyra with Merrik than in Aldon with Fieran, her actual brother?

“Thank you.” Mama’s breath held a trace of the weight resting on her shoulders. As always, she was the one holding everyone and everything together. She would shoulder it all with a smile, without complaint, never breaking until after the crisis was over. “I’ll keep you updated about Fieran. He should be arriving here in Aldon in a day or two as well.”

“Linshi.” Adry couldn’t manage to say anything else but the elven word for thank you.

She, too, would need to shoulder the weight for everyone else in the coming days. Aunt Patience, Merrik, and Kari would need someone to be strong for them.

Hopefully Adry was up to the task.

Chapter

Three

Merrik lay strapped to a stretcher, drifting in and out of consciousness as the train glided through the vast forests of Tarenhiel.

His waking minutes were a haze of pain while his sleep was plagued and restless, the nightmares all too real.

As the train eased to a halt, Merrik forced his eyes open, the familiar trees of Estyra visible outside the train’s windows.

Elves dressed in light green tunics and trousers moved through the train, unloading the stretchers from their brackets attached to the wall one by one.

When it was Merrik’s turn, even the slight jostling sent a stab of pain up both of Merrik’s legs. He hissed, gritting his teeth as he was carried from the train and across the platform before his stretcher was attached to another set of brackets.

An elf pushed a lever, and Merrik’s stretcher rose into the air. Merrik seemed to be on some kind of lift that carried his stretcher high into the air, up through the layers of the tree canopy. He was halted every few feet, likely for the elves at the bottom to load another stretcher and for those at the top to unload.

At last, Merrik’s stretcher reached the top, where another platform awaited. Here, his stretcher was taken from the lift and loaded onto one of the trams that ran throughout Estyra.

This one seemed to be dedicated to the use of the returning wounded, for it was completely filled with stretchers. Once full, the tram glided off, gently curving and winding, until it halted beside a new platform, this one attached to the huge maple tree that served as Estyra’s main hospital.

Unlike the square block of a hospital at Fort Defense, where each floor was a large ward with only curtains for privacy, Estyra’s hospital was formed of winding rooms grown into the tree’s trunk and branches. Each room had walls on three sides and a curtain for the fourth wall, but the curving nature of the halls meant that, even with the curtain open, one couldn’t see into another room.

Merrik didn’t bother paying attention to where he was brought in the hospital. The orderlies transferred him to the bed, and several elven nurses, their faces far too serene, saw to it that his basic needs were taken care of and he was changed into a fresh hospital gown. By the time one of them offered him a sponge bath, he was ready to bite the next hand that touched him.

He hated this. Hated needing someone else to help him with even the most basic necessities. He felt like a snarling animal, curled in a hole after losing a foot to a trap.

Finally, the nurses left, and he had a few minutes alone to breathe and try to settle his mind so he didn’t actually bite someone.

Soft footsteps sounded in the hallway beyond the green curtain that sheltered him, disrupting those moments of blessed silence. A nurse opened one end of the curtain, then stepped aside.

Merrik’s mama, her blonde hair in a neat bun at the back of her head, hurried around the curtain. She paused as soon as she was inside, her blue eyes widening and growing wet, her expression filling with a mix of emotions that Merrik couldn’t name. Nor did he want to.

He couldn’t manage to dredge up a smile. “Mama.”