"Breathe deep, girl." The healer's stained fingers worked the paste deeper. "The air's thick here. Old growth. Good leylines. Plenty for the blood to pull from."
Fae bodies didn't just heal. They fed. Drew from the magic saturating the air the way roots drew from soil. Every breath pulled power from the leylines, and the blood spent it on healingwhat was broken. Without nature’s ambient hum, even fae healing was just flesh trying to remember how to be whole on its own.
I watched every second. The muscle knitting to muscle with a wet, organic sound. The skin pulling taut and sealing in hours what should have taken weeks. Brutal. Efficient. Healing that didn't care if it hurt as long as it worked.
I owed her that much. Watching. Not looking away.
By dawn, the wound would be nothing but a silver line.
My fault.The two words and nothing else. They just sat there, factual and patient, waiting for me to stop pretending otherwise.
"She is stable, Flameheart."
Dreadscale’s voice was a rumble of shifting tectonic plates. He moved into the firelight beside me, massive and solid.
He didn't ask if I was okay. He knew better.
"Your hair," he rumbled, gesturing to the matted, blood-stiffened mess around my shoulders. "It’s a liability."
I reached up, touching a tangle. "I can't... my hands are shaking too much."
"Turn."
I didn't argue. I turned my back to him, staring at Serenya’s stillness.
I heard him move behind me—the scrape of a basin being dragged across the table, the soft slosh of water. Then his hand on my shoulder, guiding me back until my head tipped over the edge.
I rested my neck on the lip of the basin and let the warm water flood through my hair. I closed my eyes and sighed.
His fingers worked through the matted strands, pausing every few moments to extract one of my razor blades. He set each one on the stone beside him with a softclink. Once the last blade was out, his touch gentled, loosening the blood and grime, careful around the tender places where my scalp still throbbed.
The water ran rust-colored almost instantly.
He lifted my head, emptied the basin out the window, and returned with fresh water. I heard him move behind me again. Felt the warmth flood through my hair a second time.
Pink, now. Better.
He emptied it again. Refilled it again. Patient as stone.
On the third basin, he worked oil and soap into the strands that smelled like roses and sun-berries.
The scent hit me like a physical blow.
Sun-berries—sweet and tart, the smell of Liraeth and home in high summer. It smelled like the girl I was before. Before the high collars. Before the dampening amulets. Before I learned that my soul was something to be ashamed of.
I swallowed hard, tears pricking my eyes, and kept my gaze fixed on Serenya.
When the water finally ran clear, he dried my hair with a rough cloth, his movements efficient but soothing. Then he began to comb.
His hands were rough. Calloused stone and scar tissue. But when they touched my scalp, they were tender. He pulled the hair back, combing through the knots with his fingers, the steady tugging grounding me.
"In Skal'Varin, we do not braid for beauty," he said quietly. "We braid for intent."
He divided the strands. Three sections. Past. Present. Future.
"Tight enough to hurt," he murmured. "That is the way of war. It reminds you that you are still in a body. That you can still feel."
He began to weave. He collected the razors from the table. One by one, he worked them back into the braid—nested between the weaves, edges out, invisible unless you were stupid enough to grab.
