Page 84 of Dark Destiny: A New Thread in the Tapestry

"I am going to move so they have room to work." She leaned over him and kissed his forehead.

Annani moved to the front of the ward, where four plastic chairs lined the wall. She had learned during her vigil that when the staff was performing their duties, she needed to make room. Usually, she left the ward to use the bathroom upstairs, not because she needed to, but because the five males deserved their dignity. The medical staff was necessary, but she did not need to be there to watch. This time, though, she only moved to the chairs at the front, unwilling to miss a moment of this new stage of healing. Besides, there was nothing intimate about leg braces.

They began with Khiann, and she was glad Julian planned to use one of the new devices on him. Julian folded back the blanket, and Gertrude fitted the padded cradle to Khiann's leg and buckled the straps. She was gentle with a limb that three weeks ago had been little more than bone. When the machine started, Khiann's knee rose, bent, and lowered, driven by the motor, and his eyes grew wide.

"The machine is helping your leg do what it cannot yet do by itself," Annani said in the old tongue.

He looked at his own knee traveling up and down without his permission, and then he looked up at Gertrude, and the corner of his mouth pulled into the crooked half-smile that she loved.

Annani realized he could not see her where she sat, so she rose and stepped closer. "It is a marvelous invention. Is it not?"

"Here you go, Clan Mother." Julian pushed the rocking chair back into place. "You can sit down."

She sat and took Khiann's hand. "Your friends are getting the same treatment. Fates willing, the five of you will walk out of here together." She chuckled. "That might have been a bit optimistic. You will most likely leave in wheelchairs."

Down the row, the staff moved from bed to bed, fitting the guards one by one. The machines came on in sequence until all five were running, and the ward filled with the soft mechanical hum of five devices exercising five pairs of atrophied legs.

The male in the last bed, the one who had been making incoherent sounds for over a week, was at it again. He had stopped for a couple of days, and Bridget had worried he was regressing, so it was good to hear him mumble once more, even though it was somewhat irritating, mainly because Khiann was not making any sounds at all.

"Ab, Da, ab, da, da, da…Ab…"

He was definitely struggling to say something, and the sounds were more deliberate than before.

"I am going to check on your friend," she told Khiann. "It will only take a moment."

She let go of his hand, rose to her feet, and walked over to the last bed, stopping where he could see her without turning his head.

"Good morning," she said. "I think you are trying to say something. Can I help you find the words?"

He looked at her, his throat working, and the sound came again. "Ab."

Ab meant water in the old tongue, but it was also a starting syllable in many other words.

"Do you mean water?"

"Ab." He said it a third time, and this time it was clear that it stood on its own and was not the beginning of a word.

He wanted water. He had said it because he was thirsty.

"Water," Annani repeated in his language. "You want water."

His eyes stayed on her mouth, and he did not say it again, but he did not have to.

"Julian." She kept her voice level. "He asked for water. Can he have some?"

Julian came over, checked the man, and nodded. "Small sips. Nothing more, and only if he can manage the swallow. I'll watch."

"Can we give water to all of them?" she asked.

"Of course."

Gertrude brought cups with straws, and Annani took one to the far bed first. She held the straw to the man's lips, and as he drew on it and swallowed, the relief on his face was priceless.

She did the same down the row, one guard after another, each taking a swallow, then came back to Khiann.

"One of your men asked for water and got it. Would you like some too?"

She held the cup to his mouth and guided the straw between his lips.