Chapter 9
Kyla stomped back into the Cabin after filling up the wash basin outside with hot water. Her limp was less pronounced but she had one arm in a sling as directed by Azriel and her ribs still made her hunch to one side. She dropped the bucket by the door and said across the room. "So, have you worked up the courage to do this?"
Without waiting for an answer she pulled the rocking chair over to the bed. Azriel had kicked the covers off and sat up on his elbows in bed. He wore only some short pants, and a large bandage wrapped around his torso. Kyla reached up and pulled down a wooden bar tied between two ropes. The ropes came together in a point and then ran up to the ceiling and over one of the ceiling joists then back down to the bar. The system connected to another rope that was padded around his legs, so the whole contraption looked like a makeshift hammock.
"Alright," she opened. "I'm broken, you're broken, so neither one of us is in good shape right now. But if we do this together we can make it work." She smiled at him reassuringly. Azriel saw a light spark in her eye that he had never noticed before. She was excited to try this and see if her contraption worked.
"Just hook the arm from your broken wing side through the wooden bar. Then lock it off in your elbow so that the weight is hanging off your skeleton and the not the muscles. That will reduce the strain from being transferred to your back muscles, and thus your wings. I'll pull on the other end and lift you from the bed." She said it with a confidence Azriel found infectious.
"There's no way you can lift me with one arm," he stated.
"Well not with that attitude!" Kyla laughed. It was fake humour designed to reassure him that he wouldn't crash to the ground and cause more damage. But Azriel couldn't help but smile too as he reached for the bar.
"Here we go." She pulled gently on the loose end of the rope that ran through the rafter. Nothing happened. She braced her feet wider and pulled down with more weight behind it, as Azriel pushed off the bed. He grunted as his torso lifted off and he reached for the rocking chair. Kyla lowered the rope swing slowly as he maneuvered himself to the chair. When his butt touched down she released the rope and helped guide his wings between the spindles on the chair. In this way he could sit up without crushing the delicate appendages.
Azriel was breathing heavily from the effort but was ecstatic to be out of the bed.
"It worked!" he exclaimed. "How did you think to do that?"
"Physics!" Kyla answered. "The weight is distributed over the bars multiplying the strength applied to the end of the rope." Azriel raised his eyebrows. She shrugged, "I read about it, in a book."
Azriel grinned at her and looked up at the set up in the ceiling. Kyla unhooked the ropes with one arm and slowly lowered his leg to the stool she had placed in front of the rocking chair. She then set about stripping the sheets from the bed and carrying them outside. Her washing tub wasn't very big but she could do one sheet at a time.
The sheets were hanging to dry in the breeze and Kyla sat in the doorway with her nose in a book again.
"I find it amazing that after all this time, you still enjoy reading as much as you do," Azriel said to her. She closed the book on her fingers to keep her spot and looked out at the hanging laundry.
"I suppose. But I do like reading about new ideas and solutions to things. I'm always hopeful that it'll spark an idea on how I might get out. But in the meantime I just keep reading."
"What are you reading about now?"
"General K'vanyk's personal account of the invasion of Xian. I find it interesting because his observations differ from Commander Banus' own recounting, where he stated that the forces snuck in through the mines. K'vanyk thinks quite highly of himself when really he was fool and needlessly cost the lives of more than three thousand foot soldiers." Kyla frowned at the text in the book like she could send the long-dead general a disapproving glare.
Azriel didn't know how many more surprises he could take. She had knowledge of war tactics as well? He racked his memory for what he knew about the invasion of Xian and had a vague recollection of the tunnels trapping the soldiers before they ever reached the citadel. It was a complicated battle that held many surprises, almost as many as this human girl before him.
"I take it you would have done differently?" he prompted.
"Well, that's easy to say after-the-fact, but yes, I would not have used the tunnels. Well I would have, but not in that way. Banus had used Lumos faeries to build the tunnels, which as you know leave behind a highly flammable trace element that can ignite with the smallest spark. He had built a wall of fire around himself." Kyla's eyes once again sparkled with intensity as she worked through her plan. "K'vanyk was arrogant and couldn't see this advantage, and instead of quite stealth he marched his whole forces straight into the trap."
"But you wouldn't have done that?" Azriel asked with eyebrows raised.
"Well no. Too obvious. I would have started the fight from within," Kyla answered.
"With what? There were no other allies."
"The humans."
"What?"
"The humans were within the castle already."
"Yes, but they were slaves."
"Exactly." She eased herself from the sitting position and started towards the sheets. "Never turn your back on someone who has nothing to lose."
Azriel couldn't tell if it was a warning, or a threat.
"Ready for the next phase?" Kyla asked Azriel expectantly. She had been grinding Jurcimi root since the Light returned and had filled a bucket with the grey powder. She placed it next to a bucket of mud and some torn up sheets. "Now that the swelling has gone down, we can better protect the bones in your leg from impact while they heal. We're going to encase it in dried mud and the Jurcimi root will set it in place."
"Is this a joke?" Azriel asked. In all his war camps he had never heard of a healer doing such a thing. But then again, he had never had to wait this long for a faery's bones to heal. Healers would arrive eventually and piece them back together overnight. His leg, his wings...nothing was mending and he didn't know why. His powers should have recovered by now but he couldn't heal himself, and he couldn't hear Rhys through their connection. Everytime he reached out he was met with a muffled silence like someone had thrown a blanket over his head and he couldn't get out. But now that the fever passed and he had to lay awake in pain, he was becoming increasingly frustrated with his broken body.
"Well, it might turn into a joke if this doesn't work, but for now, I vote we give it a try. What have you got to lose?" she added. Azriel put his face in his palm and sighed. This place was driving him mad-how could she stay so positive?
"Alright, let's give it a go," he resigned.
Kyla pulled over the bedside table and lined it up where she thought his leg would end. Azriel used the rope to lift his body again and swing it around, while Kyla gently guided his leg so that he was sitting on the edge of the bed with the leg supported on the table. Azriel hissed when she began to remove the makeshift splint. Just sticks and cloth held it together. The whole leg was an ugly blue and purple. The bruise should have been yellowing and disappearing long ago, but it remained as though he had broken it yesterday.
"Well. That's nasty," offered Kyla. "I really hope those bones are in the right place, because we're about to lock them in."
She mixed the mud and Jurcimi root powder, slowly adding water until she reached a consistency she deemed appropriate. Then she dipped a strip of cloth in the mixture and pulled it out, scraping off the excess between her fingers.
"How did you know to do that?" Azriel asked. She didn't answer but she looked at him from under raised eyebrows. "Right. You read it in a book." Kyla grinned and began to wrap the strips around his wounded leg. Azriel watched as Kyla furrowed her brow, deep in concentration as she gently wrapped his leg in the mud and cloth. He noticed that she had this habit of biting her lower lip when she was thinking, and the tell made him wonder where her thoughts had wandered off to.
"Where will you go? When you leave here, I mean," he asked suddenly. She was so full of curiosity and intrigue but had no experience of the world beyond her little forest. She was this amazing contradiction of a vast wealth of knowledge and child-like naivete that he had trouble picturing in the world. He thought of all the people who would take advantage of her innocence and it made his blood boil. But Kyla didn't stop working as she thought through her answer.
"I've always wanted to go sailing," was all she said. She kept adding strips of cloth to Azriel's leg. In all the horrors he had seen, the torture he had endured, the torture he had inflicted, villages that had been burned, the people murdered, never had his heart felt as heavy as it did with that statement. Kyla had been trapped here for her entire living memory, but her dream was so simple. It infuriated him.
"That's it?" Azriel practically shouted. "You have read more books than I knew existed and know more about the world than thousand-year-old faeries, but all you want to do is go sailing?" Azriel's venomous tone stopped Kyla's work and she looked away. A shadow passed over her face and all trace of humour faded away. Azriel regretted bringing it up.
"Dreams are a dangerous thing, especially without hope. You find yourself dwelling on them, and forgetting the life you have before you. I've dreamt a lot about those things I've read. Then I open my eyes and look at the same four walls I always have and know that I'll never see or experience them. But what of it? What should I do? Just waste away in a dream?" she barked a bitter laugh. "Oh I tried that. I tried just doing nothing. Not eating, not drinking, not moving. Turns out rotting takes more time than you'd think in a cursed Cabin where time has no meaning."
Silence hung between them. Kyla got up to fetch more water and carried the pail back to her seat. But she remained standing and stared down Azriel.
"I have no more dreams, only nightmares. But I want to go sailing." She stared at Azriel as if she were challenging him to contradict her. He felt her eyes boring into him and almost squirmed under her gaze. He broke first and looked away, feeling embarrassed for some reason. She sat down abruptly and continued building the cast.
Azriel made up his mind on the spot and spoke without thinking. "I am a shadowsinger. I can see and hear things others cannot. I use all these shadows that surround me to learn the secrets of the world. I work as a spymaster for the High Lord of the Night Court, and have done that since he came into power hundreds of years ago. Little escapes my notice. Sometimes I learn things about people, before they even know themselves." Azriel reached out and placed a hand on Kyla's. She stopped working and looked at him. "Never have I heard of this place, or of a human girl locked away. I don't know how this is possible, that I never even picked up a whisper. But I swear to you I will do everything in my power to find out, and so you can dream again."
Kyla's gaze was locked on Azriel as she absorbed what he offered. She said nothing, but nodded once.
Azriel didn't feel a burden with this promise but a lightness that he had something to offer her in return, that maybe he could free her from this nightmare. She didn't jump for joy, or weep tears of gratitude. She simply kept on working and then said, "What shadows?"
