Midnight passed into the late watch of the seventh night. Then, Daro Kesh and Osen Tal stepped out to the stable shed to outfit the young shrine servant with a fresh pack-mule and warm rations for his ride to the valley crossroads, while inside the southern ward room, Seyun and Mina prepared to close the medicine table so the four recovering testers could sleep.
None of the four patients on the cots had closed their eyes.
Pera sat on the edge of her wooden bedframe with her scarred ankles crossed. Beside her, Maren had propped her rope-calloused forearms on her knees. Sixteen-year-old Tov was sitting upright against his rolled wool blanket. And even Vey, resting flat under his warm third-terrace reed-ash pack, had his hand raised to beckon Seyun and Mina over to the bedside.
“Don’t blow that lamp out yet, Healer Mina,” Pera said quietly, her voice firm in the warm glow of the ward stove. “None of the four of us has the legs or the channels to climb that freezing northern cliff path with you tomorrow. If we tried, you’d just end up carrying our litters a second time. But we spent weeks wired to that black bronze pillar beside Halin while you all were still down in the river cities. We aren’t going to lie here like sacks of flour while you walk into Reth Mal’s room blind.”
