Paxa sat back on her heels, drawing her linen apron down over her knees. The wind off the fiery plain stirred the fringes of her hair. But her dark eyes remained fixed on Kezra with an intensity that demanded total honesty.
“In the border villages during the fever years,” Paxa said quietly, “I saw mothers spend their last silver coppers to buy magical cordials from traveling quacks because the medicine man told them their dying children would wake up whole by dawn. The cordial smelled of peppermint and honey, and for two hours the mother smiled and cried with relief, convinced that a miracle had arrived in a glass bottle. And then the fever peaked, the child went into convulsions. The mother was left with an empty purse and a broken heart that never healed.”
She reached out, touching the wax rubbing where it lay across Kezra’s knee.
“That rubbing isn’t a magical cordial, Kezra. It’s real stone, real ink, and real iron. You don’t need to invent an easy ending to make it precious. The truth of what Davren accomplished is enough. He crossed thirty leagues of barren fiery peaks alone. He survived five months after everyone who loved him thought he was dead. If you turn that into a childish fantasy that he’s sitting in Alderfast waiting for us with a hot stew, you make his real struggle cheap.”
