4 #3

She lost two dishes and a bundle of firewood.

The basket of eggs was her idea: she wanted to try with a load whose fate mattered to her.

She saved seven by using her body as a barrier.

As she cleaned up the eighth, Kaoran handed her the broken handle and a strip of leather.

The next day, they checked the repair first.

On the sixth day, he tried to unbalance her beside the well. Isolde stepped diagonally, shifted her weight onto her right foot, and let the force pass. Kaoran kept moving forward and had to grab the well’s rim.

“A person down the well would have complicated the training,” she said.

“That’s why I chose the dry side.”

“I would have chosen the other.”

Kaoran marked a new line beside the house. It was fifty steps away.

The next task was to cross it with a bowl filled to the brim.

Isolde spilled water on the first step because she was watching her foot.

On the second attempt, she watched the bowl and tripped over a stone.

On the third, she fixed her gaze on a point ahead, let her body find the ground, and lost only a few drops as she arrived.

Kaoran drank from the bowl and set six uneven stones along the route.

It took Isolde four tries to understand that she could walk around them. She had assumed she had to step between them because Kaoran had put them there. He had given no such instruction.

“You used my expectations,” she said.

“You brought them.”

“An enemy will do the same.”

“So will an ally, if you trust habit more than their words.”

That night, Isolde wrote the sentence beside her copy of the mining order. She had filled twelve sheets with names, quantities, and questions. Her right-handed writing was still steady. To train her left, she traced awkward circles in the margins. Kaoran didn’t ask to see the pages.

Breathing filled the first hour of every morning.

Kaoran tied a band of cloth around her ribs and asked her to push against it without raising her shoulders. The scar had taught her body to guard one side. Isolde filled her right lung and left her left half empty. When she tried to run, the imbalance appeared before fatigue.

“Take the breath toward your back,” he said.

“Lungs have no doors.”

“The body understands images, even if the heir prefers arguing with them.”

“Iria argues too.”

“Then you’ll both spend the morning here.”

Isolde rested her hands on her ribs. As she breathed in slowly, she felt the back expand. The scar pulled. She held the breath for one count and let it out without bending over.

“Another,” Kaoran said.

After twenty breaths, the pain spread toward her shoulder. Isolde asked for a pause. Kaoran loosened the band and stayed where she could see him. The day before, she had managed to fill both sides; this morning her chest closed when she passed halfway.

She expected to feel a hand on her scar. She looked at Kaoran’s, busy folding the cloth, and kept her feet planted on the ground. After resting, she managed three full breaths. She recorded that result alongside yesterday’s without crossing either out.

In the second week, Kaoran asked her to walk the fifty-step line while counting her breaths. Isolde arrived with the bowl half full. The next day, she carried a pot. Then she carried a burning coal on a shovel.

A gust carried a spark to the strap on her left hand. Isolde called on the core to contain it. The fire answered with a surge that blackened the leather. Kaoran plunged the glove into the mud and asked her to look at the wet grass at her feet: she could have dropped the shovel there.

Isolde repaired the strap before trying again. When the wind changed once more, she rested the shovel on the ground and waited for the gust to pass. She reached the line with the ember burning and the glove intact.

Kaoran added slopes, low branches, and sacks of different weights. Some days, Isolde made progress. Others ended after ten steps because her knee swelled or the scar restricted her breath. She honored the condition of saying so before she fell. Every admission cost her more than the pain.

“I can barely feel my foot today,” she said one morning.

Kaoran put away the heavy sack and took her to the stream to work her toes in cold water.

“My rib burns,” she admitted another day.

He replaced the walking with seated exercises and checked the scar.

Some pauses let her study the orders or repair equipment.

Others passed entirely beside the window.

She heard Kaoran working outside and looked for tasks until fatigue kept her from holding a thought.

She learned to leave the notebook closed on those afternoons.

The next morning, she could read what she had written.

He woke her while the sky was still black. He had placed three lamps on the hillside: one beside the well, another at the split oak, and a third near the hollow beside the stream. The last was more than five hundred steps away.

“You’re going to bring them back,” he said.

Isolde put on Doven’s shoe and took her walking stick.

“With help?”

“Whatever help you decide to prepare.”

She tied a short rope to her belt, packed water, and wrapped her knee. Kaoran followed ten steps behind. He carried a blanket and a shovel. He offered no arm.

The ground as far as the well was almost level. Isolde picked up the first lamp and continued. Beyond the wall, the path descended toward the woods. Mud gave beneath her left foot, forcing the ankle to adjust every time she set it down.

She stopped before her knee began to tremble.

Three in.

Hold for one.

Five out.

The rhythm she used to contain the fire also served to measure her body. She continued to the oak. She had taken twice as long as a healthy person would. The second lamp still burned.

“I can go back,” Kaoran said.

“I know.”

Isolde drank and descended toward the stream.

Meltwater had covered part of the crossing. It reached her ankles and pushed from the left, her weak side. She planted the stick upstream. The first step held. The second sank her shoe between stones.

The current pulled.

Isolde freed her foot before her leg twisted. She found another purchase with the stick and crossed sideways. Every movement paid for a need: balance, progress, protection for her knee. Fear of falling tried to collect for all of them at once.

She reached the other bank.

The hollow lay twenty steps farther up. When she took the third lamp, dawn had lit the peaks.

Kaoran sat on a rock.

“Now we have to go back,” he said.

Isolde looked at the path she had traveled. Her whole body shook. The wound burned beneath the scar, and her left foot had lost feeling inside the wet shoe.

“I know.”

She put two lamps in her bag. She carried the third in her left hand, secured with a strap around her fingers.

The flame stayed lit all the way to the house.

Isolde set the three lamps on the table and discovered she could no longer undo the strap on her hand. Her fingers were swollen. Her left foot had lost its color beneath the damp shoe, and a blister stretched from heel to arch.

Kaoran put water on to heat.

“I finished the route,” she said.

“Recovery is part of the route.”

“I can manage.”

“Then start by taking off your shoe before we have to cut it.”

Isolde sat on the threshold. The first strap came loose. The second had mud inside the buckle. The fingers of her left hand couldn’t hold it. She tried with her right, but the angle pulled at her side.

Kaoran knelt at a careful distance.

“I can open it,” he said.

Isolde kept fighting the buckle.

The skin around her ankle was turning bluish. She had carried three lamps back from the hollow and crossed the stream twice. Being trapped by a strip of leather seemed a disproportionate humiliation.

“Open it,” she said.

Kaoran used the tip of a nail to clear the mud. The shoe fell to the floor. Isolde rested her foot on a blanket and let him check the pulse at her ankle.

“The feeling will come back,” he said. “The wedge pressed too hard when the leather got wet.”

“Doven can change it.”

“You can mark where it hurts. He’ll do the rest.”

Kaoran filled a basin with lukewarm water. Isolde lowered her foot into it. Pain returned as needles. She clung to the bench and breathed until it eased.

“In the stream, I felt my knee was going to fail,” Isolde said.

“I saw. You changed your footing before it gave way.”

Kaoran released the strap on her hand. He cleaned two reddened patches and left the buckle open on the bench.

“The wedge will have to dry outside the shoe. Mark where it presses for Doven.”

Isolde ran a good finger along the edge. She had managed to return with all three lamps and still needed to learn what to do with her body afterward. She took the charcoal he offered and drew a line on the leather. Kaoran placed the lamps on the shelf.

Isolde looked at the lamps. The last had mud on its handle.

“Tomorrow I can walk the same route.”

Kaoran pointed to the ankle visible beneath the water.

“Tomorrow we’ll see how it is when you wake. I suggest going as far as the well.”

Isolde began to protest. The throbbing in her foot interrupted her.

“As far as the well,” she agreed.

Kaoran gave her a bowl of broth. She held it with both hands, drank, and ate the bread he had left ready. When she finished, her body was still tired, though the shaking in her leg had eased.

She went upstairs without the stick. Kaoran stayed behind her in case she fell. Isolde placed her whole left foot on each step, shifted her weight, and let her breath out. The staircase had eight steps.

She reached the top with enough strength to turn her head.

“Tomorrow you’ll have to help me move the chest on the landing,” she said.

“Where do you want it?”

“In my room. If you bring another wounded person, we’ll need room to carry them through.”

Kaoran looked at the space between the chest and the railing.

“After the well.”

Isolde nodded and left her bedroom door ajar.