Windhaven

Your left arm was shattered, with bone protruding through the flesh. I thought I would have to amputate.

But I did not." He pressed his fingers against her lips and withdrew them — it was like a kiss. "I cleaned it and used the fireflower essence and other herbs. You'll have stiffness there a long time, but I don't think there was any nerve damage, so that with time and exercise I think your left arm will be strong and useful again. You broke two ribs when you fell, and you hit your head on the rock. You were unconscious for three days in my care — I didn't know if you would ever return."

"Only three broken limbs," Maris said. "An easy landing, after all." Then she frowned. "The message…"

Evan nodded. "You repeated it again and again in your delirium like a chant, determined to deliver it. But you needn't worry. The Landsman was informed of your accident, and by now he has sent the same message to the Landsman of Thrane by another flyer."

"Of course," Maris murmured. She felt a burden she had not even known she carried lifted from her.

"Such an urgent message," Evan said, his voice bitter. "It couldn't wait for better flying weather. It sent you out into the storm, to injury. It might have meant your death. The war hasn't come yet, but already they start, disregarding human lives."

His bitterness distressed her even more than his talk of war, which merely puzzled her. "Evan," she said gently, "the flyer chooses when to fly. The Landsmen have no power over us, war or no. It was my eagerness to leave your bleak little island that made me start out despite the weather.",

"And now my bleak little island is your home for a time."

"How long?" she asked. "How long before I can fly again?"

He looked at her without replying.

Maris suddenly feared the worst. "My wings!" She struggled to rise. "Are they lost?"

Evan was quick, with hands on her shoulders. "Be still!" His blue eyes blazed.

"I forgot," she whispered. "I'll be still." Her whole body throbbed painfully in response to the mild exertion. "Please… my wings?"

"I have them," he said. He shook his head. "Flyers. I should have known — I've healed other flyers. I should have hung them over your bed so they would be the first thing you saw. The Landsman wanted to take them for repair, but I insisted on keeping them. I'll get them for you." He vanished into the next room. A few minutes later he returned, carrying her wings in his arms.

They were mangled and broken and did not fold properly. The metallic fabric of the wings themselves was virtually indestructible, but the supporting struts were ordinary metal, and Maris could see that several of them had shattered, while others were bent and twisted grotesquely. The bright silver was crusted with dirt and stained black in places. In Evan's uncertain grasp they seemed a hopeless ruin.

But Maris knew better. They were not lost to the sea. They could be made whole again. Her heart soared to see them. They meant life to her; she would fly again.

"Thank you," she said to Evan. She tried not to weep.

Evan hung the wings on the wall beyond the foot of the bed, where Maris could see them. Then he turned to her.

"It will be longer and harder to repair your body than your wings," he said. "Much longer than you will like. It won't be a matter of weeks, but of months, many months, and even then I can't promise you anything. Your bones were shattered, and the muscles torn — you aren't likely, at your age, to regain all the strength you once had. You'll walk again, but as for flying—"

"I will fly. My legs and my ribs and my arm will mend," Maris said quietly.

"Yes, given time, I hope they will mend. But that may not be enough." He came close, and she saw the concern in his face. "The head injury — it may have affected your vision, or your sense of balance."

"Stop it," Maris said. "Please." Tears leaked from her eyes.

"It's too soon," Evan said. "I'm sorry." He stroked her cheeks, wiping away the tears. "You need rest and hope, not worry. You need time to grow strong again. You'll put on your wings again, but not before you are really ready — not before I say you are ready."

"A land-bound healer — telling a flyer when to fly," Maris muttered with a mock scowl.

Although she might suffer it, a time of forced inactivity was not something Maris could enjoy. As the days passed and she began to spend more time awake, she grew restless. Evan was beside her much of the time, coaxing her to eat, reminding her to lie still, and talking to her, always talking, to give her restless mind something to exercise itself on, even though her body must stay motionless.

And Evan proved to be a gifted storyteller. He considered himself more an observer of life than a participant, and he had a rather detached outlook and a sharp eye for detail. He made Maris laugh, often; he made her think; and he even managed to make her forget, for minutes at a time, that she was trapped in bed with a broken body.