Page 7 of These Immortal Truths
She chuckles, a dry sound like sun-bleached grasses whispering beneath a passing hand. “Clever that one. Very well, come in and out of the cold, then. Let’s see what’s so special about you.”
The moment Anna steps through the threshold, the scent of drying herbs and stew on the fire envelopes her. She stands, soaking in the warmth as her eyes trace the array of greenery hanging over shelves of pottery. The question slips from her lips before she can think to stop it. “What’s it for?”
The old woman—Eira—follows her gaze. “Medicine, mostly.” She ladles a large serving of stew into a wooden bowl and gestures to the small wooden table at the corner of the room. “Sit. You look overdue for a good meal.”
The stew smells amazing, but it still doesn’t prepare Anna for the burst of flavor on her tongue. It’s rich, layered in taste and texture. Everything that the food she’s been surviving off of lacks. She takes another bite, and another. The woman’s stare pricks at her skin, but she’s too hungry and too enchanted to care.
“You are a scrawny thing, aren’t you?” Eira mutters, taking the bowl to refill it. Anna can’t be sure when she even finished. “You act as if this humble stew is the best thing you’ve tasted.”
“It is,” she murmurs, frowning at her hands. “Other than …”
She thinks of the taste of summer, the tingling sweetness and touch of magic on her tongue.
“Hm? Speak up then. Other than what?”
“He called it a tao.”
The bowl slips from Eira’s hands, hitting the cobbled floor with a dull clatter—stew splashing across the floor. Anna jumps, alarmed tofind the woman’s widened eyes on her instead of the mess on the floor. “He didn’t,” she mutters, stepping forward. She takes Anna’s face in her hands, tilting her head so she could inspect her in the light.
Anna stares back, a quiet terror buzzing under her skin. Every instinct she has is torn between fleeing and stillness—a deer staring down a bow drawn back and wondering if it’s death or destiny that awaits her.
“He did,” she whispers, rough palms slipping away from Anna’s cheeks. She sits in the opposite chair, a time-worn hand reaching up to rub her temple. “Of all thefoolishthings …” Sighing, she lets her hand drop to the table. “Do you understand what he’s done?”
Anna shrugs, picking at the hem of her sleeve. There is so much more that shedoesn’tunderstand. It feels like a lie to say she does. Instead, she offers the only irrefutable truth she has. “They—they tried to burn me, but I didn’t.” She swallows, her throat dry. “I didn’t burn.”
Eira’s sigh is soft. Sympathetic. “No, you wouldn’t.” Her eyes scan her body. Anna holds the cloak closer to her chest. “You’ve been dealt a hard life, haven’t you? I can see the weight of it on your shoulders.”
Anna’s throat feels tight, strangling her voice until it sounds scratched and hoarse. She ducks her head, stares at the tips of her shoes peeking out from beneath the hem of her dress. A week of dirt and travel and they’re still nicer than anything she’s ever owned. “Yes.”
Eira nods. “He was right to bring you. If you don’t know how to live, his gift will become a curse.”
Frowning, Anna looks up. “I’ve lived on my own for years.”
“No, Child. Yousurvived.” Her expression softens, mercy in her smile. “I will make sure you learn the difference.”
CHAPTER THREE
Trust is fickle in the face of time. A doorway to betrayal; a plotted course to his end. Trust is only for the few whose magic binds them to the merciful. Incantations fall from his lips despite the pain, despite the blood. Old magic comes with costs.
THEMEADOW
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Living under Eira’s wing is unlike anything Anna’s ever experienced.
Some things echo her old life—the one she had before she was exiled. Shared meals of bread and cheese between busy, hardworking mornings and quiet evenings with flickering candles casting soft shadows along the walls. But the feeling is different. Eira shows her how to turn elderberry into jam, teaches her the names of every plant in the field and forest and explains its uses.When she discovers Anna has no teachings of reading or writing, she sets out for her to learn that as well. She is a wealth of knowledge like Anna’s never seen, and it’s not until the first person comes stumbling along the trail, begging for help, that she begins to understand.
Eira leads him through the front door with an ease and grace that speaks of experience. When she helps him remove his boot and the smell of rot pervades the room, fat maggots twisting anxiously beneath the grotesque sores, she doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t gag. Her only words are to direct Anna to put a pot of water on the hearth.
She shows her how to make a poultice to help speed the healing; stresses the importance of boiling water before trusting it on an open wound. When she encourages Anna to take a closer look, she explains how the maggots probably saved this man’s leg—eating the deadened flesh before it could spread. The man pales, trembling under her touch. Anna fights to keep her meager breakfast down, but she watches and she learns as Eira slathers the salve over the wounds. Soon, she sees the maggots break through—fighting for air—and Eira’s aged fingers patiently pluck their fat bodies from the skin and place them in a dish reserved for chicken scraps.
Not once does Eira mention payment. Not even when the wound is clean and dressed, and the patient is fit to leave. It is only when he asks, that she breathes a word about it. “Money is no good for an old woman like me, living in a place as far out as this. But you said you raise sheep, yes? Bring me the yarn you can spare, to busy my hands and keep me warm in the winter to come.”
The shepherd thanks her for her mercy, kisses the backs of her knuckles as if she were a saint, and leaves. Anna watches him disappear into the tree line, frowning. There is nothing to hold him to his promise. “Do you think he will return?”
Eira shrugs. “Some do, some don’t.”
“That doesn’t bother you?”
