Forging Ties (Ties, Book 3) | ✓

Chapter 29

"I wasn't expecting you to come back by ship," Yore said as they headed back down the stairs. "Did you make some new friends?"

"Ah, yeah, quite a few of them," Slone said. "Ended up on the other side of the mountains and had to sail back."

"Sounds like quite the adventure. I thought it was impossible to sail that way, though."

"Well, what does impossible mean, really? Don't think anything's impossible, really. Not when there's magic."

"That's true."

"I'll let Hamish catch you up on the full story later. It's a good one." Slone offered Yore a smile as they stopped at the bottom of the stairs. "You look good. You move different. Like it don't hurt."

"Ah. I'd been trying not to hobble around like an arthritic old man, but I guess I failed."

"I'm your brother. I can tell when you're hurting."

"Well, you're right. I'm in a lot less pain these days. Fanner's already done so much for me. There are so many others who need his help, so I told him not to worry about me, but he insisted on saving some energy and making time each evening to work on a part of my body. He said that it's his ability and helping me is how he wants to use it, and I couldn't really argue with that."

Slone grinned. "He's got you figured out, huh?"

"Seems like it. I do feel much better, though. I keep thinking I'm fine, and then he'll fix something else, and I'll realise just how much I was simply accepting. The other day he asked me if anything hurt, and I said no. He sat me down and ran his hands over my body and then he asked if my neck ever hurt, and I said yes. That my neck always hurts."

Yore shook his head. "He looked so upset. He asked me why I'd lied to him about it. All I could tell him was that I hadn't. Not intentionally. Until he'd specifically mentioned it, I'd just forgotten that stiff achiness wasn't simply how having a neck felt."

"Damn. Guessing he fixed that?"

"Of course. I think that experience was good for us, though. The fact that he was able to express that hurt so openly and so clearly really matters. Since then, he's stopped just asking me to tell him what hurts. He has me lay down and really think about it or he has me do stretches until I find something stiff or painful. It's never a long search. I've just forgotten what normal is."

"You'll get there again. Sounds like he's determined."

"He is. He's going to take a few days off helping me to fix Duran's back now that he's home, though. He felt so bad that he didn't get to it. That he didn't make time for it. He just gets overwhelmed when there's too much going on and has trouble prioritising things."

"Yeah, I get that."

"You're alike in that way," Yore said. "Not so much in how you cope with it, but I could always see when you were younger that you weren't being lazy. You'd just get overwhelmed or distracted, and you couldn't help that."

"Speaking of, I need your help with a few things," Slone said. "You got a few hours? It's kinda important."

"If it's for you and it's important, I can make time."

"Not for me exactly, but... ah, you'll see," Slone said. "Well, first off, we got a man on the ship named Perry. Nice guy. Smart. He wants to see about maybe having a permanent place here somewhere."

"I can certainly talk to him about that."

"That ain't the important part, though." Slone pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and held it out to Yore. "I borrowed this from one of Perry's notebooks. Didn't want to say anything to anyone unless I was one hundred percent sure, but, well... does this mean what I think it does?"