Nyasha panted, pushing herself up the last few minutes of climb. This was not the top of the mountain–not even close–but here the shoulders of two mountains rubbed together, allowing travelers to pass through to the other side of the range. She was excited to see the sight she had not viewed for several years: the plain north of the BurntMountains, and the enormous city of Thyrion sprawled like a bustling anthill stretching almost as far as one could see from east to west. From such a height, looking down on the greatest city in the world filled with its millions of people and buildings and vehicles, and especially the sparkling, colorful expanse of Thyrion’s Well, was like being a bird soaring high in the sky, looking down on all the world. At least for as long as one could bear to look at the dizzying spectacle, it was.
She topped the rise and halted, catching herself against a boulder as she took it in. As she’d hoped, there were no clouds or fog to obscure the entirety of the sight. The city was the anthill she remembered–grand, full, humming with activity. But the skyline seemed different even at first glance, though she did not take time to understand why. A thin black line, like a thread from this distance, stretched from the city into the plains south of the city, and it took her a moment to realize that it was people. People all going into and out of Thyrion, an unending line of them.
It took her a moment to notice, to understand, because her attention was dominated by something else. The Heart of Thyrion, the Great Well, the place that had shimmered and sparkled when she’d last seen it, like a many-faceted diamond… It was a crater, blasted and pitted and warped. It was empty. It was gone.
Nyasha couldn’t understand it. Calea had been so certain, she’d been so sure…. She’d said so many times that all she had to do was just get there, just get to Thyrion, and then she’d be able, she’d be able to…
“Nyasha, how does it look?” Bron called behind her.
Nyasha turned around, her eyes wide and staring, her mouth opening to push the two Jalseians back. To tell them to stay still, to wait, let her try to fix this before they got up here. But there was nothing to say and nothing to do. So she closed her mouth and just looked at them, both struggling up the path. For once Calea had taken Bron’s arm, letting him help her, she was so eager to reach the top. Nyasha could not bring herself to dash the hope shining bright in Calea’s face; she couldn’t make herself be the one to do it.
If they noticed her lack of response, the two didn’t show it, busy pushing themselves to the summit. Then they reached it, and they paused, standing beside Nyasha at the crest. They looked below at the devastation of Thyrion, the crater where the Well had been, and the bright day and blue sky shattered in Calea’s eyes.
For an instant she stood there, silent, her breath and movement stolen. The journey till now had been taxing and difficult beyond anything the once-wealthy Guide of Jalseion had ever endured, but none of it compared to this. Nyasha watched Calea’s face crumble, devastated as Thyrion was devastated, and then Calea’s leg buckled and she let herself fall to the ground.
Bron caught her arm, guiding her descent so she didn’t hurt herself, and Calea sat in the dust and let go. She began to weep, helpless, hopeless, grief-stricken. She did not hide her face in her hands or try to control it in any way, but just sat there, rocking slightly, staring at Thyrion and letting the tears roll.
Bron stood stiff and awkward, holding her hand. He started to stroke it like a kitten, his stricken face making it clear that he didn’t know what else to do. There was nothing else he could do, truly.
Nyasha hesitated, remembering a night when she had cried like this, sitting in a chair by a window in the Sanctuary’s dormitory. Calea had been harsh, and Nyasha had been shocked, then angry later when she was able to think about it. Even then her anger had been more for Bron than herself, though. Calea had been so ceaselessly rude to the faithful Bron that Nyasha, raised by her mother to be polite and kind, had trouble seeing past it.
But this Calea was not quite the same as that one, Nyasha believed. This Calea had traveled on a hard and rocky road; she’d seen a man die and had been deeply affected by it and had begged Bron not to put himself at risk. This Calea had listened while Nyasha talked about her papa and mama and never again told her that they didn’t matter, that their deaths didn’t matter, that Nyasha’s grief didn’t matter. This Calea had been hurt, deeply and irrevocably, by circumstances beyond her control. Now, Nyasha could see past her rudeness and arrogance to something beyond, though she wasn’t sure what it was.
So Nyasha knelt beside the weeping woman in the dirt and put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s all right,” she said. “It’ll be all right. We’ll figure something out.”
Calea sobbed harder, but she did not pull away. She let Nyasha offer the comfort Calea had not offered her.
Nyasha had left her old town hoping to find another family. Her parents were dead and no one in Averieom had any hold on her, so she had come here, to this mountain, hoping that somewhere she would find someone she cared about and who cared about her. Cousins, aunts and uncles, maybe a grandparent. There had to be someone in Thyrion who would be sad to hear that Brand and Asha Cormorin were dead, who would take her in and let her earn a place with them.
She had not realized that she might find what she was looking for along the way, whether she wanted to or not. With a big, quiet man who made her feel as sheltered as a baby in a basket, with an arrogant Select who made her angry and challenged both her heart and her mind. Nyasha hadn’t meant to find them, but she had.
Calea continued to weep. Nyasha rubbed her shoulder. Bron watched over them both with unfathomable sadness.
It wasn’t safe and it wasn’t comfortable and it wasn’t anything like normal, but there it was. Thyrion was below and Jalseion was behind them, and the view beyond the mountains was troubled and busy and torn by great calamity. And Nyasha was sure now that she belonged nowhere else.
The End
of The Doctor’s Assistant
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