“Your ribs might be fractured, then,” Grimult informed her, trying to catch her eye, to bring her back to him instead of wherever her mind had gone. “Wrapping might prove beneficial, but there is little that will truly help. They simply have to heal.”
She nodded absently, a vague, distant gesture that did nothing to quell the confusion settling in her expression.
He reached out with his unbloodied hand, moving carefully because of his own injury, and reached out to feel the back of her head. She could have hit it soundly during the initial crush of the beast’s weight, and it would explain some of her confusion. “Penryn, look at me,” he urged, his fingers delving beneath hair and pressing lightly, watching carefully for sign of pain or the warm ooze of fresh blood beneath his fingertips.
She winced as he pressed lightly on one area, her eyes narrowing to something accusatory rather than harrowed. Her eyes were steady once she finally settled them on him, giving him some measure of relief that she had not slipped into a sort of trance.
“You must have hit your head,” he explained, withdrawing his hand and knowing the most unpleasant part was yet to come.
He wanted to scoop her up, to fly, to be far from this place and somewhere with true shelter so he could tend her arm in peace without fear of another attack.
But it was doubtful his wing could support his own weight, let alone hers, and there was still the lantern to consider.
Belatedly, he realised it was not beside Penryn. It was such an extension of her that she looked almost wrong without it dangling by her side, and he glanced about them trying to ascertain where it had landed.
Only for his heart to constrict when he saw it smashed against a tree nearby.
He hurried toward it, hoping it was merely dented, that some small portion of the flame might persist, could be nursed and fed back into health.
The smell of pungent oil met his nose as it seeped into the forest floor. The lantern was not for him to touch, but it was also supposed to have a flickering flame nestled in the middle of the enclosure, and it was most decidedly absent.
And there would be no oil to feed even a false flame of his own making.
He did not know its importance. He had begun to believe the Journey simply to be symbolic rather than necessary, but Penryn promised him otherwise.
“You are hurt,” Penryn observed, and Grimult had to tamp down the burst of frustration that threatened to sharpen his tongue in response.
He knelt down, his fingers tracing over metal that was not his to touch, disbelieving of his utter failure. His first true test, and he had seen both of them damaged. Not beyond repair, perhaps, but in poor condition for the next fray.
But the lantern itself, their true purpose...
Utterly destroyed.
“It hardly matters,” Grimult answered back, pulling the lantern free and turning it so she could see just how badly it now appeared.
And most importantly, how absent the flame was from its confines.
Penryn blinked for a moment, staring at it, and he waited for her ire. For her censure that he should have been more observant, should have managed to position himself between their opponent and her long before contact was made and any harm at all was done.
But it did not come.
“Put it down, Grim,” she said instead, her voice weary. And perhaps he only imagined it, but he thought there was a hint of fear there as well.
That troubled him far more.
He did so, watching her face carefully for sign of relief.
Did she possess some magic that could rectify their mistakes? He could not picture it, something so fantastical that might restore what was broken. Could draw oil from the ground and return it to its base.
Not even magic kept the sacred flame burning.
The thought was an unwelcome one, but truthful all the same. It was a far grander piece of metalwork than anything stationed within Grimult’s home, but the function of it was the same. He remembered when he was first old enough to fill the oil reservoir in the bottom, how important he had felt, even as his mother smiled her encouragements, only a hint of worry about the corner of her eyes as she allowed his young self to handle the bottle worth such an expense.
Despair was a gnawing at him, a hopelessness he had not felt in his many days. They had but one task, in reality. Walk the flame from the sages’ keep to the Wall, and now...
Even now, he felt a tug that it was wrong to treat the lantern so carelessly. It should be positioned just so, sheltered from any breeze or wind so as not to toy with the flame needlessly.
“All of this was for nothing,” Grimult found himself saying, the sound odd to his ears. He should not be saying such things, even now. Should not confess the whole of his failure, or the bulk of his doubts.
And he resented it further, for he had so recently felt that all it had fallen into place.
“You are still bleeding,” Penryn urged, gesturing him forward with her unbroken arm.
Was she still a Lightkeep if there was no flame to keep?
But his feet moved him forward in any case, obedient even now, and he supposed that was answer enough.
He felt strangely absent from the moment as Penryn reached out with her good hand and began to unbuckle the straps keeping their belongings safely on his back.
Another mistake, as he was to have dropped it immediately upon engaging in any type of combat.
He needed to tend her arm. The throbbing of his wing felt distant, a niggling awareness that was simple to ignore as far more pressing thoughts invaded his mind.
He would hurt her when he set the bone, of that he was certain. But the pain would be quick and allow her to mend, while she would lose a
