Jonas hardly knew where to look as Rhaena leaned over him, the rounded, bandaged end of his thigh pressed against her shoulder as she stretched the muscles through his ass. That white bandage covered his leg. He knew it intellectually, and he could feel it as she manipulated it, and yet, when he looked at it, he couldn’t believe it. His leg didn’t look like that. His legs were powerful, whole. His body still believed so. When Rhaena had first lifted his thigh and maneuvered herself into place, he’d tried to straighten his knee to move his lower leg out of her way. He felt sick every time he was reminded of the truth.

Pushing his leg as far as it would go, Rhaena leaned close, closer than even Llew had been in the last couple of days. So far, Rhaena had been the one to help him with his toilet, or simply let him go in a bed pan. She’d shown Llew a couple of times, which left Jonas with a sense of helplessness and humiliation he’d never had to face before, but Rhaena was used to lifting bodies for such tasks, and had a strength Llew had yet to develop. And, of course, if Llew hurt herself in the process of helping Jonas, it lashed back at him.

Llew wasn’t being complacent, though. Under Jonas’s guidance, she practiced squats and had found the heaviest bags in the room of junk to lift and strengthen her arms and core. He’d trained enough Karan and non-Karan soldiers to know what worked. Of course, back in Quaver the soldiers were provided with equipment designed for the tasks and space to move. Working in this cramped room with whatever could be gathered wasn’t ideal, but Llew was fortunate that – as they had learned when he had trained her in fighting techniques at Merrid and Ard’s farm – her body adjusted to the regime faster than anyone Jonas had ever trained. No wonder Aenuks made such formidable fighters for Turhmos.

Llew wanted them to get going as soon as possible, get to an Ajnai. He’d never grow his leg back, but she was impatient to seal his wounds fully, and believed she could, somehow, return his Syakaran strength and speed. He wasn’t so sure.

Standing back and laying his leg down gently, Rhaena smiled. ‘You have excellent flexibility that will suit you well in your recovery. How is your pain?’

‘Managed.’ He was still taking the opiate, but trying to reduce the size and frequency of the doses already. He would need his wits about him on the road. And, if he was honest with himself, he didn’t know if he would ever stop taking the drug if he let it become any more of a habit. He already craved the oblivion even in his pain-free, lucid moments.

‘Good,’ said Rhaena. ‘I sense a man determined to regain his independence.’ She smiled again, her eyes kind. ‘Determination will take you far, but you will need help for a while, yet. Don’t let it get you down.’

Jonas nodded his appreciation of her words. She was right. He struggled with a range of foreign emotions every time he had to depend on her or Llew, vulnerability the strangest of the lot.

‘You’re doing fine.’ Rhaena gathered her medical supplies into her bag and left the room.

‘What do you want to do first?’ Llew approached as Jonas sat himself up, letting the sheet and blankets fall off him. Rhaena had promised a change of clothes, but with Jonas largely bed-ridden they had yet to materialize, other than a pair of drawers tied with string. Some heat made it up from the lower level, but the room was still cold.

‘I’ll work on my arms. Elka and Rhaena have both told me even with a prosthetic I’ll be swingin’ on crutches for a while, at least.’

Llew hooked herself under his arm to help ease him to the floor, then shuffled, stooped beside him, as he hopped across the room to the chair. Once he’d gripped the back of the chair, Llew stepped aside, as they had agreed, leaving him to find his own balance. She didn’t like watching him struggle – had said so several times – and kept having to stifle her urge to help, but he firmly believed he wouldn’t get any better unless he learned to look after himself. He was already much more capable, even after a couple of days.

With small twisting and hopping motions on his foot, he swiveled around to put the chair behind him, pressed the heels of his hands onto the back for support, then set about lowering and lifting himself. It used to be that such exercise was for little more than a demonstration of what others could do to improve their strength, now it had his muscles trembling within a few repetitions. Llew set about picking up her bag of books. It built her own muscles and kept her from hovering, ready to catch him if he overbalanced. He found he was much less likely to do so if there was no one to catch him.

A tap at the window had them both looking, startled. A small bird – a sparrow? – gripped the window frame, seeming to peer in at them briefly before it leaped away, flitting off again.

Jonas almost laughed as the tension fell away. He looked to Llew, who returned his smile with an eye-roll. Being cooped up in this room had them both on edge. They resumed their exercises.

Telltale intermittent steps sounded on the staircase.

‘We need to get you a shirt,’ Llew said.

‘What? Don’t like what you see no more?’ Jonas lowered and raised himself again, not letting a little light conversation get in the way of his rehabilitation.

‘Didn’t say that.’ Llew paused, then lowered the bag again. ‘What about Elka?’

‘What about her?’

Llew squinted her eyes with a comical smirk, like he was missing her point, which he was. She shrugged and carried on with her weight training; bringing both her hands, weighed by the bag, to her chin, her straining tendons through her neck evidence of the effort required.

‘I’m sure she’s seen plenty o’ me in those little books of hers.’

‘Drawings are a bit different to the real you.’

Jonas’s lip twitched in a self-loathing sneer. Indeed. The drawings of him always showed a tall, muscular man, more like how a Syakaran should look. The inaccuracies never used to bother him because he was the epitome of Syakaran, and whether or not others agreed had no bearing on the truth. It bothered him now.

The footsteps made their way along the corridor, echoed by another set keeping pace. A polite knuckle requested entry.

‘Come in,’ said Llew.

The door opened and Elka stepped through, taking a moment to appreciate Jonas. He’d been blind to such appraisals before, neither needing them nor being offended. Now he didn’t know how to feel about it. The subtle smile told him Elka liked what she saw, but whatever she saw was a lie Jonas could no longer live up to. He felt diminished in the face of her false admiration.

A man followed and passed Elka; tall, broad-shouldered, chiseled features – the sort of man Jonas more closely resembled when he appeared in comics, though paler of skin in the Turhmos fashion. He reached his right hand out to Llew, his left holding a pair of crutches, and a large tote bag hanging off his shoulder. Elka’s brother.

Llew shook his hand, though her gaze never left his face.

‘Hi.’ Her face lit in an unreserved smile, her eyes wide like she was trying to save his image for later.

‘Rowan.’ His eyes sparkled over a smile hinting at humor.

Jonas narrowed his own. A few days ago, Llew had greeted everyone with suspicion first. Sure, they had little choice right now other than to trust this family, but, still.

As their hands parted, Llew hooked her hair behind an ear and looked down self-consciously. And was that—? Was she . . . blushing? Never had a woman in Jonas’s presence reacted to another man in such a way.

Rowan turned to him, and Jonas swallowed down the bitterness, meeting the friendly grin with a calm smile, that he hoped camouflaged his gritted teeth.

Rowan held out a hand and Jonas replied with a firm grip, putting a little extra effort in to cover his growing weakness.

‘You’re right. He is smaller in real life,’ Rowan spoke over his shoulder to his sister as their hands parted.

‘He could still fold you in half in the blink of an eye.’ Elka beamed with pride, like Jonas was her pet on display. A pet she hadn’t yet noticed had soiled itself.

Turning back to Jonas, Rowan continued. ‘The Great Syakaran himself, eh? So much power in such a small package.’ Rowan’s face dropped and he waved a dismissive hand in front of him, indicating Jonas’s groin. ‘Well, not . . . I mean, I’m sure it’s adequate. And, wow, I think I need to start again.’ Rowan smiled and breathed to reset himself. He waved sheepishly at Jonas. ‘Hi, nice to meet you. I’ll be your assisted-mobility device provider today, and I’m most impressed by the tales we’ve read about you, and I’m real sorry this happened . . . to you.’

Jonas didn’t know what to say.

‘I’d love to see a show of your speed.’ Rowan looked at Jonas with the awe with which most people greeted him.

Jonas tried to shrug off another kick from the reminder of what he used to be, but all he could do was glance down at his rounded stump. Weakened or not, he wouldn’t be running for a while.

‘Right. Well, I brought these.’ Rowan brandished the crutches before him and let the tote slide from his shoulder to hit the floor with a thud. ‘They’re adjustable, we can shorten them. They’ll allow you to get moving while your wound is still healing.’ Aligning one of the crutches against Jonas and eying it for height, Rowan then swung it horizontal and rested it on one bent knee while he loosened a winged bolt halfway down the shaft. ‘How do your fellow Quavens look upon disabilities such as this?’ Rowan’s tone was casual as he slid the two sections of the crutch together, making them a couple of inches shorter, then re-bolted them.

‘Not kindly,’ Jonas said.

‘Still, being their Syakaran hero’s gotta give you some clemency,’ said Rowan. He sighted the crutch against Jonas’s right armpit again, smiled to himself and relinquished the crutch into Jonas’s possession before turning to make the same adjustment to the other.

Jonas grunted as be accepted the crutch and adjusted his grip, testing it for comfort. He hadn’t dared dwell too much on how the Quaven people might react to his powerlessness. Any time he’d let it cross his mind, there was no outcome in which they respected him or let Llew live free—if they let her live at all.

Once again, the thought crossed his mind that Llew would be better off without him. She could move farther and faster and could quite easily have nothing to do with Quaver ever again.

He leaned his armpit into the crutch. The irony that he would need to build new muscle memory when he was losing overall vigor wasn’t lost on him.

Rowan held out the second shortened crutch, and Jonas raised his left arm to accept it and settled his weight into both, a forward lean giving him a 3-point base.

Rowan stepped back, assessing Jonas’s balance. ‘You’ll get the hang of it.’ He bent to open the tote bag. ‘I’ve also brought this.’ He brandished a leg. It had a harness for attaching to a thigh and a foot that hung limp at the other end. Rowan stood, rotating the leg in his hands, displaying all its angles and articulations. ‘After Ma finished on the railway, I kept working on a few designs. This is the strongest and lightest of my above-the-knee models. We can only guess what sort of pressures a Syakaran such as yourself might put on it, but it’s a place to start, eh?’ He manipulated the knee joint, rubbed a hand inside the bowl-shaped socket. ‘You’ll need to heal before we can fit it properly, but Ma tells me that won’t need to take so long as other folks.’ Rowan glanced at Llew. ‘Still, I’ll need some time to make a few adjustments.’ He leaned the prosthetic against the chair beside Jonas and pulled a coiled tape measure from his pocket. ‘Shall we measure?’

Jonas shrugged and nodded. ‘Measure away.’

Rowan stepped up close, easing Jonas back to a more perpendicular stance. Jonas wobbled on his foot, gripped his crutches tight and managed to stay upright.

‘Sorry,’ Rowan said. ‘I’ll need a good straight line for the first few measurements.’ Pressing fingers down on Jonas’s shoulders alternatively, Rowan stepped back to check the line. Satisfied, he stooped, stretched the tape from floor to Jonas’s armpit, made a note in a small notepad and duplicated the measure. He moved to Jonas’s other side to repeat the performance.

‘Have you heard of Braph the magician?’ Llew asked.

Jonas scowled at her.

‘Heard of him? Yeah,’ Rowan replied, continuing his scrutiny of Jonas’s physique.

Jonas grunted and allowed Rowan to manipulate his stumped thigh as he took further measurements – from stump to floor, the circumference of Jonas’s thigh – and continued talking, crouched at floor level, measuring Jonas’s remaining foot. ‘There’re rumors he had his own Aenuk to power his magic; until recently, anyway. Don’t rightly know all he can do. Some thought he’d tip the balance in our favor at the border, but I’ve yet to hear anything concrete.’

‘He can fly,’ Llew said, and Rowan stood to look wide-eyed at her as she continued. ‘He can fight like a Syakaran, heal himself like an Aenuk, and fly across a country in minutes.’

‘Wow. Really?’

‘And we need Jonas to be able to do all that.’

‘Llew. No—’ Jonas protested.

Llew fixed Jonas with a flat look before turning back to Rowan. ‘We need you to look into how to fit a vial of Aenuk blood – my blood – to that leg and feed it into Jonas’s bloodstream. We’ve seen how Braph does it, so we can help you with that.’

‘Llew—’

‘Then—’ Llew flicked Jonas a look so fleeting he couldn’t hold it. ‘We need to work out how to make crystals from my blood. Braph used some sort of machine, and he could put a whole body’s worth of blood into a crystal about so big—’ Llew curled her fingers in an almost complete circle. ‘Jonas is going to need that to help him heal from his surgery and—’ She stopped herself from saying too much. She’d already crossed Jonas’s line. ‘Vials of blood should be enough to start with, but the crystals would be better.’

She was right that he’d need her blood to heal quickly, but he didn’t like where her mind was headed with the crystals idea. He couldn’t go draining all the blood from her body to create a crystal to live off.

Jonas closed his eyes, recalling the euphoric sensations that had come after Llew had healed him at the site of the ancient Ajnai tree before it had toppled. Intoxicating . . . addictive. Wrong. Jonas opened his eyes, lips pressed tight.

‘Aenuk blood . . .’ Rowan looked Llew up and down. ‘I wonder how he figured that out.’ He grimaced. ‘Actually, I’m guessing I’m better off not knowing that story.’ He turned back to Jonas, giving him another once-over. ‘I suppose the blood vial wouldn’t necessarily have to be attached to the leg. Doesn’t Braph wear a cuff, or something?’

Jonas nodded.

‘You wouldn’t want a vial breaking off in the middle of a scuffle, and I’m guessing that’s what you’ve got in mind: facing Braph?’

Truth be told, Jonas would prefer to never see his brother again, but . . . ‘Braph won’t permit me to live without provin’ himself against me. I don’t plan to seek him out, but I can’t guarantee he won’t come lookin’ for me.’

Rowan glanced at his sister. ‘Kind of funny how Elka’s difficulties brought us closer together while your advantages seem to have driven a wedge in your family. No one has it all together, I guess.’ Rowan closed his notebook and slipped it and the prosthetic leg into the tote bag. ‘I mean, here the world has the gifts of Karan strength and Aenuk healing and all we can do is line them up and tell them to kill each other. Sure, the Aenuk healing is dangerous, but I feel like if it was harnessed the right way . . . Never thought it was right, them being locked up, conscripted to the army before they’re even born. They are people after all.’

Jonas had been conscripted to the army, the Quaven army, before he was born and he hadn’t found it distasteful. But he’d had a childhood, for what it was worth, before signing up. By the time he did, at fourteen, he was more than ready to go. He understood what it was that Llew wanted for Turhmos’s Aenuks: choice. Jonas had had little chance to make his own choices in life until recently, and he didn’t seem to be doing too well at it. Llew had been making her own choices since she was a child, and Jonas thought she was quite adept. As with anything, he supposed, practice was vital. With that in mind, it wasn’t going to be a simple task letting the Aenuks out into the world. They would need guidance. One step at a time, he supposed.

As Rowan spoke, Llew seemed to stand taller, her eyes bright. ‘There are Ajnai trees,’ she said. ‘They’re not extinct, and we can plant more. With Ajnai trees, there’s no reason to keep Aenuks locked up. And that’s what we’re going to do once Jonas is fully healed; plant Ajnais and free the Aenuks.’

Elka and Rowan also lit up at the mention of the trees.

‘Well, if there’s any way I can help—’

‘Me, too,’ said Elka.

‘I don’t think Ma would argue if I volunteered her, too. She’d be right keen to help the Aenuks.’ Rowan twirled the measuring tape in his fingers, rolled it into a tight coil. ‘I guess the first thing to do is get this guy back on his feet. I’ll play around with some ideas tonight since, I’m guessing, you’re keen to get moving.’

Llew nodded, but Rowan’s attention had already turned inward, focused solely on the challenge he perceived and the creative solutions he might engineer.

Jonas had seen that look before.

He glanced at Llew. Her expression was sober, but she smiled when she saw Jonas looking, and raised her eyebrows in encouragement. Rowan wasn’t Braph, and he offered real solutions.

‘You’ve got those, in the meantime.’ Rowan indicated the crutches. He slipped the tape measure into a pocket and hooked the tote bag over his shoulder as he continued. ‘Come on, sis.’ Rowan signaled Elka. ‘We’ll leave these folk be. They’ll be sick of the sight of us soon enough.’ He grinned around at them while backing through the door and holding it wide for Elka to follow and Llew chuckled. Chuckled. It had hardly been a joke.

Almost the instant the door snicked closed; Jonas let the crutches fall. Llew gasped at the sound, her attention returning to him. Hands gripping the chair for support, Jonas hopped around it and landed heavily in the seat. Anger flooded him. But this time he sensed the truth behind it. Fear. He was weak. He was broken. In the heart of Turhmos. He’d lost his mentor, his best friend, even his horse on whom he’d dumped years’ worth of frustration, fears, and hurt when there was no one else safe to open up to.

And he felt jealousy: jealousy over a mundane. He wanted to laugh it away. But he was mundane now. Mundane and crippled. And not even tall.

And, if he were hurt, he couldn’t be healed by an Aenuk’s touch.

Llew crouched in front of him. She gripped his left knee with her right hand and briefly sought his right with her left, but his right knee was gone, so she gripped the arm of the chair. ‘We’ll be all right,’ she said.

‘Will we?’ He managed not to snarl.