The King Who Broke Heaven’s Tithe

Chapter 95 A Body That Could Answer

On the sixtieth night, Daren crossed the yard without leaning on his staff for three steps.

On the fourth, his knee warned him.

He leaned again.

Selka counted the success accurately: three steps, no stumble, no claim that a damaged joint had become sound. Pella checked the swelling afterward and allowed the same distance the following morning if it did not worsen.

Progress came in such small pieces that Daren sometimes wanted to throw them away.

Instead he kept them.

Warmth traveled from his good forearm across the chest route he had practiced all week. The strained shoulder accepted only a faint return. He left it faint. Forcing a larger current through damaged tissue had killed warriors whose names he still remembered.

He would not honor them by repeating the mistake.

On the sixty first morning, Selka asked him to carry the circuit down through the uninjured side of his body, then back without allowing it to pool in his fist.

It took seven attempts, separated by rest and food.

On the last, he felt the returning warmth arrive before he had finished demanding it.

For a moment, the whole path held.

Then he broke it deliberately.

Selka sat back.

“That was late Kindling's work.”

Daren looked at her, afraid to let the words mean too much.

“Briefly,” she added. “A road you've crossed once isn't a road you can march an army over.”

He laughed through his exhaustion. He had used that comparison on recruits years ago.

He tried to remember the route without practicing it again. Nera gave him a scrap of charcoal, and he drew the places where warmth had slowed. It was a poor likeness of a body, but it captured the difference between the path he expected and the one his injuries would permit.

Selka changed nothing on the drawing until he asked.

Then she marked where he had been borrowing tension from his neck to disguise weakness in his shoulder.

“That habit will let you finish one movement,” she said. “It will make the next ten worse.”

Daren studied the mark. In his former life, he had surrounded such weaknesses with reserve until they became invisible to everyone except the people dressing his wounds. He had called that endurance.

Now there was no reservoir large enough to hide in. The small circuit required him to know exactly what carried the strain.

He asked Pella whether the neck tension had troubled her before.

“For weeks.”

“Why didn't you say?”

“I did.”

He looked at her, then down at the drawing, and finally nodded.

By afternoon, the sensation was gone. He could remember it but not repeat it. Pella made him stop after the first failed effort brought a tremor to his thumb.

At the western fork, the fire crew waited for its charged plate. Keela's watchers saw the clay mouth being cleaned, its pale residue scraped into covered jars. The delay was mechanical, not mercy.

Daren slept badly and practiced only after breakfast on the sixty second day.

This time he used less force.

The path joined.

Warmth settled into muscle instead of merely passing beneath skin. His good forearm felt dense, almost unfamiliar. He moved it slowly while Selka held a padded strap against it, giving resistance without striking.

The sensation persisted through one movement, then another.

Pella made him release it before testing the skin, pulse, and joint. Nothing had healed. Nothing had gone numb. The forearm remained tired in the ordinary way after work.

Selka looked at Daren for a long time.

“Early Ironhide,” she said. “In a narrow working circuit. You must build the rest.”

He lowered his arm.

He had imagined this moment in a hundred foolish forms: thunder beneath his ribs, his stolen core answering from its chest, the mountain shaking because it had failed to keep him empty.

Instead there was a stool, a wrapped knee, and a woman waiting to see whether he would misuse good news.

Daren began to laugh.

Then the laugh broke, and he covered his face with his good hand.

Selka said nothing. She stayed until he could breathe normally.

“I thought it was gone,” he said.

“Your old strength is gone.”

“I know.”

“This is yours too.”

He looked toward the room where Orin was learning letters with Nera. His son would not understand the difference between a restored warrior and a man who had learned to begin again.

Perhaps, Daren thought, he did not need to.

That afternoon they tested one controlled blow from a padded stick against the strengthened forearm. It hurt. It left a shallow bruise. It did not numb his fingers or collapse the circuit.

No blade test. No leap from the wall. No attempt to make his bad knee carry power it had not learned to bear.

Daren wrote the limits himself.

One forearm. Short intervals. Full recovery between efforts. Shoulder and leg still restricted.

Selka read the board, then touched his uninjured wrist.

“You're allowed to be pleased.”

“I am.”

“You look frightened.”

“I am that too.”

Her thumb rested against his pulse for one beat longer than the examination required.

Before dusk, the western bell rang three times.

The spirit plate had arrived at the fire cart.

At the quarry fork, soldiers were pulling away the wheel blocks.

Daren rose with his staff. The new strength in his arm could not put him beside the threatened shelter in time.

This time, the people he had trusted would have to hold without him.