In the dappled light of a verdant forest, there stood a fortress older than anyone could remember. Tendrils of ivy blanketed the weathered stone walls. Watchtowers sprouted crookedly from the corners; they scarcely looked steady enough to support the roosting crows and sparrows, let alone the handful of guards who idled atop them. The gate stood perpetually open, tremendous, as if the building wanted to swallow the world. The forest, in turn, seemed as if it wanted to swallow the fortress. It seemed to have already swallowed the lass who walked beneath its tree boughs, making her way toward those wide-open gates.
The lass, named Corrin, was a slight girl of seventeen. Years of exploring the woods had freckled her from head to toe, and her bright green eyes scanned the undergrowth alertly, though not fearfully. Her hair was red as fire, and her spindly fingers rested lightly on her satchel, which bulged with the bounty she’d gathered from the woods: medicinal herbs, berries, mushrooms… She’d spent all morning clambering up trees and poking around bushes and roots, busy as a squirrel before winter. Not that she minded—at least, she didn’t mind the task itself, though she wished there weren’t such a dire need for it.
Medicine kept running out awful fast, as of late. The contents of her satchel would last a few days, maybe. Maybe less. Nothing for it, though, except to keep trying, keep helping.
Corrin shook her head and kept walking.
As Corrin neared the fortress, she perked up. She might not know when the fortress had been first built or by whom, but she knew her ancestors had repurposed it at some point, like foxes claiming an abandoned badger-hole, and she knew those ivy-covered walls meant safety and familiar faces. These days, this fortress was the village of Oddment, and it was the only home she’d ever known.
A guard kept watch above the gate—an official posted specially with a few of his brethren from Stalt’s capital, to assist and protect Corrin’s village when need be. If need be. He didn’t look so official, though, clad in piecemeal leather-and-metal armor and leaning casually against the parapet. He looked a mite too relaxed for someone who was supposed to be keeping watch, in truth. But then, she supposed she’d be relaxed too, just sitting and staring out at the woods, looking for troublesome creatures and scarcely finding any. She’d probably be bored out of her mind.
“Hello,” Corrin called as she reached the gate. “Feeling alright?”
The guard straightened. “Doing just fine, miss! So far, anyway!”
“Good! Please keep it that way, sir!”
He laughed, like she’d told some kind of joke, and waved her onward.
Inside, Oddment was a maze of walls and small courtyards, with belongings and gardens cluttering the green spaces. Apartment doorways peeked out from the curtains of ivy. Corrin hurried along, stepping over firewood that had toppled out of its stack and giving passing waves to her neighbors. Ordinarily, there would be twice as many people out and about, and they’d be much more talkative. But recently, the village had been experiencing a surge in illness—more at once than Corrin had ever seen, and more persistently than a typical cold or flu. Many had fallen sick over the past several weeks, and so far, they weren’t recovering, no matter what she and her teacher tried.
None dead. Yet. But the illness’s persistence was most concerning. And those who caught it were gradually worsening, progressing from fatigued to wheezing to practically bedridden…
A tortoiseshell cat trotted out of the shadows, meowing, her tail held aloft like a banner pole. Corrin tried to steel her heart against the warm press of fur against her ankles and the pleading amber eyes, but the cat, whose name was Tiptoes, wouldn’t let up. Corrin relented, sparing her a coo and a scratch under the chin, then moved on, her heart marginally lightened. The village cats, at least, seemed unaffected.
At last, she reached a secluded corner of Oddment and stopped at an oaken door nestled among the vines. An intricate rope crafted from vines, crow feathers, and a bell hung from a peg on the door, signifying the elder healer’s status and her pledge to treat all who came knocking. Gifts from the village lay in boxes and sacks outside—a tradition to help sustain their healer, so she could in turn look after all their health. Bathilda must’ve not had time to bring them in yet, Corrin thought as she stepped around the boxes. We’ve been awfully busy lately.
Gently, she opened the door and peeked in.
Bathilda’s apartment was dimly lit, with a small hearth-fire and thick shadows in the corners, and smelled of plants and earth. Herb bundles hung from the ceiling, brushing the unaware on the head. Corrin expertly evaded them and called out softly, “Hello.”
Fabric rustled, and Bathilda stepped into the light. She was shorter even than Corrin, with a bun as wispy and white as dandelion seeds. Her face was riddled with wrinkles and laugh lines, a map of a life long lived, and her eyes were pale grey, as if they’d once contained color but been leeched of it. Her shoulders and arms were shrouded in a dark cloak. Bathilda was seldom without this cloak; she claimed her bones were too creaky to handle the cold, even in the temperate springtime. Her gnarled hands clutched a wood-carved staff.
No one in Oddment knew how old she was. If asked, Bathilda would just wink and say “older than dirt,” her eyes twinkling with mirth. Corrin thought that was probably true. She also thought it a trivial truth, if one wanted to get real technical about it. Some dirt was young, made anew from recent decay. Bathilda was oldish, though, for sure.
Bathilda mustered up a kindly smile and beckoned Corrin over. “Hello, Corrin! Brought me a bounty, eh?”
“Yes ma’am.” Corrin emptied her satchel on Bathilda’s work table and separated out its contents. “Feverfew, marigold, black-cap mushrooms, blood berries—” She continued to rattle off her findings as she sorted them, and before Bathilda could ask, Corrin zipped over to the shelf and pulled out equipment for medicine-making. Corrin mumbled measurements and directions to herself as she worked. She had the formula for this blend memorized. It eased the worst of the lung congestion and seemed to slow down the illness’s progression, a bit. “I was wondering,” Corrin said aloud as she pounded the ingredients into a paste. “Maybe there’s something in that book of pressure therapies? I haven’t looked real hard at that one yet. I know it’s more injury things than sickness things, so I figured it wasn’t a good bet, but…”
Bathilda shuffled behind her, her staff clunking on the flagstones. “‘Tis a good thought to check, but I already did. Nothing we can use right now, aside from light massage for the muscle aches.”
Corrin carefully meted out doses of the paste into glass vials. Giving the wrong amount of this medicine could lead to unwanted side effects. Eventually, Corrin paused between vials to hum her acknowledgement. “And we checked all your disease dictionaries?”
“Every last one, my dear. Nothing we’re trying is working. I don’t know what this is, but I can’t cure it through ordinary means.”
“We’ll figure it out,” said Corrin determinedly.
Bathilda sighed. “You have too much faith in me.”
“My faith is evidence-based.” Corrin tried to keep her tone light and cheeky.
Bathilda shook her head and said nothing.
Corrin frowned. It was rare to see Bathilda so down. Awfully concerning. But she didn’t know what to do about it, other than help with treatments as best she could. Corrin put several of the vials in her satchel. “I can do rounds,” she offered. “Visit patients on the far side of the village, save you a bit of walking?” Corrin was already reaching for a soap bar and washcloth to add to the satchel. She’d wash her hands between visits. As Bathilda had taught her when she was merely eight years old, cleanliness hampered the spread of sickness. They hadn’t yet identified the infection vector, but Corrin liked to think that the handwashing was helping. Whatever it was, it didn’t spread as quickly as the winter sniffles, though having sick family and friends did seem to increase the risk…
Corrin’s family hadn’t fallen sick. Yet. She dearly hoped it would stay that way.
Bathilda’s voice pulled her out of her thoughts. “Thank you, Corrin.” Bathilda mustered up another smile and waved her staff. “Go on! Spare these old bones some labor.”
Corrin started with Petuni’s place.
Petuni was a mere ten years old, the same age as Corrin’s twin brothers, and one of their best friends. She was a spirited lass, always teaming up with Frendel to coax Sam into mischief like scampering along the ramparts or running off to jump in woodland ponds. She was a curious lass, too, and prone to getting underfoot, or so some of Corrin’s elders claimed.
Right now, however, Petuni was neither mischievous nor curious. She was a tiny, frail body laid up in bed, whimpering, while her father, a man named Drey, looked on anxiously.
“She’s worsened again,” he informed Corrin. His voice rasped. “I’m having a nightmare of a time convincing her to eat.”
Corrin’s heart sank. “Does she still take warm broths? And small snacks with jam?”
“She drinks the broths if—” he coughed—”if I ask her. Low on jam, but I—I could try…”
Corrin coaxed Petuni up to sitting, a hand at her back, and checked her temperature. Poor girl was burning up, to an extent that Corrin recognized as dangerous. Corrin sucked in a breath, then requested a cup of broth or water. Dehydration’s a killer, Corrin thought grimly, and this sickness is cooking and sweating the moisture right out of her. While Drey fetched some broth from a cauldron in the hearth, Corrin withdrew yet another vial, this one with less medicine in it than most of the others. “This’ll make the fever a bit better,” she promised. “Half dose only. You don’t have to take as much of this stuff as the adults.”
Petuni scrunched up her nose and turned her head away.
“I’m sorry,” said Corrin softly. “Bathilda and I are trying to find a cure so you can go out and play with my wayward brothers again. But for now, this is the best we have. S’better than leaving the symptoms untreated. Please, trust me.”
Petuni hesitated.
“I’ll ask my mum and da if we can send over some elderberry jam for you,” Corrin promised. “You like jam as much as I do, don’t you? On fresh-baked bread?”
Tentatively, Petuni nodded. She relaxed and accepted the vial of medicine, though her nose scrunched again at the bitter taste. Her father returned with a mug of broth, and Petuni sipped it, pausing every once in a while to cough.
Inwardly, Corrin breathed a sigh of relief. She brushed a lock of sweaty hair off the girl’s forehead, then soaped up her hands and turned to Drey. “Your turn,” said Corrin firmly. “Medicine and broth, and you should spend some time resting in your armchair.”
Drey actually laughed, though it turned into a cough at the end. “Bathilda made a good call, taking you on as an apprentice.”
“I hope so,” said Corrin mildly. She washed her hands once more, just to be safe, then handed him the medicine.
Drey grimaced as he downed it, then sobered as he gazed upon Corrin. “Any progress on figuring out what in the starlands this illness is?”
Corrin frowned. “We ruled out pneumonia and several others, but we haven’t been able to rule any in, even after scouring all our texts and comparing notes, and we’re still not sure where it originated. I’m wondering if, maybe, it came from something in the woods, though. Something that jumped to us from a creature in there. First people to catch it were hunters, though not every hunter’s caught it.” She paused. “And I mean this in the nicest way possible, but Petuni has always been an adventurous sort. I know she loves the woods quite as much as my brothers.”
“That she does, just like her mother. And like you, by my recollection.”
“Not quite. I like the woods for their quietness, sir, not so much for adventures.”
“Hm.” Drey sat back in his armchair and peered up at her. For a second, Corrin thought he might try to argue with her; but instead, Drey asked, “You’re feeling alright, though? And your family?”
“We’re alright,” Corrin confirmed. “So far.” She shouldered her satchel and passed Drey the old quilt lying a few paces away from his chair. “Take care, Drey. And you too, Petuni.”
Drey waved feebly. “Take care, Corrin. We can’t be healed if the healer falls sick.”
“Thank you. I’ll pass that on to Bathilda, too.”
Corrin took a breath, squared her shoulders, and set out for the next house.
Corrin stopped by door after door, visiting neighbor after neighbor. Each time, she took out her washcloth, soap, and canteen and scrubbed her hands outside the door. Each time, she knocked gently and called out, “Hello?” The door always opened for her, but reactions varied. Sometimes, the neighbor who greeted her was a harried and exhausted spouse; once, a fretful child. Sometimes, the sick dragged themselves to the door to admit her, for they did not live with anyone who was well. Every time, though, it was a face Corrin knew, and she greeted them with warmth and sympathy in equal measure. She tried very hard to convince some of the more stubborn ones to rest and take their medicine. Jallen’s breathing is getting worse, she thought. He shouldn’t be trying to labor in his forge. And poor Evelyn, caring for her mum. I’m worried she’ll catch it next…
Some of them were grumpy, but some of them were kind, returning Corrin’s warmth as best they could. Sweet Miriam asked after Corrin’s family and apprenticeship even as she slumped in bed, sweating and wheezing something awful while Corrin checked her vitals and helped her tip medicine into her mouth.
Corrin stepped out the door and closed it softly behind her. She breathed out. The midafternoon sun beat down on the clearing in front of her, illuminating a few gardens in need of weeding and crates of supplies and tools left about, as well as two cats sunning themselves in a patch of grass. Corrin resisted the urge to sit down with the cats. How many households did she have left? She leaned against a wall of stone and ivy and started ticking them off in her head. She might be almost done. For the day, anyway. Tomorrow, she should visit some others…
A familiar child’s cry yanked her out of her thoughts. “Corrin!”
Corrin startled and turned.
Her brother Sam raced toward her, practically flying across the grass and dirt. At ten years old, both he and his twin, Frendel, bore a passing resemblance to Corrin—lightweight and bony-shouldered, with pointed noses, narrow faces, and freckles as numerous as the stars. But their hair was light brown instead of red, and while Corrin had green eyes, theirs were hazel. They were also far more mischievous than Corrin had ever been, no matter what some elders claimed to the contrary.
Even so, neither would cry wolf. The look on Sam’s face sent a spike of alarm through her.
He grabbed her arm, frantic. “Corrin! Corrin! Da’s sick!”
Corrin’s heart dropped like a stone. But she made herself say, as she had for so many others, “Okay. Take me to him, please.”
Da sat in their apartment’s armchair, his weather-beaten face unnaturally pale. He was a bearlike man, with hairy arms, a bushy brown beard, and shoulders so large that Corrin could probably still ride on them if she tried. But his green eyes were kindly and full of laughter. Even now, slumped and with a sheen of sweat upon his brow, he smiled up at Corrin’s mum.
Corrin’s mum, a short, auburn woman with clever fingers, cleverer hazel eyes, and a mind as sharp as the hunting knife at her belt, fussed over him. “If the twins hadn’t fetched me,” she said sternly as she swept a kerchief over his brow, “who knows what would’ve happened? They told me you keeled right over in front of them, you daft llama. Why didn’t you come home sooner?”
Her da chuckled weakly. “I was hale and hearty until all of a sudden I wasn’t. Ah, Corrin!” He beamed at her, then began to rise. He was trembling.
“Da,” said Corrin severely, and pushed him back into the chair. Her fingers skated over his forehead and the insides of his wrists. His face was warm. Hands clammy. Pulse still steady, but feebler than she would’ve liked. His lips weren’t dry, but she pushed a flask of water into his hands anyway. His breathing sounded wrong—not as clear and effortless as it should’ve been.
Sam hovered anxiously around Mum, who let out a slow breath and ruffled his hair. “Go, get some jam from the kitchen,” she said, and he scurried off.
“Did the lad interrupt your work to make you fuss over me?” asked her da, twinkling up at Corrin. “Aren’t I a lucky man, to have a family that spoils me so much.”
“Da, shush.” Corrin pulled out a vial full of pale green liquid. “Take this. You’ve got a fever.”
As her da sipped the potion, shuffling footsteps and the tap-tap-tap of a staff crossed the threshold, and Bathilda entered with Frendel at her heels. Corrin surmised that Frendel must have gone to fetch her mentor while Sam had searched for Corrin. Bathilda gave Corrin a nod and spoke softly with Corrin’s mum, asking questions about the onset of his symptoms and offering explanations as Corrin peered into her da’s eyes and poked around his ears.
Bathilda had once told Corrin that a good part of healing was putting people at ease. Can’t help them if they’re too scared to let you, she’d said one day, speaking over the wailing of a scratched up five-year-old. Comfort them, inform them, tell stories or distract them… A pliant patient is a patient more quickly healed.
Her mum fell squarely into the needs-to-be-informed camp, much like Corrin herself. Her da, on the other hand, was happiest distracted. Jokes of the terrible da-pun variety were his favorite, but any friendly company would do, for which Corrin was thankful. Unfortunately, she was at a loss for humor. The best she could do was rehash her da’s puns.
Corrin plucked a few tiny twigs and leaves out of his hair, frowning. He must have fallen into the undergrowth.
“Can’t be-leaf it,” said her da, shaking his head. “Knocked into the bushes by the first sprout of illness.”
“Unbe-leaf-able,” Corrin agreed dryly. She re-positioned the cold compress on his head.
“You’ll heal me with your magic brews, will you?”
“Not magic. Medicine.” Corrin kissed his forehead. As a healer, she knew better than to kiss a sick man’s forehead, lest she catch the sickness herself. As her da’s child, the risk was easily forgotten.
She did a couple of minor things to make sure he was comfortable—drew up the good quilt around his shoulders, made sure he kept sipping his potion, got an extra pillow to place behind his head. Her da had similar first-stage symptoms as the rest of the sick villagers, the ones she and Bathilda couldn’t cure, though the onset of his fatigue had been particularly sudden. It wasn’t bad yet. Maybe he’d be up and wanting to walk again after resting in his armchair a bit. It would get worse, though. If her da followed the trend, he’d be bedridden within a month.
A gnarled hand rested on Corrin’s shoulder, startling her. “I’ll be going back to my place,” said Bathilda quietly. “Taking care of odds and ends. Got many more patients to see.”
“Okay,” Corrin whispered. Her chest felt tight.
“Stay well, my dear.” Bathilda shuffled out the door and away, leaving Corrin alone with her worries and a slow-creeping sense of dread.
We’ve got to find a way to fix this, she thought. Bathilda might—maybe there’s something we missed. Please, please let there be something we missed. Otherwise, they’ll…
I can’t lose them.
Once Corrin was certain her da was at ease and her mum alright with taking over again, she hurried out the door. She finished the last couple of visits she’d meant to make that day. Then, under the bruised orange light of sunset, she hastened to Bathilda’s home.
“Bathilda,” she called as she opened the door. “Can we talk? Please?”
Bathilda looked up from the journal she’d been writing in. Her nose was flecked with ink, the pages in front of her marked up with scribblings. She had several different vials lined up on the counter next to her and a mortar and pestle all gummed up with plant paste. Must be noting findings, Corrin thought. Or calculating portions. Whatever she was doing, Bathilda seemed to lighten just a touch when Corrin entered the apartment. “Ah,” said Bathilda, setting her quill down. “Yes. I was wondering when you might be back.” She gestured to the work table. “I’m mixing more medicine for the stores, if you’d like to join me.”
Corrin approached the work table, but she didn’t sit down at it. “We need to do more than ease the symptoms,” she said. “It’s been clinging too long.”
Bathilda frowned. “I know, Corrin. By the spirits, I know.“
“Do you think…” Corrin hesitated. “How much longer do we have to try? If we don’t stop the sickness…”
Bathilda’s hands stilled in the middle of mixing. Heavily, she said, “It’s difficult for me to say, since every illness is slightly different, as is every person. But yes, Corrin, if we do not stop this, people will begin to die. I expect within a month or two, we may see the first deaths. In a few more… well, much of Oddment may perish come winter, including your da. I don’t think I can devise a cure before then, not with the ingredients here, nor with the ingredients I’d know from a city market. I’m sorry,” she added somberly. “I did warn you, you have too much faith in me.”
The slow-creeping dread in Corrin’s heart morphed into horror. “We can’t—no, there must be something we can do. Anything. Maybe… maybe some healers in the capital know things? A consultation? We could write them. A-and I can reread all the books.”
“I can write them, but there’s no guarantee they’ll have answers,” said Bathilda grimly. “Indeed, I think the odds are rather slim. I know most of what the healers in the capital know, and then some. I wrote some of the medical texts in the capital’s library, did you know?”
Corrin blinked. “No, um. You never mentioned that.” Silently, she tacked on, Never mentioned much about where you came from or what you’ve done at all, except in the broadest and vaguest of strokes. This realization was strangely frustrating. Bathilda had so often nurtured Corrin’s curiosity, especially in all matters of medicine, and Corrin had considered her and Bathilda close. But when it came to her life story, well… she’d never talked about it much, and had never seemed willing to.
Corrin mentally shoved this line of thought aside. It didn’t matter right now. What mattered was her da, her neighbors, her home. She said, “You should write them anyway. Just to see.” Corrin started pacing. “While you do that, I—I’ll reread the books, and—”
Bathilda heaved herself to her feet, grabbed her staff for support, and touched Corrin’s arm. “Easy, lass. There’s one more thing I can think of. A last resort.” Bathilda shuffled over and opened a dusty wooden chest in the corner. In all the years Corrin had known her, she’d never seen Bathilda open that chest. It was one of the few things Bathilda wouldn’t answer questions about, except to say that its contents were personal and that Corrin had best get back to studying skeletal structures. Now, Bathilda withdrew a folded piece of parchment, yellowed with age. Bathilda shuffled back and placed it on the table, but she didn’t unfold it just yet. Lamplight flickered across her solemn face.
Bathilda leaned on her staff and spoke. “I encountered a sickness as persistent as this one years and years ago, before you were born—before your mother was born. It was in a small village, out of the way and peaceful like this one. The village was called Gailstone.”
“Was?” Corrin echoed.
“Two thirds of the people fell to the illness within a season. After the quarantine lifted, the remaining third left.” Bathilda’s voice rasped. “It was a plague unlike any I’d ever dealt with. And while the symptoms here are different—slower creeping, more in the lung and less in the skin—it reminds me of that plague, in the way it clings and resists treatment. I wasable to save some of those poor souls in Gailstone, but not with my usual treatments. I needed a cure from the Gloamwood.”
Corrin blanched.
The tales claimed that the Gloamwood was the land of Death herself, grown from her sinister powers and full of her creatures—trolls and bog sprites, lying in wait to prey on any who trespassed, and the Churikin, her chaotic helpers. Some said the ghost owls flying around the Gloamwood’s edge were the spirits of the stricken, shrieking to warn people off. Others said that anyone who set foot in the forest was cursed. But Corrin didn’t need to believe in Death’s sickle blade or curses to fear that land. She’d heard too many rumors of bold travelers and trophy hunters who’d entered and never returned. Sane people stayed away from it. Far, far away.
Bathilda finally unfolded the parchment: once, twice, thrice, four times, until it lay flat on the table before them. “A friend made the journey with me and gave me this. An old, brave friend.” She sounded terribly mournful as she said this.
It was a map.
The continent had been laid out in thin lines of ink, with winding rivers and city-marks where the people of Stalt had settled. Oddment was among those marks, nestled among the whispering forests in the middle-south. The map was rendered in great detail, though this itself didn’t make it remarkable. Corrin had seen the maps Trader Amella brought, sometimes. Amella had once taken her aside and pointed out all her favorite trade routes and some of the cities she’d seen on her travels, including Stalt’s capital.
But Corrin had never seen the Gloamwood marked up before, and on this map, that region was riddled with notes. The Twin Rivers snaked through it, unbroken lines weaving from west to northeast. The cartographer had added crude drawings of trolls and other beasts, and they’d written warnings in a tiny, slanting hand. Beware troll village. Boglands, rife with sink-mud. Bridge is old, can break. And in the heart of the Gloamwood was a drawing of a tree, labelled the Tree of Life.
Corrin blinked. The Tree of Life was a fixture in her people’s myths and origin stories, each of which was more far-fetched than the last. Some tales claimed its fruit granted immortality. Others depicted it as a portal to the afterlife. Yet others claimed it could cure any ailment. All of them—every last one—tied it to that twilight boundary between a beating heart and eternal rest.
Corrin had stopped believing in the myths years ago. Something about seeing enough hunted rabbits, maybe. Or reading all those medical textbooks. Or perhaps helping Bathilda give end-of-life care to Old Man Tyrin. His breath had wheezed to a halt, and his eyes had glassed over. His pulse had stopped. He’d turned pale as a ghost-owl’s face, and his skin had cooled until it was no warmer than damp earth. The process was ordinary, mundane, almost, and yet it had left her feeling bereft. Just like that, he was gone. He’d never again grumble at the neighborhood children or tell stories at the solstice festivals.
The cartographer couldn’t have meant that mythical tree. Not literally, at least.
Bathilda jabbed that tree with her finger. The paper crackled beneath her touch. “Here lies the cure I used. This tree’s fruit has healing properties beyond anything else I’ve seen. It accelerates all the body’s repair capabilities, boosts its systems to fix things and fend off sicknesses it ordinarily never could.”
Wait, thought Corrin. Bathilda used that tree’s fruit?
Immortality was implausible. Even Bathilda couldn’t stop herself from aging; surely she had grown more wizened in the past decade, at least a little. But medicinal properties in a plant—compounds that bolstered the body’s ability to heal, or that warded off certain kinds of sickness—that, Corrin had seen many a time before, and that, she could believe. Particularly if Bathilda herself said it worked.
“I remember them. They were small and round, the size of crabapples but not half as hard. Bright purple.” She gazed upon Corrin and said, “You wanted to do something? Anything? Here it is. You must seek out this fruit and bring back as much as you can carry. Stuff your satchel with them, then put more in a pack.”
“You want me to go,” said Corrin bleakly. She pointed to the Gloamwood. “In there.”
“Yes,” said Bathilda firmly. “This needs a healer’s eyes and a healer’s courage, my dear—and a healer’s urgency. It will take you at least a month to reach this fruit, and another month to return. Maybe longer. The timing is tight, even if you depart now. If all else fails, we need to have this cure in time.”
Corrin gulped. “A soldier’s strength and sword skills would do far better than me, by my reckoning.”
Bathilda scoffed. “If you can convince one of Stalt’s finest to go, I’ll eat my cloak.”
“What do you mean?” asked Corrin, bewildered. Surely the guards would do it. It was their job to face danger and protect people, wasn’t it? That’s what they’d signed up for. Corrin had never signed up for anything like that. “It’s their job to handle the perilous stuff. They’d be braver than I am, I would think.”
“Corrin, my dear, you greatly underestimate yourself. And you greatly overestimate them!”
“Well, it doesn’t hurt to ask. I’ll try.” She picked up the map. “I’ll show them this, if you’re alright with it.”
Corrin could swear Bathilda hesitated, her pale grey eyes flicking between the map and the dusty old chest. But in a blink, her shoulders sagged, and she waved Corrin off. “Alright, lass, give those fools in the guards’ tower a try.”
Corrin nodded decisively. “They’ve got to see. I’ll convince them.” She folded the map, stowed it in her satchel, and strode determinedly out the door. If she made sure they understood that this was Oddment’s best chance, that they needed to fight to fix this sickness just like they would fight to protect the village’s borders from beasts…
Someone had to go. Someone had to help save Oddment. And she thought, surely, that those who’d trained for conflict and crisis would have the best chance.
Bathilda’s pale, knowing eyes tracked Corrin down the path. “Luck to you,” she called after her. “Would be splendid if I end up eating my cloak!”