The Gembound: The Price of Keeping Chapter 99: Volume 4: Chapter 91 – The Wounded

Read chapter 99 of The Gembound: The Price of Keeping by Taliorn on NovelPedia.

Volume 4: Chapter 91 – The Wounded The field hospital rose in a shallow valley behind the main camp tents, hastily erected, bedrolls laid in staggered rows, the scent of boiled linen mixing with blood. The air was too quiet. Shock had its own silence. Renn and Gayle were already at work. Renn knelt beside a young soldier whose armor had partially melted from Theodric’s shadow-burn. “Hold him,” he said, and two regulars braced the man’s shoulders while Renn pressed glowing hands to the burn. Flesh knitted. The man gasped, then steadied. “I haven’t moved this fast in sixty years,” Gayle muttered as he passed Yara, carrying a pot of boiled cloths and a satchel of herbs. “It’s unsettling. Efficient, but unsettling.” He wasn’t wrong. The old priest moved with new speed but with an older man’s steadiness. He slid beside Renn, fingers already checking pulses, packing wounds, whispering triage notes with a confidence born of losing and saving more people than most soldiers ever met. Jonas and Marin Calder worked nearby, their new strength put to simple, grounding use: lifting the wounded gently, bracing splints, changing water basins without shaking hands. “Over here,” Renn called. Yara stepped closer. One soldier lay on a blood-soaked blanket, eyes half-lidded. A spear wound just above the hip. Too deep. Too much blood lost. Even with Enhanced hands, some wounds were simply past the point where the body wanted to stay. “Name?” Gayle asked quietly. “Perrin,” the soldier whispered. “Perrin Hale.” Renn touched Yara’s arm, just once. “We can ease him. Not save him.” “You can fix anything,” Perrin breathed weakly, eyes searching Yara’s face. “They said you could fix anything.” “I can fix what still has enough pattern left to hold,” Yara said quietly. “Let me see if I can help. Do you wish to be enhanced?” Gayle knelt. “Perrin… do you have something? A keepsake? Something you’d want carried home if—if?” Perrin’s lips trembled. “Pocket. Inside. A braid. My daughter’s. If I could see her again, it could make me Enhanced.” His breath hitched. “She’s eight.” Gayle’s face didn’t change. But something behind his eyes did. He reached into Perrin’s pocket and drew out a tiny lock of hair wrapped in faded ribbon. It fluttered once in the cold air light, fragile, too new a memory to anchor a life. Yara felt the Gem stir. Small grief. Fresh. Thin. Not enough. More needed. The Sapphire flashed: hollow pattern no deep anchor nothing for the Gem to bind without taking more than it gives. Yara’s jaw tightened. "If I use this," she said quietly, "I might need to pull… more." Sapphire unfolded the possibilities: Perrin rising—jaw slack, eyes empty, a puppet wearing his face, the braid burning away to nothing in the transformation, his daughter's voice asking "where's papa?" to something that couldn't remember. The pattern was too thin. The anchor is too new. Not enough. "I won't return you whole," Yara said. “Sapphire shows nothing stronger. Nothing old enough. Nothing deep.” Perrin looked at her, pupils blown wide with pain and fading fear. “Can you… fix me?” Yara shook her head once. “If I take you, I won’t return you whole. You wouldn’t be you when you woke.” The truth settled in the tent like dust. Gayle swallowed and gently set the braid in Perrin’s palm. “Then keep this with you. She’ll hear you.” Perrin nodded—barely, a trembling, broken motion—clutching the ribbon as if holding his daughter’s hand. A charm would have been enough. A simple trinket with the braid. But those were ash now, fed to Harry's shards in Saltwhistle. Perrin swallowed, barely conscious. “Tell her I—” His voice cracked. And Gayle began to sing. Not loudly. Not triumphantly. Soft, low, the way a man used to singing in empty chapels might fill the silence for the sake of mercy. The melody was old—older than Ferric kings, older than the taxes that carved villages hollow. A death-hymn. Rosa paused as she passed with a bucket of water, breath catching. A few nearby soldiers bowed th