Chapter 20: Healing Touch

Steelwatch’s shadows feel different now, Hannah thought, watching Thomas navigate the crowded streets beside her. The city’s familiar chaos of steam and sound seemed somehow harsher after their time in the mountains. The memory of clean mountain winds made the city’s atmosphere feel thick as soup, heavy with the weight of progress and its price.

Thomas tried to hide it, but Hannah could hear the slight catch returning to his breathing – a whisper of struggle that grew more pronounced with each street they walked. He had been so strong in the mountains, each breath deep and sure as if he’d finally found the air he was meant to breathe. Now, in Steelwatch’s thick haze, that gift seemed to be slipping away like water through cupped hands.

They had turned down a narrow alley – a shortcut Thomas had spotted – when his body finally betrayed him. The coughing began suddenly. Violently. Thomas doubled over; his small frame wracked with spasms that echoed off the close walls like accusations. Hannah’s heart seized, her hands already moving to support him, to protect him, to do anything that might ease his struggle.

“Remember the mountains,” she whispered desperately, the words falling from her lips like prayers. “Remember how it felt up there, love. Just breathe. Just—”

“Here.” The voice came soft as rainfall, carrying notes that seemed to bend the very air. “Let me help.”

A woman stood in the shadows of the alley, though Hannah could have sworn the space had been empty moments before. She moved like water finding its own level, each step precise yet flowing.

Hannah’s first instinct was to pull Thomas away, to shield him from this stranger who had appeared like a spirit from the steam-wreathed shadows. But something in the woman’s eyes held her still – something ancient and kind that spoke of wisdom earned in quiet places where healing and hope walked hand in hand.

“I am Amari,” the woman said softly, her voice carrying notes that seemed to calm the very air around them. From the folds of her full body coverings, she drew forth a small clay jar that caught what little light filtered into the alley. “I have something that might help, if you’ll permit me.” She removed the lid, and a scent like mountain herbs and morning mist rose between them. “A salve for his chest – to help him remember how to breathe.”

Hannah hesitated; her arms still protective around Thomas as another cough shook his small frame. Every instinct screamed at her to protect her son from this strange woman, yet something deeper whispered of trust – of moments when healing came wearing unexpected faces.

“It’s okay, Mama,” Thomas managed between coughs, his voice carrying all the desperation of one who remembers easier breathing.

Hannah met Amari’s eyes, the only part of her body not covered, and saw in them the same gentle patience she’d once seen in Kyra’s gaze – that ancient knowing that spoke of powers older than fear. Slowly, she nodded.

Amari’s fingers carried the salve’s sheen as she reached for Thomas. Her touch was gentle as spring rain as she worked the medicine into his chest, moving in patterns that reminded Hannah of wind over mountain pools.

Gradually, Thomas’s coughing eased, though Hannah could still hear the struggle in each breath he drew. But there was something different now – a rhythm more like the one they’d known in the mountains, as if his lungs were remembering a song they’d almost forgotten.

“Give it time,” Amari said, stepping back with a smile that held both promise and patience. “The body must relearn its own strength, but it will come.”

“Please,” Hannah said reaching into her pack. “Let me pay you.”

Amari’s smile carried echoes of distant wisdom, but her hands – when she raised them to stop Hannah’s movement – were elegant things, smooth as river stones and gentle as morning light. “The mountains give their gifts freely,” she said, her voice carrying both warmth and quiet authority. “It seems only right that we do the same.”

She tucked the jar of salve back into her pocket. There was something in her movements that spoke of both the ordinary and the extraordinary – like mountain streams that seemed simple on the surface but ran deep with ancient knowledge.

She touched Thomas’s cheek once, gently. “Breathe slow and calm for now. Your true breath will return when it’s ready.”

They watched her walk away, her steps light and measured on the uneven cobbles. She moved like someone who knew exactly who she was and what gifts she carried. She paused at the corner, silhouetted against the evening light, and for just a moment Hannah caught the scent of mountain herbs again, sharp and sweet as memory.

Then she was gone, leaving only the lingering warmth of her touch and the mountain-scent of healing hanging in the air like a promise whispered in stone.

Hannah drew Thomas closer, feeling the steady rhythm of his breathing against her side. Each inhale still carried the weight of struggle, but now held something else too – possibility, like the first hint of dawn touching mountain peaks. She looked up at the narrow slice of sky above them, then down at her son’s face, still touched by the lingering grace of Amari’s healing salve.

“What do you say, love,” she whispered, her voice soft with promise, “shall we go find our wings now? Trade a couple of crystals for a ship that can carry us through the clouds?” Her fingers found his hair, brushing it back from his forehead as she had done a thousand times before. “And then,” she continued, feeling possibility unfold within her like flowers opening to dawn, “we can make our home anywhere we choose. Somewhere with air as clean as mountain peaks, where you can breathe deep and free.”

She thought of the remaining crystals nestled in her pack, each one a key to doors yet unopened. “We’re not bound to Coghaven anymore, or Steelwatch, or any other city. We can find our own place, love – perhaps in Graven Pointe, where the hills roll green and endless, or even somewhere yet undiscovered. Somewhere worthy of all our dreams.”