GWEN
Two days had passed since the healer confirmed what I had already begun to suspect, but hearing it out loud, spoken in her calm and certain voice, had changed something in me. I had carried the weight of the news quietly, allowing it to settle inside me like a secret that I didn’t know how to confess to the world around me.
The first person I spoke to after leaving the healer’s chambers was Raya, and even though I trusted her, I found it difficult to find the right words to express how I felt about something so life-altering.
We sat together on the edge of her bed while she rubbed a warm balm into my palms, something she did sometimes when I looked tired or withdrawn.
She didn’t speak right away, just nodded and kept rubbing the balm into my skin as she listened to me pour out m
