Rowan woke to light on wood and the soft hiss of a brazier. The smell of boiled herbs hung in the room—bitter and clean. He blinked at the beams above him and tried to sit. The world tipped. A hand pressed gently to his chest.
"Easy," Lyra said. "You've been out a day."
His mouth was dry as ash. "Water?"
She slid a cup into his hands and watched until he drank. The water was cool, with a little mint. It seemed to run through him, loosening a knot he hadn't known he carried. When he lowered the cup, Brennar was there on the next cot, shoulder wrapped neat in white. Ari stood near the shutter, bow unstrung across her back, eyes on the door like a guard dog that didn't blink.
"What happened?" Rowan asked, though a piece of him already knew. He remembered the river like a roar inside his bones, the way the harpoon had come alive, the steam and the ice—all of it too much.
"You spent yourself," Lyra said. "Hard. Your body needed time to find its shape again."
"Did I… hurt anyone?" he asked, throat tight.
"No," Ari said. "Only things that needed hurting."
Brennar tossed him a crooked smile. "And a bridge stone or two."
Lyra checked his pulse and the color of his gums as if that answer was not her concern. "You'll be weak for a bit. Broth. Water. Short walks. No heroics." She glanced at Brennar without moving her head. "That goes for you, too."
"I'm a picture of obedience," Brennar said, then winced as the bandage tugged.
They fed him in sips and let him sleep again. The next time he woke, it was evening. Lantern light made a soft circle around the brazier. The hall hummed low: a woman coughing in the far corner, a child fussing, the scrape of a pestle in a mortar. Lyra moved from bed to bed with a steady rhythm, hands clean, words few. When she returned to Rowan, she set down a bowl that steamed and handed him a spoon.
"Slow," she said.
He did as told. The broth tasted of bones and thyme. It warmed him all the way to his fingers. "Thank you," he said.
Lyra nodded once. "When you can walk, we'll try something small."
"What kind of small?" he asked.
She pointed at a wooden bowl on a nearby shelf, full of clear water. "Breathing. And not spilling."
Rowan frowned. "Breathing and—?"
"If you can't keep the water in the bowl," Lyra said, "you're not ready for anything bigger."
Brennar chuckled. Ari's mouth twitched.
---
The next morning, Lyra let him sit up on his own. She wrapped his rope-burned palms with clean cloth and set the bowl before him on a stool. "Hands in your lap," she said. "Breathe here." She tapped the spot just below his ribs. "In for four. Hold for four. Out for four. Watch the surface."
Rowan did as she said. The first thing he noticed was how badly he wanted to do something—reach, pull, shape. The water shivered at the edges with each breath like it wanted the same. He kept his hands still and his eyes soft. In. Hold. Out. After a minute, the tremble eased. The water settled.
Lyra's chin dipped. "Good. Again."
They did it until his shoulders sagged. When his breath grew ragged, she pushed the bowl aside and handed him water to drink. "Enough."
Later, Brennar made him walk the length of the hall and back, twice, with his hands loose and his shoulders down.
"Your feet don't know they're feet," Brennar said cheerfully. "Teach them." He showed Rowan how to plant the ball before the heel, how to turn his hips when he moved so he didn't wobble. "You're a river boy now. Flow. Don't flap."
"Less poetry," Ari said from the door. "More practice."
Rowan found he didn't mind. His body hurt, but in a way that made sense: use, not ruin. He napped between lessons and woke to small tasks—fetching a jar, handing Lyra a cloth, holding a patient's hand while she stitched a shallow cut with those pale threads that glimmered in the light.
On the third day, he stepped outside for the first time. Stoneford's streets were narrow and busy. The wall threw a cool stripe of shade across the road. A woman selling bread called to a friend. A mule snorted. Children ran past chasing a hoop, their laughter snagging on Rowan's nerves and smoothing them at the same time.
People looked at him. Some nodded. A few smiled. One boy of about eight stopped short in front of him and blurted, "Are you the river one?"
Rowan blinked. "I… suppose?"
The boy's mother swooped in, face tight. Rowan braced for a scolding, but she only pulled the boy back and said, "Don't pester," then looked at Rowan with quick, honest gratitude. "Thank you. For the bridge." She tugged her son away before he could ask more.
Rowan stood for a moment in the street and let the words settle. Thank you. It felt new inside him, like a clean room he hadn't known was there.
He told Lyra about it that evening while he ground willow bark with an apprentice. She listened and said nothing for a while. Then, "Take the thanks. Don't chase it."
"How do I know the difference?" he asked.
"You'll feel it," she said. "One feeds you. The other eats you."
---
Days blurred, marked by little victories. Rowan kept the bowl full. He learned how to lift a cup without making the water cling to the rim. He practiced a slow draw—a thin thread from the surface to the back of his hand—then let it fall without wanting more. When his breath ran too fast, Lyra tapped his chest and counted with him until it slowed.
At night, he dreamed of the river the way it had been on the bridge: loud, angry, full. He would wake sweating and find the hall quiet. Lyra sometimes sat in her stool with a book in her lap. She would look up, read his face, and nod him back to sleep.
On the sixth evening, as the sun slid behind the wall and the air cooled, a bell rang fast and wild. Not the slow toll of closing. Alarm. Shouts climbed the street. Smoke threaded through the window slit and crawled along the ceiling.
Lyra was on her feet before anyone spoke. "Fire," she said, already grabbing a satchel. "Brennar, with me. Ari—"
"On your flank," Ari said, slinging her bow and moving for the door.
Rowan pushed off the cot. His legs felt like they were made of sticks, but they held. "I can help."
Lyra looked at him. For a heartbeat he saw the choice in her face: keep him safe, or let him be what he was. She nodded once. "Stay between us. If you feel the world tilt, you stop."
They ran into the street. The fire was at the far end of a row of sheds—a storehouse with a thatch roof, the worst kind of roof for flames. Heat rolled down the lane. People formed a bucket line from the well, passing sloshing pails hand to hand. Sparks lifted and fell like angry bees. A man shouted that his sister was still inside. Another screamed for someone to move the cart blocking the alley. The crack of wood breaking under heat turned Rowan's stomach.
Brennar took the near end of the bucket line and made people stack two steps closer. "Tighten it!" he bellowed. "Don't waste your arms!" Ari climbed a cart and scanned the rooflines. "Wind's shifting," she called. "Keep it from the next roof!"
Rowan reached the well and set both palms to the stone rim. The water below was black in the low light. He breathed as Lyra had taught him—one, two, three, four—and felt the weight of it like a hand he could hold. He didn't pull. He asked.
Water rose up the inside of the well, quiet and steady, until it kissed the lip and bulged there, wanting to spill. Rowan shaped it flat, like a sheet of glass, and sent it forward along the line. Men and women stopped passing buckets for a blink, startled, then understood and reached to guide the sheet with their hands like it was a heavy cloth. Where their palms touched, the water stayed smooth. Where it hit open air, it fell in a soft rain onto the fire.
Steam burst up, hot and sharp. The fire hissed and flinched, then roared higher to eat the new air. Rowan swallowed. He drew again, slower, wider, splitting the sheet into two ribbons—one to smother the base of the flames, another to coat the thatch beside it so stray sparks would die on wet straw. The ribbons trembled. He steadied them.
A beam inside groaned. Someone shouted from the doorway. "Two in the back!" Lyra was already there, tying a cloth over her mouth. "Rowan!" she shouted, not looking at him. "Shield!"
He understood without words. He thickened the water at the door, making a low curtain. Lyra and a burly woman ducked under it and vanished into smoke. Rowan held the curtain like he held his breath. His arms shook. The well water tugged at him, wanting the easy drop back into the dark. He tucked his elbows close and pictured the bowl on the stool.
Brennar dragged a cart away from the alley mouth with one arm and a curse, clearing space. Ari's voice cut the din. "Keep the line tight! Don't break!"
Lyra stumbled out a moment later with a coughing boy over her shoulder. The burly woman followed with an old man between her and a neighbor. Rowan pulled the curtain aside and wrapped a band of water around the boy's face for a breath, cooling the air he took in. The boy's eyes blinked open. He cried once, loud and angry—good. Lyra thrust him into waiting hands and went back for a second run.
Rowan's knees trembled. He set his back against the well to take some of the shake from his arms. "Slow," he told himself. "Small." The ribbons wavered but held. He spread the base wider and felt the fire change. It didn't die in an instant. It gave ground, inch by stubborn inch.
Neighbors cheered when the far wall darkened from orange to black. They cheered louder when the thatch stopped spitting sparks. Someone clapped Rowan on the shoulder. He barely felt it. All he felt was the pull in his middle and the weight of the water as it moved where he told it to.
"Enough!" Lyra's voice snapped in his ear. He realized she was beside him, breath harsh, soot streaked across her cheek. "Let the buckets finish."
He let the ribbons fall into the buckets and staggered a step. The world swam. Lyra's hand found his elbow and steadied him. "Breathe."
He did. The well water slipped down inside the stones with a soft sound, like a sigh. The bucket line took over, dousing the last bright tongues until only wet ash and a curl of steam remained.
For a long moment, no one spoke. Then the lane filled with voices all at once—laughing, crying, the shaky jokes people make when the worst has passed. A man with blistered hands gripped Rowan's wrist and didn't let go. "You saved my sister," he said, eyes shiny. "You saved her." Others came—thanks, claps on the back, a woman pressing a small loaf into his hand even as it soaked through from his wet sleeve. Children stared with wide eyes, then giggled when he squelched in his boots.
Brennar strode up, hair singed, grin big as a gate. He thumped Rowan's back gently. "Look at you," he said. "River boy."
Ari dropped from the cart and looked over the line of roofs, checking for any new glow. Satisfied, she gave Rowan the smallest nod. "Well done."
Rowan couldn't find words. His chest felt too tight, but in a good way, like something had finally settled in the place it should go. He looked at Lyra. She smiled—not wide, but real—and touched his wrist where his pulse beat steady.
"Walk," she said. "Before you fall."
They took him back to the hall through streets that seemed somehow different now—faces open, steps lighter, doors still flung wide from the rush. Inside, Lyra sat him on his cot and handed him water. His hands shook when he drank. She didn't comment. She set a mild salve under his nose to cut the smoke and spread cool paste over a reddened patch on his forearm he hadn't noticed.
"Did I do it right?" he asked, voice small.
"You did it well," she said. "And you stopped when I said stop."
He let his head rest against the wall and closed his eyes. Sounds from the lane drifted in—voices, laughter, the scrape of brooms. Brennar's snores took up their usual corner. Ari's footsteps moved to the door and back again. Lyra sat on her stool and cleaned her tools, metal clinking soft in her bowl.
Rowan breathed in for four, held for four, let it out for four. The river inside him did not roar. It flowed. He felt tired down to the bones, but not broken.
Someone called from the street. "Healers! Ale for your hall, with thanks!" Another voice: "Bread at dawn! Tell the boy!"
Rowan opened his eyes and blinked at the ceiling beams. For the first time since he had woken in a world he did not know, he felt more than fear. He felt belonging, thin and new, like green shoots after rain.
Lyra capped a jar and looked over. "Sleep," she said.
He did, and the only water he heard was the quiet slosh in the bowls on the shelf, the kind that stays where it should.