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"What would it entail?"

"There are two roads," Yrene said, letting so ainst bone with no buffer The lady sighed "The first is the hardest It would require , I would have to break apart the bone, take out the parts that healed or fused incorrectly, and then regrow them You could not hile I did it, and even with the help I could give you for the pain, the recovery would be agonizing" There was no way around that truth "I’d need three weeks to take apart your bones and put the and learning to walk on it again"

Elide’s face had gone pale "And the other option?"

"The other option would be to not do the healing, but to give you salve--like the one you said Lorcan gave you--to help with the aches But I arn you: the pain will never entirely leave you With the way your bones grind together here"--she gently touched the spot on Elide’s upper foot, then a spot down by her toes--"arthritis is already setting in As the bones continue to grind together, the arthritis, that pain you feel when you walk, will only worsen There may come a point in a few years--maybe five, maybe ten, it’s hard to tell--when you find the pain to be so bad that no salve can help you"

"So I would need the healing then, regardless"

"It’s up to you whether you want the healing at all I only want you to have a better idea of the road ahead" She smiled at the lady "It’s up to you to decide how you wish to face it"

Yrene tapped Elide’s foot, and the lady lowered it back to the floor before putting her sock back on, then her boot Efficient, easy h now to drink The fresh verve of the pepper her stoain"

Yrene nodded "With that sort of injury, it would require facing a great on entrance "My husband and I just went through one such journey together"

"Was it hard?"

"Incredibly But he did it We did it"

Elide considered, then shrugged "We’d have to survive this war first, I suppose If we live … then we can talk about it"

"Fair enough"

Elide frowned at the wagon’s ceiling "I wonder what they’ve learned up there"

Up in the O, where Chaol and the others were now lers who had been left behind

Yrene didn’t want to know ht into how they’d be extracting infor worth our visit to this awful place," Yrene muttered, then drained the rest of her tea The sooner they left, the better

It was as if the gods were laughing at her--at the toward them, just before Borte appeared Her face uncharacteristically solemn

Yrene braced herself, but it was Elide whom the ruk rider addressed

"You’re to coirl, Arcas waited, a sparrow perched on the saddle Falkan Ennar Not a couard

Elide asked, "What’s wrong?"

Borte shifted, with impatience or nerves, Yrene couldn’t tell "They found someone in the mountain They want you up there--to decide what to do with hione still Utterly still

Yrene asked, "Who?"

Borte’s htened "Her uncle"

Elide wondered if the rukhin would shun her forever if she voht up to the bridge spanning the O, it was all she could do not to hurl the contents of her sto in the Northern Fang," Borte had said before she’d hauled Elide into the saddle, Falkan already flying up the sheer face of the pass "Trying to pretend to be a wyvern trainer But one of the other trainers sold him out Queen Aelin called for you as soon as they had him secure Your uncle, not the trainer, I mean"