"Ollie," Milo said urgently, carefully unwrapping the cloth to reveal a small wooden carving. "Ollie, look at me. Please, just for a moment, look at me."
Ollieās shadow-filled eyes opened slightly, unfocused and distant, but at least they were open.
Milo took Ollieās cold, limp hand in his own and pressed the carving into his palm, closing Ollieās fingers around it. It was a rough figure of a knight, carved from a piece of cedar heartwood during the seven days of Ollieās vigil before he became a witch. Miloās claws had shaped it carefully, lovingly, pouring all of his hope and pride and worry into every cut and curve.
"Do you remember this?" Milo asked, his voice shaking. "I made this for you during your vigil. I sat by the edge of the clearing every day," he said, his voice thick with emotion. Watching as Ollie struggled to face the visions of his trial of witchcraft had been one of the hardest things Milo had ever done.
Heād wanted, more than anything, to help the young man whom heād slowly come to think of as part of his own family, but Ollie had to face his trial alone. But Milo couldnāt bear to leave Ollie alone like that, so heād sat just outside the circle that Lady Ashlynn and her coven had inscribed in the ground, and heād carved a small figure to give Ollie a tiny companion who could always accompany him, no matter how far apart they were or what stood in their way.
Ollieās fingers twitched slightly around the carving, the first real movement he had made since being pulled from the water.
"Feel it," Milo urged, taking Ollieās hand and tracing his fingers over the carved wood, following the lines that Miloās claws had left behind. "Feel whatās in the wood. You know how to read a Heartwood carving," he said firmly. For most people, it was impossible to learn all of the subtleties of feeling the heart of the person who made a carving at the time when they scraped away layers of wood to reveal the beauty within, but not Ollie.
Ollie was a witch from the coven of the Mother of Trees. In his hands, a wooden carving came alive in ways that it couldnāt for anyone outside of the Heartwood Clan. But Ollie had gone even further, patiently learning how to make carvings of his own, using scrapes and knives in place of the claws he wasnāt born with. He might not be very skilled with them yet, but he knew, better than anyone outside the Heartwood Clan, how to feel the traces that Milo had left behind in rich, reddish-purple cedar heartwood.
For a long moment, nothing happened. Ollieās fingers lay still against the rough wood, and his breathing remained shallow and irregular. But then, slowly, something began to shift.
The carving wasnāt just wood. Like all things carved by the Heartwood clan, it carried traces of the emotions that had been present during its creation. And Milo had poured seven days of feelings into this small figure, seven days of watching his friend suffer through the trial of witchcraft. Seven days of hoping and fearing and praying that Ollie would succeed, or that even if he failed to become a witch, he wouldnāt be harmed by the trial.
The first emotion that flowed from the wood into Ollieās consciousness was hope. Pure, bright hope that had filled Miloās heart during the first day of the vigil when Ollie had knelt in the circle after enduring the heavy blows that Sir Thane had rained down on him to āremindā him of the virtues heād sworn to uphold.
Milo had been so proud in that moment, so certain that his friend was doing something important and necessary, something that would change everything for the better.
Then came the pride. Deep, fierce pride in the human boy who had worked so hard to protect Miloās family after they lost almost everything to Owain Lothian. Pride in someone who could have turned his back on the Eldritch refugees, but instead welcomed them, sheltered them, built houses for them, and then worked hard to turn those houses into real homes for them. Pride in a friend who had become as close as kin, who had become a brother in all the ways that mattered.
But as the days of the vigil had stretched on, other emotions had crept in. By the fifth day, Miloās hope had begun to give way to worry. Ollie had looked so weak, so drained, barely able to move as the witchcraft took its toll on his body. Milo had started to wonder if his friend would survive, if the price of becoming a witch might be too high.
By the sixth day, the worry had transformed into fear. Cold, gripping fear that Ollie wouldnāt make it through the trial, that Milo would have to watch another person he cared about slip away into death. The fear had wrapped around his heart like ice, squeezing tighter with every hour that passed.
And on the seventh day, when Ollie had finally collapsed and the trial had ended, Milo had felt a desperate determination. A fierce, unyielding resolve that he would do whatever it took to help Ollie recover, to keep his brother alive, to make sure that dangers heād faced hadnāt been for nothing.
All of those emotions flowed from the wood into Ollieās hands, into his heart, into the shadowed places where death had sunk its claws. Seven days of feeling, compressed into a small wooden knight that fit in the palm of a hand.
"I already lost one brother," Milo said, his voice breaking as tears streamed down his face. "I lost him to the Inquisitors and soldiers who burned our village, and I couldnāt do anything to save him. He died fighting to buy me the time to escape, and I can never pay him back for what he did for me."
"But you," Milo said with whiskers trembling and a tail that thumped the ground in growing determination. "You, I can save, Ollie. Youāre here, right here in my arms, and I wonāt lose you. Not now. Not when I can still fight for you..."