By the end of the sixth week, most of the stiffness in Tristan's fingers had eased. He could tie knots without fumbling, hold a teacup without spilling, and even pluck a short melody on a stringed instrument without missing a note. His hands no longer trembled uncontrollably as before.
Yet some scars remained. Not the visible ones.
There were nights when Tristan still woke shouting, drenched in sweat. The worst memory was the day they forced him to strip and parade naked through the camp. No one laid a hand on him, but the humiliation burned deeper than any bruise. The older miners were made to watch unless they wished to feel the whip for looking away.
"Please… don't do this to me. I beg you," he had said, covering himself with shaking hands. Laughter, mockery, and jeers chased him from one corner to the other.
On other days they ordered him to balance his food bowl on his head while they pelted it with stones for sport. Dents became cracks, and soon a hole split the bottom, yet he was still forced to use it for his ration.
"Stop… please stop. I didn't do anything wrong." His voice had shaken as hard as his body, every clang of stone on metal landing like another strike against his dignity.
When the guards were drunk, they stormed the cells and beat the miners until they were half-dead. If luck intervened, the guards drank themselves senseless before their fists found another target.
"Ouch—stop hitting me. Please, I'm begging you!" Tristan had cried more than once, his voice breaking against the stone walls. The blows came with no reason: a kick for speaking, a strike for standing too near. Bruises barely had time to fade before new ones took their place.
On his first day he had asked for a water refill, not knowing the guards would urinate into a man's mug for daring to ask. He swore he would never ask again.
"Shhh… don't," an old-timer had whispered, pressing his own tin cup into Tristan's hand. "Here. Take mine." The man's lips were cracked and bleeding, yet he gave away his portion. That small kindness kept Tristan alive—and left a scar of shame that a stranger had gone thirsty because he had not yet learned the rules of survival.
By the end of the first week, he had learned to ration water. The old miners warned that rations sometimes never came, and when they did, the water stank so badly it turned the stomach. Hunger and thirst gnawed at everyone, and the moans of the dying traveled through the barracks at night.
Night was the worst. The air reeked of sweat, blood, and urine. Men, old and young, cried out in pain and spent sleepless hours nursing wounds and emptiness. The only question that mattered by dawn was simple and cruel: Who is still alive?
And then he would wake—in the present—staring at a wooden ceiling, a blanket over his legs, and a pillow beneath his head. The room smelled of woodsmoke, not rot. He braced for chains, for shouts, for boots running down the corridor. But memory realigned, and he remembered where he was. The safehouse. Lord Shannon's protection. He was free.
The nightmares did not vanish, but they lost their grip. Sometimes he woke with his forearms raised over his face, instinctively shielding himself from an imagined blow. When that happened, Eira would call his name softly until his breathing steadied. She would bring warm broth or tea and wait beside him, saying little.
"You could ask," he muttered once, after a bad dream left his throat raw.
"I know," she said quietly. "But I'd rather wait until you're ready."
He nodded, grateful for the one gift he had not known in years: patience.
One morning Eira handed him a carefully wrapped package.
"That instrument survived a house fire," she said. "It won't look sound on the outside."
He unwrapped the cloth. Char darkened the edges of the wood. He touched it with reverence, then brushed his fingertips across the strings.
Ping… ping… twang…
The sound that came out was thin and uneven. But it was sound. The beginning of it, at least.
"It sounds… wrong," he admitted.
"It sounds," she corrected gently. "That is already more than silence."
By week's end he could manage a shortened version of a lullaby his mother used to hum when they were children—long before she had gone cold and distant. He didn't cry when he finished. He only sat very still, the bow resting on his knee.
Eira didn't speak right away. At last she said, "That piece is yours now, if you'll accept it."
He wrapped the violin in cloth as one might bind a fragile bone. "Will he come?"
"Shannon?" she asked.
He nodded.
"Soon."
After a pause, he asked the question that had lingered for days. "What is your relationship with Lord Shannon?"
Eira lifted a brow. "Curious, are we?"
"Just… wondering. He saved me. I barely know him. But you seem to."
She poured tea for them both and slid a cup toward him. "He's helped many. Quietly. Fiercely. We're not blood, but I owe him my life. Same as you."
"Does he have expectations I should worry about?" Tristan asked, voice low.
She smiled into her cup. "If Shannon wanted something from you, you'd already know. What he wants is for you to live. Music is a bonus."
Later that day Eira watched Tristan from the corner of her eye as he strung beads and tied knots. His fingers had grown nimble again, slow but sure. He's ready, she thought. The realization brought a complicated ache—a blend of pride and something quieter, almost like emptiness.
The safehouse's quiet had always been her armor. Now, after six weeks of shared meals, sarcastic remarks, dreadful sweeping performances, and unexpected laughter, the same quiet felt heavier. Less peaceful. More alone.
Still, it was a good ache—the ache of having helped someone return to life.
She smiled to herself and whispered, "Good job, Tristan."
When the knock finally came, the anxious performer picked up his violin and tuned a stubborn string. Eira opened the door quickly.
Lord Shannon stood on the threshold in an ash-gray cloak, dust from the road on his hem. He looked tired from traveling, but present.
"You're earlier than expected," she said.
"He's later than promised," Shannon answered, his gaze already past her, fixed on Tristan.
Tristan stood in the entryway, violin in hand. "You're back, my Lord."
"Of course," Shannon said simply.
They regarded one another in a quiet that needed no explanation: one whole; one rebuilt.
"Why me?" Tristan asked at last, voice nearly a whisper. "Why not someone stronger?"
Shannon stepped forward. "Because strength isn't only forged in comfort. Sometimes it's hammered in darkness."
Tristan looked down at his hands. They were steady.
"And now?"
"Now," Shannon said, "you play. Or don't. But you live. Not simply survive."
They took their places on the porch while the kettle warmed. Eira brought three sachets—chamomile, green, and ginger. She explained without ceremony: the first to calm; the second to cleanse; the third to quell inflammation. Any of the three would serve a man just finished with weeks of pressure therapy and nerve work.
"He still can't hold a full D," she remarked.
"But I can manage a decent C," Tristan added.
"Progress," Shannon said, and for the first time there was a glint of humor in his voice.
They didn't speak much. They didn't need to.
Tristan balanced the violin across his lap and rested the bow between his fingers. He did not lift it to impress, or to prove himself, or to erase the past. He lifted it because he wanted to. Because he was tired of silence.
He began with a simple phrase. The tone wavered, then steadied. The next phrase came easier, stitched to the first by breath and intention. A small melody—no flourishes, no grand finish—only a clear line carried from one note to the next.
When the final note settled, Tristan allowed himself to breathe. He wasn't perfect. He wasn't fully healed. But he was no longer broken.
He bowed from his chair. They smiled and clapped, not loud, but enough.
Before he left, Shannon paused by the door. "You are always welcome in my house," he said softly. "And with your talent, I believe you can claim whatever you desire. So—claim it."
Then he was gone, boots whispering over the gravel path.
Later that night Eira stood by the window, looking out over the dark line of the orchard. She thought of Tristan's first days—the flinch at every touch, the hollow eyes, the missing spark. Now he slept in the next room, a violin beside him.
"You did it, Tristan," she whispered. "Well done."
For the first time in a long while, Eira felt she mattered. She had helped. And though she knew she would miss him, she also knew the truth that steady hands must accept:
He was meant to leave.
She was meant to stay.
And for now, that was enough.