The rest of the day, Vayra helped Nathariel finish the leg. At least, as best as she could tell the time while on the stream. Everyone treated it like morning when she’d woken up, and now it felt like evening.
They measured the leg to ensure the proper dimensions, adjusting the outer panels and lengths of the inside beams as best as they could. Vayra slipped into the white void every few minutes to consult with Phasoné. Once the first leg (the one designed to fit Vayra) was mostly complete, they began work on the second leg—which would be slightly larger—to fit Phasoné.
Nathariel took to winding up some of the starsteel wires into coils. He made a large spring, long enough to run the length of a calf, then pushed a sliver of Arcara through it. It contracted. When he released it, the Arcara fled out into the air, sparking and sputtering until it was just a tinge on the breeze. He passed each coil to Vayra, so she could fit them into place in the leg.
Once they were satisfied with the length, they attached it to her body.
The process, Nathariel explained, would be smoother if she wasn’t conscious, and she didn’t complain—she’d rather not have to feel it, either. They’d have to blend her bones with the wood if they wanted the leg to stay attached to the stump, and that would take the help of Mr. Spawlding.
Of course, she had wondered if they would be able to attach anything else to her body—the strings for tendons, or blood vessels and veins and nerves. But only the bone and Arcara channels would connect. If she couldn’t push Arcara through the starsteel wires, she wouldn’t be able to control the leg. And so, the starsteel wires would need to connect to her Arcara channels.
She hobbled back to the cot in the infirmary, where Mr. Spawlding gave her a sip of a pink concoction. She blinked, and when she opened her eyes, she was laying on a cot. It felt like only seconds had passed, but she doubted it. Instead of a peg-leg attached to her stump, there was something much heavier.
She sat up and looked down at her leg, where the new prosthetic was fixed. A bar of wood protruded from the stump, now, surrounded on all sides by thick bandages and gauze. Wires reached upwards, poking through the stump as well and joining with the nexuses of her Arcara channels.
“Once it heals and seals completely,” Nathariel said, “we can add the panels on top. And don’t go complaining to me about them just being aesthetic. We wouldn’t want the inner workings getting damaged because you bumped it.” He handed her the crutch again. “I’d suggest you let your enhanced body do the healing for you.”
Vayra rubbed her head, then glanced at Mr. Spawlding, who cleaned off a scalpel with a cloth. He began to list off a set of medicines that she should be taking—including anti-infectants and a pill to help her natural bone merge with the wood—but he stopped after the tenth, then said, “I…will leave them in your quarters.”
Already, Nathariel had started to walk away. He said, “We’ll get the foot attached, then make sure everything fits properly. Then we’ll call it a day.”
Vayra slid her legs off the cot, then pushed herself back up to her feet with the help of the crutch. Her new prosthetic leg was a little bit too short without the foot, so it made her hobble-walk a little stiff and awkward, but it wasn’t much different than the peg-leg. The knee, without her control, barely articulated. There was nothing to relearn at the moment.
For the rest of the evening, she worked on the foot, helping Nathariel align the metal toes and polish the ankle socket. Phasoné had just as excellent knowledge of a humanoid body; she provided suggestions that even Nathariel couldn’t match. The Admiral heeded them, no matter whether Vayra said they came from Phasoné or not.
They attached the foot as soon as it was complete, but it was slightly too tall, putting her off-balance the other way. So they adjusted the ankle, until both legs were the exact same length.
The second leg, for Phasoné, was mostly complete—foot and all. ‘I should be able to attach it myself,’ the Goddess said. ‘Though I’ll do it when you’re asleep, so hopefully you won’t be able to feel it.’
Vayra brought the complete leg (and the panels of wood they’d carved for it) into the white void, then handed it to Phasoné. “I hope this can make things…a little better,” she told the Goddess.
Vayra spent the rest of the night in the infirmary, under the protection of the surgeons—just in case anything went wrong. But, in the morning, she woke up unharmed. As much as she could be.
Nathariel was already up on the gun deck, producing two prosthetic arms. One, closer to completion, for Vayra, and another for Phasoné.
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The arms took longer; Nathariel hadn’t made much progress on it before Vayra woke up yesterday. Glade offered his assistance, as much as he could, When Bremi was off duty, he hung around the makeshift forge and workstation.
Three days later, they had finished the skeleton of the arms. Vayra presented one—the larger one, properly sized—to Phasoné. Then, Mr. Spawlding attached the smaller arm to her bicep-stump in the infirmary, and left her to sleep for the rest of the night.
When Vayra woke up the next morning, Phasoné informed her that the process of attaching the limbs inside the void had gone just as smoothly. First, Vayra tried to hide her relief, but nothing could be a secret between them.
The repairs didn’t stop. While she and Nathariel had been making the arms, she had been cycling Arcara to the stump of her leg, pushing it out through into the flesh and urging it to mend faster. Now, when she removed the bandages, there was just a smooth stump with a wooden bone sticking out through it—and with a few starsteel wires wrapped around.
“We should be able to fit the panels on top,” Nathariel said. “Unless you have any more adjustments to make.”
“I can still make adjustments to the leg later, though, right?” she asked.
“You should be able to.”
“Alright then, yeah, let’s get the covers on.”
While she worked on healing the stump of her arm and binding the mechanical prosthetic in place, they fitted the curved wooden panels onto the skeleton, until it had the silhouette of her calf.
Once the majority of the limb’s shape had been built up, with only a few gaps in between the panels where the skeleton below peered through, Vayra asked, “How long will it be before I can start using it?”
“You can use it when you can control it,” Nathariel said. “The starsteel wires will follow the same rough paths your Arcara did, but moving the leg will be slightly different than contracting your muscles. The starsteel coils will contract, yes, but they will only respond to Arcara.”
“Will I ever get used to it?”
Nathariel rubbed his side, where the patch of repaired prosthetic flesh had replaced his own skin. “No, not likely. But you will learn to treat it as part of your body.”
Vayra nodded slowly, then hoisted her arm up. It was lighter than the leg, its bones thinner and joints more elegant, and she barely had to put in any effort. But the elbow joint creaked forwards, loose and unresponsive. She wanted to push Arcara into it, yet the magical energy only swirled around at the end of her arm stump, unwilling to travel into the prosthetic. “It…doesn’t feel like it.”
“Probably not. And for now, that works to your benefit—it’ll make the stump easier to seal up.” He turned around, then pulled his voidhorn off his hip. He lifted the cap off, then reached inside and pulled out a small wooden panel about the size of the back of her hand. In its center were three charred indents, each with the same rune carved into them. “Which reminds me…”
Vayra squinted, then inched closer. Each indent looked exactly like the runestone socket on the Ignimaids’ foreheads. “Runestones?” she breathed. “Will they…work? What will they do?”
Nathariel set the panel down. “We’ll take a rokenfruit and made rokenade.”
Vayra scrunched her eyebrows.
“Take a lemon and use it to cure scurvy?”
She shook her head.
“You need to learn some sayings…” Nathariel grumbled. “Well, you know what I mean.” He tapped the panel with his fingers. “We’ll find you some runestones, and you’ll be able to trigger their effects. Without having to tune your body to specifically use them.” He turned it over, revealing a set of holes drilled into the bottom. “We’ll feed some starsteel through here, and it’ll become part of your spirit system.”
“What can I do with the runestones?”
Nathariel spread his arms. “Many things. There are thousands of runes in Ghusdül, the dwarven tongue. They’re logograms, truly, not letters. Each has a different effect when activated, and if you chain three together? I can’t promise you’ll find anything terribly powerful, but you might find something that gives you an edge.”
Vayra smiled at the possibility, and her fingers began to jitter.
She spent another two days Vayra using her Arcara to seal the stump on her bicep and ensure the arm was connected to her body. Once Nathariel and Mr. Spawlding gave their approval, she started to layer the wooden panels onto the arm too. A few needed to be carved down and trimmed to fit, and she ensured that she didn’t screw them in too tightly, or she might need help to get them off if the arm needed repairs. And she was getting tired of feeling helpless.
When she came to the wrist, she paused. “Nathariel?” she asked, disrupting the God-heir from cleaning up the mess they had made on the gun deck. Once he turned around, she said, “My bracer.” She only had one left; the other was on her severed arm in the Narvelpeare facility, and it had probably been devoured by the lava in the collapsing building by now. “I can still use it, right?”
“On your flesh-and-blood arm, sure,” he replied.
“Not on the other?”
“It will make it much harder to control the thin wires and coils if you have a massive block of the same material strapped on overtop.”
She nodded. There was only one bracer left, so…that was alright, she supposed. Acceptable. She opened her mouth, about to ask Nathariel to help instruct her on how to connect her body’s Arcara channels to the wires, when a bell began to ring.
Moments later, a sailor peered down into the gun deck and yelled, “We’re approaching Thronehome!”
Controlling the leg could come later. Vayra pushed herself up using the crutch, then hobbled towards the stairs.
Nathariel inhaled sharply. “Time to negotiate with the Order, I suppose…”