For the first time since arriving at the Yellow Mage's village, Sonder moved with intention.
Her fingers tightened around the staff until her knuckles paled.
The Yellow Mage waited. He did not reach for it; he did not wrestle it from her.
This was a test, for both of them.
Not of strength, but of will.
Then, very slowly, Sonder's grip loosened. Fraction by fraction.
As though somewhere beneath the crushing weight pressing upon her mind, she had heard him and knew what had to be done.
Her hand tightened, then loosened, then tightened once more.
The struggle was visible.
After a few more moments, she barely managed to whisper, "Take it."
The words sounded painful.
As though they had been forced through clenched teeth.
The Yellow Mage accepted the staff.
The instant it left her grasp, Sonder swayed.
She caught herself against the nearest wall before slowly sinking to the floor.
She did not look relieved. She looked like someone who had had a great weight lifted from her, leaving only the pain it had hidden.
The Yellow Mage looked at the staff. Ten fragments, each fitted sloppily and crudely into the wood.
They longed to be whole again.
His mind stirred for a moment, but he ignored the thoughts.
They didn't lack conviction, only ownership. They simply weren't his, so why should he listen?
Without another word, he went to an adjoining chamber, a workshop of sorts.
There stood a broad stone table, glass vessels, a mortar and pestle, and much else besides.
Herbs, minerals, preserved organs, and carefully labeled powders, though none of those interested him today.
Slowly, one by one, he removed the fragments.
Each shard came free with surprising ease.
When the last rested upon the stone, he began arranging them.
He turned one, shifted another, and rotated a third.
The pieces seemed almost eager to guide his hands.
Within moments, a shape emerged.
A face, a mask.
Its fractures remained plainly visible. Ten broken pieces of one broken whole.
The Yellow Mage rested both hands upon the edge of the table.
He placed one hand gently upon the broken mask.
'Healing' was an imprecise word for what he really did. He mended flesh, set shattered bones, and restored ruined organs. He had coaxed many dying things back towards life.
Life, however, was merely one expression of wholeness.
His craft was not truly the healing of living things.
It was the restoration of things that had been broken.
If something possessed enough of itself to remember what it had once been, he could encourage it toward that state again.
Golden light spread from his fingertips and flowed into the fractures.
At first, the power within the mask resisted. It pushed against him and his power and tried to force itself into his mind.
He ignored it.
And then, as the power sensed that he did not wish to harm it but to restore it, the Yellow Mage's golden light seeped into it.
He could have joined the mask physically, as a smith might have done, but that alone would not even mend all the cracks or knit it together.
This would be the simplest step as the pieces remembered being together and wanted to return to that state.
The Yellow Mage knew the true labor still lay ahead.
That would require time.