Sleepy Fox Hollow Gain the weight of you, then lose it

mahler felt whatever words he had mustered die beneath the raw formality of her thanks. he wanted to tell her that he was such a weak man, so completely relieved that they had found her, here, that she had not wandered to the other side of the sunspire to die feverish and haunted.
that he loved her.
instead mahler swallowed and leaned over wylla, fussing with the dressing until it lay more flush against her skin. "phaedra created a new medicine, just for you." he glanced along the broad line of his charcoal shoulder to where the pale girl lay, surely exhausted.
and then he filled himself with the sight of wylla again, from the goldfire of her gaze to the way that her slight body was still so very weak, to the point where mahler was unable if she would yet be able to stand.
"only you vould take on a bear and live," came his next unsteady words. another day, then, perhaps; he was unwilling to sully this time by insistence that she be brought home, a place she had clearly said she would not return.
for now he only watched her, swallowing the shuddering sigh and in the next turning to check the trajectory of the light left to the three.