The Healer
short fiction 1982 The Chronicles of Damar / Spindle's End
Record
| First published | 1982 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | short fiction |
| Canon status | |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780441204045 |
Synopsis
Set in Robin McKinley's world of Damar, this short story follows Lily, a mute young woman gifted with healing powers who has never been able to find her voice. Her quiet, circumscribed life changes when a mysterious mage stumbles into her town, bringing with him an unexpected opportunity: a chance for Lily to discover and claim her own voice through her encounter with him. The story is one of several Damar tales McKinley wrote as shorter companion pieces to her novels The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown, exploring lesser-known corners of Damar's magic and its people through an intimate, fairy-tale-inflected lens focused on a single healer's personal transformation rather than large-scale political events.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Chronicles of Damar / Spindle's End
- Series: not part of a registered series (standalone work within its universe)
- Author: Robin McKinley
Notes
- Short story set in Damar; collected in Imaginary Lands (1985) / A Knot in the Grain (1994).
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.
- Publication order, within The Chronicles of Damar / Spindle's End (standalone work): position 2 of 7: previous The Blue Sword (1982) · next The Hero and the Crown (1984)
Sources
- Wikipedia -- Robin McKinley
- https://openroadmedia.com/ebook/a-knot-in-the-grain/9781497673724
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Knot_in_the_Grain_and_Other_Stories
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