His stomach twisted as he thought of the only other healing involving broken bones he’d ever witnessed. When Idalia had healed a unicorn colt’s fractured leg, she’d worked all the pieces of the break into alignment first. He should do that here, to give the healing the best chance. But the colt had been dosed with a sleeping potion, and he had nothing to give his sister.
If you don’t do it, she’ll die. Do you want your squeamishness to kill her?
Kellen pulled off his armored gauntlets, then drew his dagger and cut a few strands of Idalia’s hair, then a few of his own. He moistened the bundle with Idalia’s blood, then pricked his finger and squeezed out a few drops of blood onto the dried leaves of willow, ash, and yew.
Then he tossed the bundle of herbs and hair onto the coals.
Heal Idalia—please! I swear I will pay the price! Kellen thought fervently. He knew he should be centered in a Wildmage’s dispassionate trance, but that was something he couldn’t manage right now. He cared too much—and if that was something really wrong, then he supposed the Gods wouldn’t have let him become a Knight-Mage in the first place.
The bundle should have smelled horrible while it was burning, but it didn’t. It smelled like spring flowers and fresh-cut hay. Kellen saw the shimmer of the protective shields all around him, and hoped that protection would extend to keeping Idalia from feeling what he was doing.
First he straightened her legs. Feeling the bones move and shift under his hands made sweat run down his face in greasy droplets, but once he’d begun, he knew he couldn’t stop.
Everything was glowing green.
Next, her arm. It seemed to him that it ought to be straightened, so he did that, as gently as he could. That led him to her collarbone—broken, as he suspected. There wasn’t a lot he could do about it, but he prodded at it until he’d shifted the bones about into more-or-less the right places, and left it at that.
Everything was fire. Green fire.
He ran his hands over her head. They came away wet with blood, though Kellen knew that might not mean much. Even the smallest scalp wounds could bleed a great deal. Or it might be a concussion. Without being able to see her eyes, he didn’t know.
Green… all green…
Her breathing was better now, which reminded him to check for broken ribs and broken pelvis. He ran his hands down over her ribs, pressing gently, but everything felt solid. He found her hip bones, and pressed gently, relieved to find that everything was solid there, too.
Abruptly Kellen sat back on his haunches and stared down at his hands. They were trailing greenness as if he’d dipped them in a vat of liquid emeralds, Idalia, too, was green, as if she’d been soaked in the stuff.
When he’d healed Jermayan, the Healing Power had hit him like a hammer-blow, leaving him in no doubt of when the healing began and ended. This time it had snuck up on him; apparently he’d been healing Idalia while he thought he’d just been checking the extent of her injuries.
He wondered why the two healings had been so different. Perhaps because Idalia was such an expert Wildmage, and had been able to direct the healing in some fashion? Or was it for some other reason? Did the Wild Magic itself want her healed?
Slowly the green fire faded away, and Kellen waited to hear the price he would have to pay for this healing.
But to his surprise—and faint alarm—there was nothing. No inner voice setting his Mageprice. Only a certainty that somehow the price—even for this— had been paid in advance.
Kellen shook his head. He wasn’t going to argue, and he wasn’t going to complain.
The dome of protection vanished—Kellen was always surprised there wasn’t an audible “pop” when it vanished—its work done. He felt a sudden rush of dizziness and exhaustion, as the price of the Casting caught up with him. He wasn’t going to be good for much for a while—though he could fight if he absolutely had to—and Idalia would be utterly exhausted.
And they still had to get out of here.
He put his gauntlets back on, picked up the burning charcoal, and crushed it quickly into dust. Brushing the mess from his hands, he got to his feet. Idalia was still unconscious, but it was a natural sleep now, not a deathly coma. He’d like to wait here for her to wake—he didn’t relish carrying her out, especially if they ran into more of those creatures on the way—but he didn’t want to stay here one moment more than he had to.
He got to his feet, staggering a little with weakness. He stood for a moment, breathing carefully until his head cleared.
Ancaladar approached carefully.
“Is it over?” the dragon asked cautiously.
“She’s going to be all right,” Kellen said. He wondered if the odd way the healing had gone had anything to do with the dragon’s nearness, and decided not to ask. Ancaladar seemed to be a little touchy about being a living storage battery for Mages, and Kellen didn’t want to suggest he’d tapped the dragon’s power, even accidentally. “Now all we have to do is get out of here.”
“Do you think…” the dragon seemed almost hesitant “… do you think I could come back with you? I’m tired of living in a cave and chasing deer. And they’ll never stop looking for me now.”
“You’ll have to ask Andoreniel and Ashaniel if you can live in Sentarshadeen,” Kellen said. “I can’t promise that. But I don’t see why you shouldn’t come south with us and see; they’ve added some… unusual citizens to Sentarshadeen lately.”
And if we’re going to have to beware of Deathwings, it would be a good idea to have someone else around who flies.
“Fair enough,” Ancaladar agreed.
The dragon headed off across the cavern, its enormous sable body moving over the boulders like a pool of midnight.
Kellen bent down, scooped up Idalia, and followed.
Halfway across the cavern, she began to rouse.
She reached up and felt his face—or rather, the hood of the tarnkappa—just as if she couldn’t see. Kellen realized with a shock that she couldn’t. He could see, but everything must be pitch-dark to her. He’d gotten so used to Ancaladar being able to see and hear him through the tarnkappa that he’d forgotten he was wearing it. But Idalia wouldn’t be able to either hear or see him—not while he wore the tarnkappa—not that she could see anything down here, at any rate.
“Kellen?” she whispered. He nodded, knowing she could feel the movement.
She relaxed with a sigh, and Kellen knew she was figuring everything out— that he’d found her somehow and healed her with the Wild Magic.
“Put me down,” she said a minute later. “I can walk—and you might need to fight.”
She was right. It was only common sense, even though Kellen knew how tired she must be after such a major healing.
He set her carefully on her feet and led her the rest of the way to where Ancaladar was waiting for them. Their progress was a little slower, now that he had to lead Idalia, but Kellen was tired himself, and didn’t want to risk a fall.
At the foot of the cliff that led to the tunnels, he stopped and pushed back the tarnkappa’s cowl so that he could speak to Idalia.
Instantly the darkness of the cave rushed in. It was like no darkness Kellen had ever experienced in his life: thick and absolute. There was no possibility of seeing anything, no matter how hard you strained your eyes.
For a moment he felt a bolt of panic, then he realized it didn’t matter.
He didn’t need to see.
He knew.
At the House of Sword and Shield, the Knights practiced blind-fighting, for it was always possible that you would be forced to defend or attack at night, in fog, or under other adverse conditions. You learned to have an awareness of where your targets were, to memorize the positions of your own people and keep them in mind. Kellen had learned then that he could not only remember where all the people on his own side were in a fight, but know where they were going to be. In practice sessions, he’d never hit any of his own side. Master Belesharon had said this was a manifestation of the Knight-Mage gift.
So was this, it seemed.
It wasn’t that he could see in the dark. But he’d come this way once, and apparently part of the Knight-Mage gift was to remember terrain perfectly. He wasn’t going to need the tarnkappa to get out of here.
That was going to make things a little easier.
“There’s an, um, dragon here,” he whispered to Idalia. “He’s going to lift both of us up to a tunnel a few yards up the cliff face.”