“No,” their mother said too quickly.
Concentrate on Dad, Bri said, again sending a stream of thought, of feeling toward him, knew Elizabeth did the same.
After a moment or two, their father whispered, “I have the strangest feeling that they are safe.”
“No!” their mother said. “Don’t do this to me, Perce.”
“They’re safe.” He held her tight. “They’re not here, but they’re safe.”
“How can you say that?”
His expression turned stubborn. “I just know. We won’t be receiving any ransom notes.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“And I believe in God and miracles.”
That shut her up.
But it wouldn’t for long, Bri knew. Her mother’s intellect always overbore her father’s vague feelings.
Then mist whirled in front of the portal and she felt a tug and a clunk as she fell back into her body.
Elizabeth sat up first, shoved hair from her face. She looked around and her gaze fastened on Faucon. When she held out her hand, he came and pulled her up and into his arms.
Sevair stared at Bri. She wriggled her fingers to him in a wave. He took that as an invitation to follow Faucon’s example. Bri let herself lean against him.
“Did it work?” Bossgond demanded.
“Ttho.” Tuckerinal answered. “Not good enough.”
“Not enough to banish doubt,” Elizabeth said thickly.
Marian sighed, gazed at Jaquar, then Bossgond.
The old Circlet paced the circumference of the room, rubbing his chin. Stopped in front of Bri and Elizabeth. “We have one last alternative.”
“We’ll do anything,” Elizabeth said again. Bri was glad her twin had taken over the speaking for them.
“It may be that you must be in the corridor itself to communicate with someone on Earth. Since the Snap hasn’t come and you are not fully of Lladrana yet, we can try to insert you into the space between dimensions, for a message only. Would you be willing to do that?”
Bri hadn’t realized until then that her cold hands had twined once more with Elizabeth’s chill fingers. They spoke as one. “Yes.”
“It will take a while for me to set this up,” Bossgond said. He seemed less ornery and more interested.
“How long?” asked Elizabeth.
“A week. The procedure will demand drugs and a ritual.”
Bri said, “We’ll do it.”
Bossgond nodded.
Marian said, “Very well.” A faint smile curved her lips as she looked past them to Sevair and Faucon. “Requirements for the ritual are no solid food, no sex for the next week.”
Sevair said, “I’m perfectly capable of sleeping with Bri and not making love with her.”
Bri stared up at him. His jaw was set.
“You’re moving back into your tower in Castleton where Nuare and I can take care of you.”
She didn’t have the energy to argue, and he felt so good against her that she agreed.
“I, too, can only sleep with Elizabeth,” Faucon had said silkily when Sevair had made his pronouncement at Bossgond’s tower. “And I have been taking good care of her for some time now.” Faucon had run his hand down Elizabeth’s spine, sending a little warmth, a little Power to ease her muscles. He had taken good care of her.
Of course, she’d given him, emotionally and physically, all she was capable of. Now and then she had the lowering thought that that wasn’t much, wasn’t enough, was far less than he deserved.
His will had proven as steely as his sword, as hard as a certain part of his body when they were in bed together. They’d had trouble sleeping, but had held each other. He’d been called to battle a couple of times and then Elizabeth didn’t sleep at all.
Her own determination to follow Marian’s rules were strong. Strong enough that Elizabeth could dismiss her body’s ache for sex. As for food…she stuck to liquids, and her old standby, a raw egg in orange juice, both of which Faucon provided. She also sipped on starfire. Every time she healed, every time they attempted to heal the Chevalier’s disease, she took a little Power for herself.
All their efforts to cure that sickness had been futile. Elizabeth shuddered when the battle alarm rang, knowing Bri did the same. If they could have hidden from the noise they would have.
Today she had a bad feeling. The claxon had shrilled during breakfast, and she forced herself to drink. Faucon flinched. He wasn’t on rotation. He’d lost another of his Chevaliers to the sickness. If it hadn’t been for her, she thought he’d fly to each battle like many leaders who fielded Chevalier teams, instead of keeping to the schedule. That she was preventing him from fighting was a guilty gratitude in her. A notion that somehow she was saving his life. Irrational but true.
Then the alarm clanged that the battle was over and they eased.
For a half hour.
Telepathic screaming and the bugling of terrified volarans hit her. The screams were Alexa’s. Elizabeth, help. Help!
She shot from her seat and to the Landing Field taking whole flights of stairs at a time and landing softly…hurrying magic.
Alexa screaming. Disaster. Doom.
Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Elizabeth! shrieked Marian hysterically. That was even worse.
Bri! Marian and Elizabeth cried in unison.
Bri yelled back, I’m on my way. Nuare brings me and Zeres.
Elizabeth didn’t argue, but zoomed through the maze, pulled along by the linked Power of the other Exotiques. Calli was crying softly. Elizabeth burst out onto the Landing Field, shouting herself as she saw a clump of impenetrable backs and wings. “Make way!” She plunged forward, and beings were shoved from her path as she fell into focused emergency-room mode.
Koz was lying in a flat net on the ground, his left leg nearly torn from his body, gray faced and with blood trickling from a head wound. Adrenaline dumped into her, and all her years of medical training clicked into place.
“He’s dying!” Marian screeched, holding the leg in place, draining herself of Power and energy and all her strength, sending it to her brother.
As Elizabeth kicked a fold of the net aside, her Song quested along his body. His femoral artery had been torn but repaired, by his team or the Shield he’d worked with or himself. Or all three.
“Why is he here? Why didn’t you set up healing circles on the field after the battle! He’s lost blood. He’s lost energy, coming here.” Elizabeth knelt, reached for him.
Alexa wept. “Because we lost Partis and Thealia.” Alexa wrapped her arms around herself and rocked. “They and their volarans fell. Partis always led the healing groups. We lost another new Marshall pair. No one…we couldn’t…we didn’t…” Alexa halted. “Our team is shattered.”
Elizabeth spared her a glance, saw a shiny red burn covering half her face. The half without the scar had tears dribbling down her cheek. Some of her hair was gone. She was buried in grief. Her mentor gone, and her mentor’s partner, the man whose voice had called every Exotique to Lladrana.
As always, Elizabeth spared only an instant for a flash of her own grief at the loss of the gentle Shieldmarshall and his fearsome wife, then she blocked her emotions and those screaming from the other Exotiques. Definitely not the optimal atmosphere for surgery.
Bri appeared dazed, shook her head, sent her emotions away, too. Elizabeth smiled grimly. She’d learned her professional distance from doctors in the emergency rooms of hospitals. Bri from health care workers in refugee camps.
One last stray thought—the Marshall team was torn. Alexa would have to be the one who mended it.
Other medicas joined them.
“We will have to take his leg,” Jolie said.
Marian wailed, pressed harder on the leg they’d aligned.
“No,” Elizabeth said. “See to Swordmarshall Alexa’s hurts. I place her in your care.”
Jolie frowned but moved away. Elizabeth upped her flow of starfire into Koz. It was only keeping h
im alive, not healing him. Knitting his muscle sinews, tendons, arteries and veins together would be a massive undertaking. Elizabeth refused to fail.
Time to see just how much starfire she could pull. She drew on the Power. Human and volaran auras sparkled, Songs filled her. The rhythm of the planet Amee itself throbbed through her, renewing her strength with such Power she had to keep her mind knife-keen to stay conscious. She began to work cell by cell until she could do more.
Nuare’s dark shadow draped them in cool shade. People gasped, volarans whinnied.
“Easy.” Bastien’s voice trembled. “Calli, I need your help with the volarans.”
Marian’s knuckles turned white over Calli’s hand. “Andrew. Koz, needs it more.”
Calli said, “I can do both. Send calm to the volarans and you.” And she did. “Elizabeth, can we link with you? Five of us would be mighty strong.”
“More than five,” Bri said, placing her hand on Elizabeth’s. “Nuare and Zeres are here, too. They can help. Calli can link with Koz’s volaran—”
“He’s hurt, too.” Calli’s voice caught.
“Then we’ll link with him and heal him, too,” Bri said. “Link with those of the herd who will help. Marian, can you connect with Jaquar?”
“He’s on his way from the island, Bossgond, too.”
“So we’ll have Circlets joining us, and Chevaliers.” Bri raised her voice. “Listen!” Her words echoed around the Castle. Quiet blanketed the place. “I want every Chevalier and volaran hurt in the battle to join in the healing circle, the most Powerful unharmed on each side of those injured, then we will connect.”
“That can’t work, alternating unharmed and healthy,” Jolie muttered, shocked.
“It will work,” Bri said.
“I haven’t seen a healing circle like this since Parteger Island,” Faucon murmured, placing a trembling, savaged volaran—Koz’s volaran—on Bastien’s free side. Bastien had one arm around Alexa’s shoulder. The volaran folded to the ground and Bastien tangled his hand in its mane. Faucon did the same on the opposite side. Jerked at the force of the energy cycling up and down their line.
“You’ve never seen a healing circle like this.” Bri’s smile was so strong and fierce it twitched Elizabeth’s lips up too. “We are the Exotique Medicas. We will show you how.”
“We need to close this circle,” Jolie said.
“Yes, for the moment.” Again Bri’s voice rang out. “When others arrive, they will add to the circle. Luthan, I want you to be the gate-point. You will open and close the circle with new additions, connecting them to the person before you.”
“Always the end of the chain when you open,” Elizabeth said.
“Right.”
“Ayes,” said Luthan and he began ordering hurt and whole.
A shaken Marwey, clothes ripped open along her side showing a long, acidic scratch, took Bri’s other hand. Both Bri’s and Marwey’s hands were brought down to Koz’s wounded leg. The leg first, then the head. He moaned. Bri opened herself and a river of Power flowed through them all, leaving more than Elizabeth gasping.
You’re fixing Koz. Joy lit Bri’s tone. Good work.
I AM a doctor.
Yes, you are, and we will rely on all our skill to heal this leg. Marian?
Will he die? Marian gibbered.
No, Elizabeth and Bri said at the same time.
He will not lose his leg, either, Elizabeth said. Though he will have damage to it. I suggest a new career.
Definitely, Bri said, especially with his head wound. We don’t want him to harm that again.
Playtime’s over, said Alexa with forced insouciance. She seemed to hear the echo of her own words and stifled a sob.
Elizabeth let Bri regulate the Power, keep it even and strong. Steadying as each new person or winged horse was added to the circle, pushing it through the injured, healing them and flushing their bodies with her healing starstream.
A beautiful, melodious chant rose and fell around Elizabeth, suffused her. Letting her mind and fingers mend Koz, she listened, heard a lovely masculine voice, looked up to see Calli’s Marrec Singing. Before her eyes, strands of black turned to silver over his temples.
Power.
What we are doing not only heals, Elizabeth sent to the circle, to Alexa, it is making us more Powerful. She could feel her own scalp tingle, hair raise, understood that she’d be another with a streak of silver. The Marshalls’ team might be fragmented for the moment, but when it returns it will be stronger than ever. Chevaliers, too.
Bri Sang, her voice low but tuneful. Her hair looked the same, brown, purple streaks gone. No silver. Bri smiled, tears running down her face. Elizabeth blinked, but her eyes were dry. No way was she going to cry in the operating room.
Bri sent down the circle, We Sing and sorrow is shared, comfort is shared.
Every few minutes someone else joined. Elizabeth felt the sparkling youth of a young female volaran and her dam, became aware of the auras and the Songs of others already connected. The steady strength of Sevair Masif, the whispering wind of the roc, Nuare, Luthan’s clear tones.
Faucon, Powerful and true.
All the while she mended capillaries, twined muscle together, reknit sinew like a surgeon, and Bri healed beside her.
Jolie’s soprano spiraled high in counterpoint. So beautiful. She, too, wept.
Luthan opened the circle, Power diminished.
Then surged, swamping Elizabeth, letting her mind dissolve into instinct. She faltered. Bri was there with her, sending the excess energy into Koz, brushing his brain with slight Power.
Fascinating, came in a dry, observant tone. Elizabeth didn’t have the vision to see, but she recognized Bossgond.
Plugged into a whole different energy, Bri said.
I do not like these Exotique phrases, Bossgond grumbled. He’d bloodbonded with Marian—he had an idea of the concept.
A lightening of spirit flowed around the circle.
Elizabeth never knew how long it took, the healing of Koz enough so that he’d live, mend on his own, then pinpointing other hurts: Alexa’s burn, Marwey’s slice. When Luthan finally wrapped up the Song, the day was still a few hours away from sunset. Sometime during the circle, they’d all sat. It was the strangest medical experience Elizabeth had ever had.
Many fell over.
With a grunt, Bastien stood, wobbled a little, scooped up Alexa. “Going to bed,” he said thickly. No one had the energy to comment. Marrec stood and gestured to the commander of the Castle soldiers who had stayed alert and away from the circle. “Can you help us take Koz to—”
“Our suite,” Marian said loudly. “The Tower Community’s Suite in the Castle.”
“He’s going to love that,” Marrec grunted.
Marian ignored him, stood and swayed with regal grace, put her hands on her hips. “He’s staying with us until he’s completely well.”
Now Jaquar grunted, and with fisted gestures, gathered wind. Elizabeth thought her mouth fell open as she saw Koz rise from the net, cradled on an invisible gurney of air.
Sevair pulled Bri up, kept her within his arms. His feet were planted solidly. He wouldn’t fall.
A medica apprentice hurried up, biting his lip. “Exotique Medicas,” he said hoarsely, cleared his voice and gathered himself. “As ordered, I checked on every Chevalier. I found the Chevalier with the Dark sickness dead in his rooms.”
Elizabeth looked around blindly, glance sliding over other wounded. “He wasn’t here?”
“No. He carried not the slightest injury, but shows the symptoms of one who has died from the disease.” The apprentice looked a little nauseated himself.
“No injury, something new.” Bri sounded punch drunk.
Elizabeth drew sparks from the starfire. So much easier than working through the exhaustion she’d experienced as an intern. She put a hand on the apprentice’s shoulder. “Show me.”
“He is dead. No hope.”
That echoed ar
ound the Castle, too.
31
The next day those of the Castle mourned. And they Sang. The air was filled with Song. Bri and Elizabeth were included in all the formalities and, like everyone else, wore their best clothes. Lady Knight Swordmarshall Thealia Germain’s and Shieldmarshall Partis Germain’s grown children had come, the oldest a middle-aged man who appeared resigned. Alexa made no effort to hide her tears.
Bri was uncomfortably aware that Alexa had lost two sets of friends: the other Marshall pair had died in their first fight.
Since bodies sank into the ground of Amee, there were only possessions left of those who’d fallen. In the great temple, Bri and Elizabeth watched as the Marshalls’ armsmaster unfolded the cloth case that held the batons and returned four dull-looking ones to empty pockets. The simple ceremony had tears prickling behind Bri’s eyes.
Late the next morning Bri attended a briefing for the first time in the large Marshalls’ council chamber in the Castle keep. Sevair came too. She was glad to have his solid, quiet presence.
Alexa sat on three pillows at the head of the long, scarred but polished table. Her intricately carved chair was nearly thronelike and showed a banner and sword on the back. Bastien sat at her left hand in a chair marked with a shield. The rest of the Marshalls, sixteen pairs, sat in chairs marked with a sword or shield. Bri had heard that two Chevalier pairs were testing for Marshall over the next few days.
The Chevalier representative, a middle-aged woman, sat in a chair with a carved flying volaran at the top. Calli and Marrec were seated next to her. Marian was in the Tower Community’s chair shown by a Castle, Jaquar beside her, and Luthan Vauxveau in the chair with a singing woman.
Elizabeth sat in one with the outline of a town hall, gazed at Bri and Sevair, then stood. Sevair waved her back down with a slight curve on his lips. “Unusual that we of the City and Towns have more than one representative here, but not unprecedented.” He motioned to Bri and she saw that there were two chairs with cottages carved on them. Faucon was on the other side of Elizabeth.
Bri slipped into her place, Sevair did the same. They were the last to arrive. Even Zeres and the city medicas were there, sitting along the edge of the room with their Castle colleagues. From the shifting going on in their ranks, Bri got the idea that this was new to them, too. A full complement of medical people, interesting but not unexpected.
Keepers of the Flame Page 29
