Warmth spread through Anya into the girl's head, burning away pain and harm, healing her broken skull. Warmth began to flow down Justine's shoulders, and Anya felt almost as if the two of them were one being. Then suddenly it was too much, her back was freezing. Anya shuddered, the connection lost.
Now it was only her own empty hands on Justine's head. Every muscle in her arms quivered and shook.
Anya's body demanded rest, sleep. She fought for strength to see to Justine. The girl was breathing better, more regularly. Her skin wasn't quite the right color, but it was somehow less white. Anya probed Justine's head gently, and it felt normal. Justine's legs were bleeding where the bonds had been, and still swollen and bruised. So she hadn't finished. But it would be enough. Justine's youth would heal the rest quickly. Anya sighed, and then in a tiny flash of energy, she remembered Tim.
Nightsinger sat immobile by Tim, hands on her teacher's thigh wound. Tim's head was turned away from her, but Nightsinger looked directly at her and said, "You did well, little one. Let go." She wanted to go to Tim, but blackness caught her, and she barely felt the ground slap the side of her head as she surrendered to it.
* * *
Anya woke to the sounds of many people. She was bundled in a blanket by the side of the path.
Her mouth was fiercely dry. She licked her lips and tried to sit up, but her head was so dizzy and painful she simply fell back again.
She heard the rustle of clothes, and a cup of water appeared in front of her eyes. An arm propped her up, and another held the cup to her lips. She sipped greedily. When the cup was empty, Nightsinger rocked back on his heels and let her sit on her own. Surprisingly, she found she had the strength, if barely. She watched him refill the cup from a water bag he slung over his shoulder, all of her focus on the precious water, on quenching the desert inside of her.
Nightsinger grinned at her as she got partway through a third cup of water, and finally looked up at him. His long hair was down, a signal to her that they were safe. "Now, take it easy, little one. You'll be sick. Let the water in slowly. You used a lot of energy."
Memories flooded back over her. "Justine?"
"Is fine. I had to splint her legs until one of our Healers got here, and sew her up in a place or two.
Nothing I don't know how to do. But you saved her life. I'm Healer-trained, but have no Gift like yours. I could not have done what you did. She even woke up this morning and asked for you."
"This morning? How long have I been asleep? How's Tim?"
"You've slept almost two days."
"And Tim?"
"Ahhh, Tim. He's gone back to the vale-to our home-for a while. A brother of mine came to get him. Tim lived with us once before, that's where he learned his healing skill-the things he taught you."
"I've heard stories. He never would talk about his past. At least until...until the day we found you.
But how is he?"
"He'll be all right." Nightsinger laughed. "Sorry, I should tell you more. Years ago, when he was my age, when we found him, he was-broken. Learning Healing gave him enough purpose to stay alive. And now, well, he swore never to fight again, but you and I just saw how well he does that. This time it was to save people he loves. Maybe, the next time he leaves us, he will be able to both fight and heal."
"Can I see him?"
"He's already gone. He said you should move to the cave. He'll visit." Nightsinger held his hand out for the empty water cup.
"But I...I need to learn more," she protested, handing over the cup. "Tell him he has to come back as soon as he's healed."
"He said he'd visit."
Anya frowned.
"Maybe I'll visit, too-I've never seen this fabled hertasi-built house of his-no, yours-before."
"I'd like that," she said.
Nightsinger was smiling companionably. She tried to match his expression and asked, "Hey, is there food?"
ICEBREAKER
Rosemary Edgehill
Rosemary Edghill is the author of Speak Daggers to Her, The Book of Moons, and Fleeting Fancy. Her short fiction has appeared in Return to Avalon, Chicks in Chainmail, and Tarot Fantastic. She is a full-time author who lives in Poughkeepsie, New York.
It was Midwinter Festival in Talastyre, and the younger children were gathered in the square to watch the traditional Midwinter play before heading home to spiced cider and oranges and the family feast. Elidor stood at the edge of the crowd, unwilling to admit, at fifteen, that he still liked to watch the play, but this was a day of rare liberty for him. Elidor was one of a dozen copyist-apprentices at the great Library of Talastyre-when other libraries around Valdemar needed a copy of one of their books, it was copyists like Elidor who would write out the text in a fair hand. When he was fully trained, he might seek work at any library, or in a lord's household, or even at the Collegium in Haven itself.
He had been brought to Talastyre at the age of six, on a winter's day even colder than this one. He remembered crying, and clinging to his uncle's coat, begging and pleading not to be left here among strangers, to be let to go home to his parents, to his brothers and sisters.
He remembered the fire, of course. He had gone into the attic to play at Heralds and Companions-the carved wooden toys had been his Midwinter gift, and when he'd told his brothers that someday a Companion would come to choose him for a Herald, they'd laughed at him, and teased him so badly that he'd decided to find a place to play undisturbed. The attic was cold, but he'd taken his cloak with him, and later it had gotten so warm that he'd taken it off.
He remembered how his eldest sister Marane had come running in. She smelled of smoke, and her face was streaked with tears. He'd started crying, too, because she frightened him, even more when she told him he mustn't cry, he must be brave. He was still clutching the white painted Companion when she pushed him out the tiny attic window, too small for an adult to get through.
He screamed as he fell-such a long way-but the snow was deep that year, and he wasn't badly hurt. He crawled away, through the melting snow, clutching the carved white horse, shouting for his mother, for Marane.
He understood later that the house had burned, and the townsfolk had come to try to put out the fire and see if any of the house's inhabitants might be saved, and found him, the only survivor. At the time, all Elidor knew was that strangers took him away, and would not tell him where his family had gone.
When his uncle finally came, Elidor hoped he would be taken home again. His uncle was a silent distant man, who rarely came to visit his brother's family, but he was Elidor's closest kin. He had no experience of children, and spoke to Elidor as if he were an equal.
"Simon left his affairs in order, I'll give him that. And I can get a good price for the land, even though there's nothing left of the house. It will all come to you, boy, never fear-no man can say that Jonas Bridewell would cheat his brother's kin. It comes to a tidy sum. I've taken steps to secure your future, and an enviable one it is, too. You need have no fear of toiling in a shop or a mill for the rest of your days. Folk will look up to you, young Elidor."
There was little about this speech that made sense to Elidor, beyond the knowledge that he was not to go home again. His uncle hired a coach, and after a long and tiring journey, they reached Talastyre.
There he discovered he was to be abandoned.
It had been the Master of Boys who dried his tears, who gently explained to him what his uncle had assumed he understood: that his parents were dead, and that Talastyre was to be his home now. In the dark days that followed, Elidor clung to only one hope: that a Companion would come for him, to take him from this terrible place. Every chance he got, he slipped away from his duties and hurried to the woods at the edge of Town, watching for the flash of shining white through the trees that would mean a Companion was near.