“What?” Daine said.
Pierce had been standing at the edge of the room, but hearing Lei’s tone, the warforged turned to look at them.
“See for yourself,” Lei said. Using both hands, she tore a hole in Daine’s sleeve, widening the gap where Tashana’s claws had torn into him.
“Hey!” Daine said, but he fell silent when he saw the skin below. The wounds Tashana had inflicted were gone, with no trace of bruise or scar. “That’s good work. Can you do anything about-”
“I didn’t do it.” Lei said. “I worked on Pierce while you were sleeping, and prepared a healing charm for you. But I didn’t use it.”
“It may have been the same force that restored your hand, my lady.” Pierce had moved closer, to better examine Daine’s arm.
“I suppose,” Lei said. “If her claws hadn’t cut through the skin, I might think it was all some sort of illusion-”
“Jode did it,” Daine said.
The others just stared at him.
The dream was coming back to him. Unlike his visions from the Keldan battlefield, this one was more like a true dream; the details were faint and fading. “I remember now. He healed me just before I woke up.”
“Woke up,” Lei repeated. “You’re saying that Jode did this in a dream?”
Her tone irked him. “Do you have a better explanation? Something fixed your finger.”
Lei sighed. “Daine, Jode couldn’t have restored my hand even when he was alive. I don’t know why you’re fixated on this, but there has to be another explanation-”
“It was that bottle. The blue fluid.”
“What are you talking about?”
She was unconscious when I drank it. “It’s …” Daine scratched his back while he tried to put words together. “Last year, when we fought that thing in the sewers. Teral said that they were stealing dragonmarks. That they were going to steal your dragonmark.”
Lei nodded. She shivered, no doubt remembering the chamber of horrors in the depths below Sharn.
“You remember how we recovered a few bottles of black liquid down there? And gave them to Alina? Well, one of them wasn’t black … it was blue. And it had Jode’s dragonmark engraved on the seal.”
“You’re saying … you drank his dragonmark?”
“You’re the expert on magic here!” Daine said. “I don’t know what it was. But even the Jorasco healers couldn’t explain what happened to Jode, remember? I drank the potion, and then I saw Jode in my dreams. And now … I think he healed me.”
“That’s impossible,” Lei said.
“Tell it to your fingers,” Daine replied. “All ten of them.”
Lei glanced down at her hand. “But he wasn’t in my dreams. And I told you, Jode couldn’t do that.”
“If you say so,” Daine said. “Me, I’m not complaining.” He glanced at the other bedroll; the drow woman was still wrapped up in the blanket. “Have you checked to see …”
“I wanted to help you first,” Lei said, glancing to the side.
“Well, let’s see if the mystery healer paid our friend a visit.” Daine carefully drew back the blanket.
Whatever force healed Daine and Lei hadn’t touched the dark elf. Her ebon skin bore dozens of cuts, and the blanket was covered with crusted blood. None of the wounds were deep, but the sheer number was appalling. Daine had seen far worse sights, but he still felt a deep weight on his heart. That warforged … thing … was looking for me. She just got in the way.
“Heal her,” he said.
“What?” Lei didn’t sound pleased.
“You said you made a healing charm. I don’t need it. So heal her.”
Lei hesitated, and Daine put his hands on her shoulders. “I’m not asking you to like her, Lei. But the woman helped save you from the firebinders. She risked her life for us-less than a day after I beat her bloody myself. She was guarding our back when this happened.”
Lei said nothing, and they stood in silence. Daine wondered what was going through her mind. Gerrion’s betrayal? “Lei,” he said at last. “Please.”
She nodded and broke away from him, kneeling next to the drow woman. Lei took a silver coin from her purse and passed it over the injured woman, starting at her feet and slowly moving toward her head. A faint, resonant chime filled the chamber, and the multitude of cuts began to fade. The power of the charm was limited, and only a few of the injuries were completely healed. But deep gashes became shallow wounds, and signs of infection disappeared.
The chime came to an end. The drow woman appeared to be sleeping, and Daine studied her. She was unquestionably elven, with fine features, large almond-shaped eyes, and long, pointed ears. Like most of the other elves Daine had encountered, she was short and slender-athletic, but built for speed instead of strength. Where most elves had light complexions, this woman’s skin was pitch black, a shade far darker than he’d ever seen on a human. This darkness was broken up by a web of pale white tattoos, abstract but almost hypnotic in their complexity. Her long hair was the color of moonlight, silvery-white and shimmering in the reflected flame. This cloak of hair covered more than her actual clothing. Vambraces made from some opalescent shell covered her forearms, and she wore shin-guards made from the same material. Aside from this armor, she wore a short, dark loincloth and a few bands of leather wrapped across her torso. Two short scabbards dangled from this makeshift harness, but her knives must have been left behind at the monolith.
The worst of her wounds were healed, and her breathing was slow and even. But her eyes remained closed, and she did not move.
“Lei?” Daine said.
“The charm’s exhausted. If she’s still unconscious, there’s nothing more I can do.” Lei bent to look more closely at her patient.
“She is conscious,” Pierce said.
“And angry.” The voice was rough, the accent strange, the words blending together … anangry. The woman’s eyes opened, pure silver-white with no trace of iris or pupil.
And then everything went black.
CHAPTER 6
The unnatural darkness was deep, but not complete. Daine could still see the vague shapes of Pierce and Lei in the shadows. But the drow woman had vanished, disappearing the instant the darkness fell.
“Draw your weapons.” The dark elf spoke with a low, lyrical cadence, but an occasional pause suggested that she was not entirely comfortable with the common tongue. “You should not die unarmed.”
Lei’s never going to let me hear the end of this, Daine thought. He could see motion in the shadows-Pierce raising his bow. But Daine wasn’t going to play this game. “No,” he said. “Lei. Pierce. Stand down. We’re not fighting.”
“No?” The voice was all around them, seeming to emerge from the shadows. “Am I unworthy of your blade? Change your mind swiftly.”
The blow was a hammer in his back, a solid kick that landed directly on his spine, forcing him forward. He turned around, but the woman faded back into the shadows. Pain pulsed through his nerves, and he was tempted to give into his growing anger, to draw his sword and give this woman the battle she sought. Then the battlefield at Keldan Ridge flashed through his mind. This woman might be a stranger, but they’d fought the same foe. He’d lost too many of his comrades-in-arms over the last two years to give up on one now-even one who considered him an enemy.
“Why are you doing this? We saved your life.”
“You gave me life?” Her voice reminded Daine of the buzzing of hornets … musical, but full of deadly fury. “You?”
There! Daine ducked to the side, and this time the kick brushed past him. He reached out, trying to touch her, but his hand fell on empty air.
“Enough!” Lei cried, and light flooded the room. She had her hand raised above her head, and her glove glowed with brilliant illumination, a magical radiance that shattered the shadows. “Enough of this! I don’t know what’s wrong with you, woman, but I brought you back from the edge of Dolurrh. If you want to return, I can show you the way!”