“I don’t know!”
When she tried to explain, someone-Security Minister chan Garatz himself, she realized suddenly-spoke decisively.
“Tell him!”
“Yes,” Kinlafia agreed. “It’s sheer hell, never to know.”
He wasn’t talking about the emperor and Anbessa. He was talking about Shaylar, Relatha realized with a sudden surge of pity and compassion, even through the chaos and the fight to save the emperor’s life. When she saw the pain etched into his face, burning in his eyes, she nodded.
“Yes. Tell him.”
She braced herself for the worst.
“Zindel!” Alazon crouched low over him, speaking directly into his ear. “Zindel, it’s Alazon. Anbessa is safe. I’ve seen her, talked to her. She’s alive. She’ll be all right. Can you hear me? You saved her, Zindel, she’s going to be fine. Please, Your Majesty, don’t give up, ’Bessa needs her father, she needs you. We all need you. Dr. Sathron’s on the way. He’s nearly here. He’ll give you something to take away the pain. Just hold on a little longer, please.”
Tears ran down her lovely face, and a moan escaped the emperor. Then the heavy head moved, in the tiniest of nods, and Relatha felt the surge in his life force as he gathered reserves of strength from his massive, powerful body. He dug in, hung grimly onto life, defying the pain of torn tissue, shattered bone, and burns.
Relatha sobbed aloud in relief, and then someone else was shouting and shoving the guards aside. Dr. Sathron had arrived and other healers rushed across the flagstones behind him. The ambulance had arrived. Stretcher-bearers came running behind the Emergency Medicine Talents rushing toward the emperor.
“Move back, please,” Dr. Sathron said crisply, “give us room to work.” He glanced at Relatha, saw where her hands were, and blanched. “Shalana’s mercy, child,” he whispered.
Then the others were there and a trained medic slipped her hands under Relatha’s, taking over for her. Relatha gabbled out, “There’s a break in his right femur, a bad one, right beside the big artery. I can Feel it. We didn’t dare move him. Master Kinlafia splinted it and his arm…”
The medic met and held her gaze.
“It’s all right, girl,” the EMT said. “It’s all right. Back out now, child, and let me take it. Your quick thinking saved his life-not many students remember the wellspring points-but move back now. Let us work, love. You can rest. We’ve got him.”
Relatha sighed, relaxing her concentration, felt the other woman’s fully trained Talent take up the load she’d supported for an eternity. She sagged back, sitting on her heels, head reeling, and then tried to stand and move out of the medical team’s way.
She couldn’t. She tried again and made it half way, then staggered and went down, her head swimming and her muscles water. But Kinlafia caught her. He murmured something-something she couldn’t hear through the tumult around her-and then he was helping her totter unsteadily out of the way. He supported her on one side and his wife took her arm on the other while they guided her faltering footsteps across the wide terrace.
The firefighters arrived, at last, bells clanging and horses snorting. Men were scrambling down, connecting hoses to the Palace’s water supply, yanking open the valves and racing with long hoses toward the blaze. Water shot upward in massive jets as the hoses filled and sprayed it into the raging inferno.
Men with ladders scrambled up to reach windows on the rooms not yet burning, trying to contain the blaze before it spread to the rest of the immense structure, and streams of people were evacuating, carrying out art treasures, government records, anything they could salvage.
Watching the destruction of such a beautiful place made Relatha sick inside, and she wondered, numb with agony, how many people had been killed in the explosion. Servants she knew, maybe even her own mother and cousins, and all those Guardsmen who’d been on the balcony and in the Grand Imperial Salon. And there must have been many others in the corridors surrounding the Salon. How many of them had been injured? Perhaps crippled for life? Heavy chunks of the balcony had smashed down into the crowd out here, as well. People could have been badly injured by that falling debris.
By the time they reached the stairs leading down the hillside toward the street she was shaking so badly she could barely stand. She didn’t know where the two Voices were leading her and she didn’t much care, so long as it was away from the horror behind them.
“Who could have done such a thing?” Kinlafia asked in a voice harsh with horror. “Surely not even Chava Busar would have conceived of something this foul!”
“You think not?” Alazon snarled. “You don’t know him the way I do, Darcel. He’s evil! Chava Busar is interested in just one thing-Chava Busar! He’ll stop at nothing, he’ll-”
Her voice chopped off. She stopped dead in her tracks. Stared out across the dark waters of the Ylani Straits. Horror twisted across her face. Relatha followed her gaze…
A ship was ablaze, out there. Pieces of a ship. Fuel burned in a sheet of flame that danced insanely across the waves. Two hulking destroyers flanked the sinking wreckage.
“Oh, dear God…” Alazon whispered. “That’s Peregrine.”
A whimper broke from Relatha’s throat.
It couldn’t be real. She couldn’t bear for it to be real. But how could anyone have lived through that? The yacht had been blown to pieces. Kinlafia was cursing. Endlessly. Brutally. With words so foul, Relatha blanched. Some of them, she’d never even heard, before. Relatha turned stunned eyes toward him, saw the wreckage of grief and agony in his face, and wanted to comfort him. But she couldn’t. Her throat was locked tight. She couldn’t breathe past it.
Then she was falling. Collapsing like a house of cards. Sobs ripped through her. The burning ship and the dark water and Darcel Kinlafia’s voice gyred insanely around her, slid and whirled in crazed circles like a cork caught in a whirlpool. She couldn’t bear it. She found herself sitting on the cold stone steps, huddled in Alazon’s arms, and both of them were crying.
Kinlafia crouched beside them, one arm around each. Relatha heard another massive crash inside the burning palace. Firefighters were shouting. More fire bells were clanging as additional fire wagons and crews arrived. It was all dim and distant and strange. When a fire crew hauling hoses charged up the steps toward them, Kinlafia lifted Relatha in his arms and simply carried her out of the way while Alazon hurried after them.
They stepped out into the garden that sloped its way down the hillside, and Kinlafia set her down carefully. He actually went to one knee so that she was sitting down when he let go, rather than standing. She clutched his hand tightly.
“Thank you,” she choked out.
“For carrying you?”
She shook her head. “I’m just a servant…”
“Just a servant?” he echoed sharply. His hands tightened on hers, painfully. “Don’t you dare say that!”
She gaped up at him, stunned.
“By the Triads, you saved the Emperor’s life! You’re a Talented Healer, girl, powerfully Talented. Even if you’re only a student, you knew exactly what to do. And you did it. Most of us were running in blind panic. But you kept your wits. Shalana’s mercy, girl, if you hadn’t…”
He shuddered. Then he brushed wet hair back from her face, pulled loose long strands caught in her mouth.
“People call me a hero,” he whispered hoarsely. “All I really did was sit in perfect safety at the portal and receive a message. But you…” He touched her cheek. “You ran forward, right toward the explosion, with debris falling all around you.” He tipped up her chin, made her meet his eyes. “There’s only one real hero on this hillside and I’m looking at her.”
“But-”
Alazon hushed her. “He’s right, Relatha. It is Relatha, isn’t it? Your name?”