The colt made a pitiful mewing sound that wrung his heart, and he found himself saying 'Of course,' even though inside he was thinking, Oh, no!
'And you?' she asked, looking at the adult unicorns.
'The usual, of course,' said the spokesman, and the others all nodded. 'He'll lose the leg, else, if not his life. What else are families for?'
Kellen watched closely as Idalia created a pocket-sized fire and quickly brewed something over it, then, at her direction, he held the colt's head up and helped it drink the warm contents of the bowl. After that, Idalia used a touch of the Wild Magic and a keystone to make it sleep, and Kellen breathed easier as its keening whimpers died away to soft snores.
But his work had barely begun.
Now Idalia produced splints and bandages from her workbag—since, as she explained for Kellen's benefit— the healing would go much more quickly and easily if the bones were close to where they were supposed to be, and Kellen, working at her direction, set the leg.
What he had to do nearly made him faint for a moment, feeling the unicorn's blood on his hands, pulling the leg this way and that until all the broken pieces of bone slipped back beneath the skin, feeling—and hearing the shattered pieces slip and grate over each other. He thought it would never be done, and he really did come awfully close to losing his control over his stomach more than once. If the colt had been conscious and writhing in agony, he would never have been able to bear it, he knew, but through it all the young unicorn slept peacefully.
At last Idalia was satisfied, and talked Kellen through the process of splinting the leg to hold it steady. When he was finished, Kellen sat back on his heels, sweating heavily, feeling as exhausted and light-headed as he had after the initial flight from the City with Shalkan.
'Kellen, you've done enough; I won't ask you to share in the price of this healing,' Idalia said then, as he sat there, nauseous and sweating, his hands and arms covered in blood, wanting to leave and unable to move. 'But if Shalkan—'
She glanced over at Shalkan, who shook his head. 'Not possible,' the unicorn said, with genuine regret.
She didn't question that, though Kellen was a bit annoyed; why shouldn't Shalkan help, after all? Wasn't this a colt of the same species? Instead, after Kellen had rested for a few moments, she had him collect one hair from the tails of each of the adults and the colt, added a hair of her own, and dabbled the entire bundle in the blood that had pooled beneath the colt's leg. Kellen took the opportunity to back away, but not very far. He simply didn't have the strength.
Then she pricked the ball of her thumb with her knife, and squeezed out a drop of her own blood, holding the now-bloody bundle of hairs under her hand so that the drop of blood fell on it and mingled with the unicorns'.
As Kellen watched, curiosity overcoming nausea, Idalia closed her eyes, then held up her hands, palms out, at shoulder height, and for a moment, he wondered just what it was that she was up to. This was nothing like anything the two of them had done together.
Then Kellen suddenly felt power flare up all around them. And just as he did, a fainter wall of power sprang up, encircling them.
A wall? Not quite—as he stared at it, startled that he could see it at all, he realized that it wasn't so much a wall as half a sphere, inverted over them like the bowl of the sky. It shimmered like heat haze in the sunlight, like the barrier that protected the harbor of Armethalieh.
Now Idalia dropped the bundle of hairs on the fire, and instead of the stench of burning hair that Kellen had expected, a scent not unlike that of incense arose from the coals.
Idalia closed her eyes again, held her hands palm-up in her lap and her lips barely moved as she whispered some spell Kellen couldn't hear.
And at that moment, Kellen sensed something that was entirely outside of his experience, with High Magick or Wild Magic—
It was the sense that Something was with them, inside the half sphere with them, and it was speaking to them. But not to all of them, only to Idalia and the adult unicorns. He, Shalkan, and the colt were left out of the conversation—if conversation it was—entirely.
Then the Presence was gone, winking out as if it never had been there at all. Idalia spread her hands over the colt's leg, and they began to glow with a verdant green fire, so rich and powerful that it made Kellen long to gather up two handfuls for himself and eat it like a double handful of sweets. There was a heady aroma in the air, of new-mown hay, of the breeze after a rain, of every flower in the world in bloom at the same time. And there was energy free-flowing all around them—a wonderful energy that filled Kellen with a sense of incredible well- being.
Right before his eyes, through the gaps in the splint, he could see the raw flesh of the colt's leg knit together; he heard a faint grating sound, and sensed that the bones were knitting in a way he would never have thought
