possible. So this was what Idalia had done for him… who was, at that point, a mere stranger!
In a shorter time than he would have thought possible, it was over. Idalia made a gesture, and the half sphere surrounding them vanished, and with it, the energy that had swirled inside that sphere. She smothered the little fire, and there was nothing to show that she'd ever done anything, except for the blood on the colt's leg.
She poked Kellen. 'Well, go on. He won't be needing that now.'
'What… ? Oh.'
Kellen scuttled forward, still on his knees, and quickly removed the splint he'd so painstakingly applied such a short time before. The colt's fur was still matted with dried blood—there was something so wrong about seeing blood on a unicorn!—but now the flesh beneath was whole and unblemished, as if the injury had never occurred at all. He backed away again.
The adults nudged the youngster awake, and the colt got unsteadily to its feet.
'Wildmage, our thanks—' the spokesman said with such fervent sincerity that it brought a lump into Kellen's throat.
'It was my privilege, bright ones,' she replied gravely. And a moment later, they were all gone, vanishing just as Shalkan was wont to vanish, passing into the forest without being seen.
'Well,' Idalia said, sounding tired, but very satisfied. 'That was a major healing. What did you think?'
He asked the first question—blurted it, really—that came into his mind. 'Why couldn't you touch them?'
And Shalkan brayed with laughter.
In fact, the unicorn was so convulsed that he literally fell to his knees and gasped for breath. 'Why—why— why—' Shalkan panted, and every time he glanced over at Kellen's increasingly indignant face, he went off again.
Idalia had her face hidden in both hands, and her shoulders shook, but she was not, as Kellen momentarily feared, weeping. When he touched her shoulder, she raised a face full of mirth to his.
'Kellen!' she managed, around her own choked laughter. 'Think! Why can't I get near Shalkan? What happened when I was an eagle?'
For a moment he just stared at her, unable to see what being an eagle had anything to do with not touching unicorns. Then it hit him. She'd had to find a mate—raise a clutch—
'But—you were an eagle!' he spluttered. 'That couldn't count—you were a bird!'
'Oh, believe me, it counted,' she choked. 'It surely counted!'
Of course she couldn't get near Shalkan, or the other unicorns. She wasn't a virgin. Idiot that he was, she'd told him that was the reason—well, almost told him—that first time he'd been awake, and he'd been too dense to take the hint.
And all this time, he'd been afraid it was because the Wild Magic had somehow tainted her…
He felt his face grow hot with embarrassment, as much over that unfair assumption as for his stupidity.
'Mind—' she said, between stifled snorts of laughter, 'virginity is as much a state of mind as it is of the body. Someone who is physically still virginal but is thoroughly nasty-minded could no more touch a unicorn than I—and someone who was still utterly innocent mentally could, no matter what had happened to their body. It's a matter of knowledge, too, I suppose—' She took one look at his face—which was probably an accurate reflection of the shock he was feeling—and convulsed into peals of giggles again.
Kellen wasn't sure whether to be furious, embarrassed, or just to go into the cabin and stay there for the rest of his life. How could he possibly have been so thick-witted? How?
'Ah—' he said, trying desperately to change the subject—his turn to want to do that now, because he really did not want to find out anything more about his sister's sexual adventures—'if it's not violating some promise or something—what was the price of the healing this time?'
Idalia—eyes streaming with mirth—took a deep breath, obviously deciding to take pity on him. Shalkan was still snickering and shaking his head in wonderment, though the unicorn had managed to regain his feet again.
'Ah. The price. My part is to clear a fouled pond of the dead deer that has fallen into it; the unicorns can't purify it until the carcass is gone, and they won't be staying in this area for very much longer,' she said, quickly getting herself under control. 'Most unicorn families like to travel, you see; they were lucky they were close-by— relatively speaking—when the colt was injured. I can't tell you what the price was for the colt's friends and relatives, but it was trivial compared to the healing.' She looked fairly satisfied, actually; surprisingly so for someone
