Then he saw the faint movement of her chest and knew that she was still alive.
He ran forward and knelt beside her. His first impulse was to waken her, but he knew that would be no kindness. She must be in agony.
He had to get her out of here. But even if Ancaladar would consent to carry her, he didn’t dare move her while she was in this condition. Broken legs, broken arm and collarbone… undoubtedly a concussion… probably internal bleeding as well.
“I’ll have to heal her before we can move her,” Kellen said aloud.
Healing was not his strongest skill in the Wild Magic, and he’d never tried this major a healing, especially without someone around to share the Mageprice. He looked hopefully at Ancaladar.
But the dragon cringed away. “You go ahead,” he said, taking a step backward. “I’ll wait over here until you’re done.”
Kellen sighed.
He had to be. For Idalia’s sake.
These days, he always carried the components for the simplest of the Wild Magic spells with him, and healing was a very simple spell. Here where everything was stone, he didn’t even need a brazier: he simply unwrapped his disk of charcoal and set it directly on the stone floor, and set it alight with a simple word. He pulled out the few herbs he’d need, and set them beside the burning charcoal.
His stomach twisted as he thought of the only other healing involving broken bones he’d ever witnessed. When Idalia had healed a unicorn colt’s fractured leg, she’d worked all the pieces of the break into alignment first. He should do that here, to give the healing the best chance. But the colt had been dosed with a sleeping potion, and he had nothing to give his sister.
Kellen pulled off his armored gauntlets, then drew his dagger and cut a few strands of Idalia’s hair, then a few of his own. He moistened the bundle with Idalia’s blood, then pricked his finger and squeezed out a few drops of blood onto the dried leaves of willow, ash, and yew.
Then he tossed the bundle of herbs and hair onto the coals.
The bundle should have smelled horrible while it was burning, but it didn’t. It smelled like spring flowers and fresh-cut hay. Kellen saw the shimmer of the protective shields all around him, and hoped that protection would extend to keeping Idalia from feeling what he was doing.
First he straightened her legs. Feeling the bones move and shift under his hands made sweat run down his face in greasy droplets, but once he’d begun, he knew he couldn’t stop.
Everything was glowing green.
Next, her arm. It seemed to him that it ought to be straightened, so he did that, as gently as he could. That led him to her collarbone—broken, as he suspected. There wasn’t a lot he could do about it, but he prodded at it until he’d shifted the bones about into more-or-less the right places, and left it at that.
Everything was fire. Green fire.
He ran his hands over her head. They came away wet with blood, though Kellen knew that might not mean much. Even the smallest scalp wounds could bleed a great deal. Or it might be a concussion. Without being able to see her eyes, he didn’t know.
Green… all green…
Her breathing was better now, which reminded him to check for broken ribs and broken pelvis. He ran his hands down over her ribs, pressing gently, but everything felt solid. He found her hip bones, and pressed gently, relieved to find that everything was solid there, too.
Abruptly Kellen sat back on his haunches and stared down at his hands. They were trailing greenness as if he’d dipped them in a vat of liquid emeralds, Idalia, too, was green, as if she’d been soaked in the stuff.
When he’d healed Jermayan, the Healing Power had hit him like a hammer-blow, leaving him in no doubt of when the healing began and ended. This time it had snuck up on him; apparently he’d been healing Idalia while he
