To Light A Candle

heard.

“Forgive. Forgive and forget”

The words filled his mind, and Kellen knew that this was the price They set upon Gesade’s healing—and that it was twice now that the Wild Magic had commanded him to forgive. His previous Mageprice was still unpaid, but that wouldn’t matter. Idalia had told him that prices could run unpaid for years; all that mattered was that you paid them willingly when the time came. He did know that you knew when the time had come to pay a Mageprice, although figuring out how to pay it was left up to the individual. But none of that was important now. He would have accepted the price if it had been far higher. I will, he promised.

The sense of listening departed. All that was left was the work of healing.

It was the hardest yet, as if he tried to lift the weight of the earth itself from beneath his feet. Again and again he struggled to become a conduit for the Healing Magic, feeling as if he tried to touch something just out of reach.

And every moment he struggled, he felt Gesade growing weaker.

“Don’t try. Be!”

Master Belesharon said that in the practice circle. Only when you could step aside from your thoughts of what you should be doing, and do the thing itself, was the thing accomplished.

He stopped trying.

He thought of Gesade, whole.

He remembered her looking down at him in the snow, the night he’d tried to escape from camp to scout the nearer cavern.

He remembered her—yes, and Petariel—running at the head of the Unicorn Knights on a day that was bright and clear. Powdery snow had sprayed up from beneath her hooves as she ran, and the sunlight had sparkled off their armor…

He realized he was lying curled around her body, his face pressed against her stomach, breathing in her warm scent. It was an awkward position, and Kellen straightened with a stifled groan. He didn’t remember moving, or closing his eyes.

He blinked. He felt as if he’d been asleep, though he was sure he hadn’t. The protective shield was gone, so whatever was going to happen, had happened. He felt hollow and light-headed, but that was normal after a healing, for Healer and Healed alike.

“You… glowed,” Menerchel said.

That was encouraging, Kellen decided, but he was still reluctant to lift the bandages and see what lay beneath. At least Gesade was sleeping now, not writhing in heavily-drugged agony.

He lifted the lower edge of the bandage again.

White fur. Thickly soaked in ointment, but there was no trace of burn or scar. Eagerly now, Kellen lifted away the rest of the cloths—they had not truly bandaged her, only wrapped soft cloths loosely over the terrible burns. The flesh beneath was perfect. Whole.

Then he reached her head.

It took him a few seconds to understand why what he was seeing looked so wrong. Her horn was unblemished. Her soft muzzle was whole.

But her eyelid was sunken into its socket. Frantically, Kellen lifted her head. The other side matched exactly, the eyelid sunken over an empty socket.

She had no eyes.

—«♦»—

SHALKAN found him several hundred yards from the unicorn’s clearing. He was kneeling beside a tree, gagging up what felt like every meal he’d ever eaten in his life.

“Kellen—”

“Go away!” He couldn’t bear to see anyone right now. Especially Shalkan. Not after what he’d done.