The enemy dragon spun at the crash; Mettalise struck. Her jaws sank into the tender, thin spot at the hollow of his throat. Blood dyed her opal scales a slick crimson. She shook once, twice. His head flopped forward as she released the torn flesh. It didn’t move again.
*Hello, human of mine,* Mettalise said. She sounded beyond weary, strained with pain, but her smugness made me want to sob with relief. She crawled closer and flopped to the ground. *Anything new?*
I sank to the floor. “Not much. Catching up with my father.”
She gave the stone fountain an appraising look, grimaced, and spat out a chunk of dragon muscle. *Next time, don’t invite me to the reunion.* Her midnight-blue eyes grew serious. *You aren’t dying or anything? I dare not lower the block any more between us to find out.*
“Not dying.” I chose not to look at my mauled arm. “You?”
*Passing out soon. Lost a lot of blood.* She shifted, squeezing her eyes shut as she did so. *I hate to ask you to move, but I’m supposed to make sure Merram isn’t in the process of dying.*
“Merram!” I scrambled to my feet, swaying as dizziness blackened my vision. I gritted my teeth and tried again. This time, I pushed away the pain.
“He’s still breathing,” I said. I nudged him with my foot rather than stoop and invite a blackout. “I don’t see any wounds. There must be magical damage, and I’m sure his Gift is low.”
*Not dying though? Good. I’ll spread the word.*
“He’s not dying,” I repeated slowly.
*Is that a problem?*
I swallowed. “That vision. You know, of someone dying.”
*The sapphire happened weeks before the other visions.* Her words slurred together.
“Maybe I got here in time.” It occurred to me that, unless I wanted to bleed to death myself, I needed to do something about my injured arm. I cried in pain as I ripped my unstained sleeve from my numb arm and pathetically used my teeth to help wind it about the gash. Halfway through I remembered I had a Gift and clumsily used Telekinesis to finish the job.
Mettalise watched with half-lidded eyes. The drying blood on her maw and scales made her look like something monsters would have nightmares about.
“I should let Shamino know we’re safe. He can patch that wing.” He would have been a better choice for bandaging my arm, too. First One, I needed to pass out. Instead, I began walking to the door. “Did you get the dragon that shredded your wing?”
Mettalise scowled. *No. Last I saw, Maolmuire was carrying Jerroth away.*
I froze. “Jerroth?”
*Who else? Though it was a bit chaotic when the enemy lost contact with Thorkel.*
“But Shamino was—” I rushed through Merram’s quarters, my pain vanishing. Living room, collide against sofa, Merram’s study with its papers, an open door—
Shamino lay in a pool of blood.
“No!” The vision swept over my eyes—it was Shamino dying in my arms. I dove to his side. “Shamino, can you hear me? First One, there’s so much blood…”
A massive hole in his chest oozed. Tressa’s body had vanished, along with Jerroth.
“Shamino?” I repeated. I pulled his head into my lap and held a blood-slicked hand to his face. Breath tickled the blood on my hands. Barely. Irregularly. His skin was corpse-pale.
*Mettalise! I need a healer!* But there was no answer. She had passed out.
“First One, you can’t do this to me!” I bunched his shirt over the wound, but blood saturated it already. “Don’t die! Please, please don’t die…”
I dissolved into tears and bent over him. If I ripped the bandage off my arm, maybe I could manage to die with him? Shamino loved me, he wanted me with him despite everything, I couldn’t go on without him now that we finally—
The sapphire tumbled from under my shirt and tapped my nose. I grabbed it and snapped the chain. I put the jewel on the gaping hole in his chest and twisted the signet ring so that its gems touched the sapphire. “First One, please, let it be enough.”
I closed my eyes and grabbed my Gift.
I’d used over half my energy jumping from dragons and pulling lava through rock. With what little I had left, healing was impossible.
But I had desperation. I had gems.
I had Shamino’s love.
“Take me,” I prayed. The gems flared so brightly that I saw them through my eyelids. “The Kyer needs him, not me. I killed Thorkel. You’re done with me. Please, please let me save him.”
Power filled the jewels. I released it in a single beam and let my mind ride blue fire. I found the torn muscles, the severed vessels, the blood. Zoland had made me read books on healing, I’d seen Shamino heal dragons, I’d bandaged and even sewn dragons myself. I tried to fuse one bit of vessel to another, I tried to make flesh whole. It was clumsy, sloppy work, but I figured the less blood he lost, the greater the chance he’d live long enough for a real healer.
My head began to roar. I braced against darkness. Before I sealed what I hoped was the last vein, I shifted as much of the surrounding blood as I could back into his chest. My body began to tremble. The pulsing gems now rested on healed flesh, but something was wrong. Something was missing.
Shamino’s Gift. I probed him with my power and found it: a tiny spark of life, deep inside his chest. It flickered. He’d tried to fight Jerroth with magic; his healed body would die without a Gift. Could I give him mine? I didn’t think it had ever been done. But that spark of Gift was so much like fire, so beautiful and so very much Shamino.
I poured my Gift into the spark. I breathed into it,
