Laurelle clutched Dart.
Paltry smiled. “It’s already too late.”
Yaellin crossed to the door. He pulled up his hood and hooked his masklin back in place, completing his disguise as a Shadowknight. “One word,” he spat at Paltry, “and it will be the last to fall from your lips.” Yaellin bared a throwing dagger. He held it with deadly competence.
The pounding repeated. “Open for the injured! A great mishap has struck the river!”
Dart glanced to the open window and back to the barred door. Of all the times for broken men and women to fall at the Conclave’s door. They couldn’t refuse care. But how could they untie Paltry to ministrate?
They were trapped.
Paltry’s grin widened.
Yaellin reached the door and slid back a tiny spy hole to peer out into the hall. Dart saw him stiffen in surprise. Shadows, quiet a moment ago, billowed out anew about his form in agitation. Yaellin turned his masked face back to Paltry. His eyes narrowed. The blade was lifted higher, the threat plain.
Not a word.
Yaellin nodded to Dart. “Help me with the bar.”
Dart hesitated, legs locked in terror. Then she hurried forward. Laurelle hung back, a fist clutched to her throat. Dart lifted the stoutoak bar with both hands, then stepped aside at Yaellin’s urging.
She crept back, still holding the bar. She would use it if necessary as a club.
Yaellin slipped the latch, then pulled the door open a short space. He spent a moment searching the hall, blocking the way.
Dart heard Matron Grannice’s voice.
“Healer Paltry will take good care of your man,” the matron promised.
“Thank you most kindly,” a woman answered, sounding strained.
“It is an honor, Castellan Vail.”
Yaellin opened the door wider, plainly having waited for Matron Grannice to step away and return below. A motley group pushed into the room.
Dart fell back.
In the lead, a man of solid bronze entered the room. A soft purring accompanied his every step. The torchlight ran over his form like liquid fire. He led another Shadowknight, cloaked and masked, but obviously a woman. She wore a diadem at her throat, bright as a star in the night sky.
But Dart’s attention fell more upon the man whom she carried in her arms like a babe. He wore a simple brown servant’s robe, the hood thrown back. Blood soaked both arms. His wrists were tied with soiled red rags. His face, pale as soap-stone, looked like that of a porcelain doll: fragile, drained. The only assurance that he still lived was the ragged, wet rattle of his breath.
Yaellin followed her. “Kathryn… what happened?”
Dart noted the last two figures to enter the room. Opposites in the extreme. A young woman and a bearded older man, one tall, one slight, one fierce and stolid in countenance, the other hiding an edge of wry amusement.
The bearded stranger closed the door. His eyes fell on Dart. He held out a hand.
She didn’t know what he wanted.
“The door’s bar, little lass. We mustn’t let anyone wander in here.”
Dart jumped and passed him the length of stoutoak. He secured the door with a wink toward Dart. She found herself warming to the man, surprised at herself.
Voices drew their attention to the room’s center.
The woman lowered her charge to an empty bed. He sprawled boneless on the down mattress. “We need the healer’s attention,” she said. “He’s lost most of his blood.”
The woman stepped back and revealed a strange sight. The man’s robe had a blackened hole in the center, down to the bare skin. Centered in the hole, tattooed on the man’s chest, was a black handprint. A strange glow marked its edges. And if Dart stared long enough, she could almost see the surface of the print stirring, as if something rippled past, under the dark surface, disturbing the black well there.
Dart found it hard to look away. Her feet drew her closer. One of her hands even reached out.
“Who is he?” Yaellin asked.
The woman’s answer stayed Dart’s hand.
“He’s the godslayer.”
“Firebalm won’t stop the bleeding from a slash this deep,” the healer said darkly, plainly reluctant to touch a man with such a dreaded reputation.
Kathryn shoved the man. “Do it.” She’d already heard a threadbare account of Healer Paltry’s crimes and duplicity and had no time for his hesitation or tongue.
He stumbled to Tylar’s bedside. He bore a pot of firebalm in one hand. Yaellin kept a sword to the man’s back. Rogger had cut away Tylar’s old bandages, exposing the raw wounds. Blood again flowed from them, but pumping weaker than before. Tylar’s heart had fallen to a fluttering beat.
Paltry scooped a dab of balm.
“More,” Rogger said from across the bed. “Like you said, this is no scratch.”
The healer glowered, then dug a more generous amount. He cradled Tylar’s gaping wrist in one hand, then smeared the balm with the other. With its touch, a fierce glow erupted, shining with familiar Grace.
Paltry jerked his hands away in surprise. A soft moan escaped Tylar, sounding more pleasurable than the usual reaction to the sting of firebalm.
The glow quickly faded, vanishing away as the peeled edges of skin, muscle, and tendon drew together like so much molded clay. In a moment, the wrist had closed without even a scar.
“The other,” Kathryn said.
Paltry grabbed more balm, no longer reluctant. His eyes shone with natural curiosity. Monster or not, he was still a healer.
“Impressive, is it not?” Rogger said as the other wrist mended. “The gifted Grace in his blood does much to protect him. But it can’t replace what he left behind at the flippercraft.”
“Blessed bloodroot,” Gerrod said, straightening after studying the miraculous healing with keen eyes. “Its curative Grace will flush the bone’s marrow and encourage new humour to fill his heart and veins.”
Paltry nodded. “But it will only-”
Yaellin silenced him with a poke of his sword point. The healer needed no other encouragement. He crossed to the apothecary cabinet mounted along one wall of the circular healing chamber. He lifted the crystal lid and shook free a few dried stalks into a glass crucible.
“Where did you obtain this bloodroot?” Yaellin asked.
Paltry set about grinding the root with a glass pestle. A faint bluish glow rose along with a scent of copper and mint. “It comes from the Eldergarden. I harvested it myself.”
“Where?”
“From the healer’s garden. In the shadow of the sacred myrrwood.”
Yaellin knocked aside the crucible with the back of his hand. It shattered against the wall.
Kathryn frowned. “What?”
“It might be corrupted, like the tree in the garden. I don’t think it would be wise to expose the godslayer to it.”
Yaellin had already given an abbreviated account of his escape with the girls… and of Lord Chrism’s corruption. The world seemed to grow darker with each breath. Kathryn waved the healer away.
“Fine,” Paltry said. “I have some older vine from the Ninth Land. Is that far enough away from the Eldergarden?”
“Fetch it,” Yaellin commanded. “And be quick about it.”
As the healer set to work again, using a smaller set of wan-looking vines, Yaellin explained. “The corruption in Myrillia is more deeply rooted than any suspected, even my own father.”
Gerrod joined them. “Maybe we’d all best discover what each knows. It seems multiple threads are woven to this same spot. But where to begin?”
Kathryn nodded to Yaellin. “I think your story is the oldest, the closest to the beginning.”
