But there was more to a man than his parentage. More to a man than his blade, or his size, or his skills, and all that Kjell had once known had shifted and changed in the last year. He’d been forced to accept parts of himself that he’d always denied. He was Gifted. One of them. One of the people he’d feared and forsaken. And it had not been an easy adjustment. It was as if he’d battled the sea all his life only to discover he had scales and gills and belonged beneath the depths instead of casting nets. He no longer knew who he was or what his purpose might be. Or maybe he knew and just didn’t like it.
It had grown cooler as night fell. It would be hot—too hot—when the sun rose again, but Quondoon enjoyed extremes. Heat in the day and cold at night, towering peaks and flat plains, brief, punishing rains followed by long, dry spells where the rain refused to fall for months on end. The people of Quondoon were shepherds and scavengers, weavers and potters, but they didn’t grow much. They couldn’t. Kjell wondered again at the Volgar sightings. The Volgar preferred the swamp-lands. If the Volgar were nesting near the villages of Quondoon, they had truly grown desperate.
An eerie howling rose up suddenly from the precipice above them, and Lucian started in fright.
“Halt!” Kjell commanded, and his men obeyed immediately, hands on their swords, eyes on the canyon walls to their right, looking for the source of the sound. As they watched, figures materialized on the bluff that rose and plateaued to the right. The city of Solemn lay beyond. But these weren’t suspicious sentries. These were wolves who resented the interruption of their evening’s activities, and the baying rose again, making the horses shudder.
“There’s something there, Captain. Something wounded—or dead. The wolves want it,” a soldier spoke up, his eyes glued to the darkness that clung to the base of the tallest cliff.
“If it’s Volgar, it’s alone. The wolves wouldn’t go anywhere near a flock,” Jerick, his lieutenant, spoke up.
“It isn’t Volgar,” Kjell answered, but he dismounted and drew his sword. “Isak, Peter, and Gibbous, stay with the horses, the rest of you, fall in behind me.”
His men obeyed immediately, creeping through the brush and dry grass toward the base of the sheer wall that jutted from the earth. The shadows obscured whatever lay crumpled—for there was indeed something there—among the pale rocks. Something rippled—a dark billowing—like a Volgar wing, and Kjell paused, bidding his men to do the same.
Oddly, the wolves felt no compunction toward silence, and a lone howl rose above them before the others joined in the chorus. The baying did not cause the shadows to shift or the rippling to halt, and Kjell moved forward again, eyes on the shuddering darkness.
With several more steps, the moon unveiled her secret. The movement they’d seen was not a Volgar wing but the billowing dress of a woman, lying in a lifeless heap. Her hair was crimson, even in the shadows, blending with the red of her blood and the warmth of the earth. She lay on her back, her eyes closed, the oval of her face as pale and still as the rocks around her. Her arms were thrown wide like she’d embraced the wind as she fell.
Her back was oddly bent and one leg twisted beneath her, but she bore no teeth or claw-marks, and her clothes weren’t in tatters. It was not a Volgar attack; she’d fallen from the ledge above. Jerick was the first to close the distance and kneel at her side, touching the white skin of her throat with the impudence he usually reserved for Kjell.
“She is warm, Captain, and her heart still beats.”
Kjell wasn’t the only one who gasped, and the shocked intake of air echoed around him like a den of snakes, hissing through the huddled soldiers. She was so broken.
“What do you want to do?” Jerick raised his gaze to his leader, and the question was clear, though he didn’t voice it. Jerick knew Kjell was a Healer. They all knew, and his men both feared and worshipped him, watching in awe as he restored the fallen and the dying with nothing more than his hands. But he’d only healed those he had affection for, those he served and who served him. And he hadn’t done it often. He’d healed a few of his men. He’d healed his brother. His queen. But he’d been unable to find the power when there was no . . . love. He laughed bitterly, making the men around him shift awkwardly, and he realized the mocking chortle had escaped his lips.
“Go,” he commanded abruptly. “Take Lucian and the rest of the horses and find a place nearby to wait.”
No one moved, their eyes on the crumpled woman and the pool of blood that called to the wolves outlined on the cliffs above. The wolves were waiting for the soldiers to retreat and leave the girl.
“Go!” Kjell barked, sinking to his knees, knowing he’d wasted time when there was none. The soldiers rushed to withdraw, wary as the wolves, obeying their captain, but unhappy about doing so. Jerick didn’t leave, but Kjell had known he wouldn’t.
“I can’t do this while you watch,” Kjell admitted brusquely. “It makes me too aware of myself.”
“I’ve seen you heal before, Captain.”
“Yes. But not like this. I don’t know her.” Kjell placed his hands on the woman’s chest and felt the warmth of her heart, willful even as her body begged to be released from its torment. He listened for her song. For the single, clear note that would aid him. Her spirit, her force, her self.
“Imagine that you do,” Jerick urged softly. “Imagine her . . . full of life. Running. Smiling. Mating.”
Kjell’s eyes shot to Jerick’s, and his lieutenant stared back unapologetically, as if imagination was something that came easily to him and should therefore come easily to Kjell.
“Imagine that you love her,” Jerick repeated.
Kjell scoffed, resisting the sentiment, and bowed his head. He closed his eyes against Jerick’s gaze. His hands curled against the woman’s breast, urging her heart to obey, and an image rose, unbidden, in his mind. A woman who smiled at him with eyes that kept no secrets and told no lies. A woman with fiery hair like the one who lay before him, alone and dying. He lashed out again, demanding that Jerick depart. She was dying and he was listening to the mutterings of a foolish knight who’d clearly been too long without a woman. Running, smiling, mating. Bloody fool.
“Leave me, Jerick. Now.” If Jerick remained, Kjell would flog him. Jerick must have realized his captain would give no more quarter, for he turned away, and Kjell heard him depart through the brush, his stride dejected.
Kjell ran his hands over the slim ribs of the woman, feeling the jagged pieces of broken bones, and he bade them mend. He didn’t pray as his hands roved. The Creator had given him this curse and this cure, and he wouldn’t beg for an increase.
The woman resisted him, her slim frame stubborn in its death throes.
Kjell started to hum, purely on instinct, matching his timbre to the intermittent baying of the wolves above him. After a moment, he felt the tell-tale tingling in his hands, and his pulse surged in triumph. He commanded his body to share its light, and the shattered cage of her ribs righted beneath his touch, lifting her chest and curving outward into his broad palms. And still, he couldn’t hear her song.
“Where are you, woman?” he asked her. “I feel your heart and the seeping of your blood. Sing to me so I can bring you back.”