Patricia Briggs - Raven's Strike

Tier was feeling pretty murderous himself.

Rinnie grinned, first at Tier and then at the Emperor, looking more herself. “It grabbed me where I was cowering on the stairway and threw me off and said, ‘Cormorant, fly.’ I think if it hadn’t said that, I’d have fallen and squished right on top of you. As it was, I wasn’t sure I had been soon enough for you. You weren’t breathing and I was sure you were dead. Then you sat up, and your eyes were bulging and watering—I thought you could have been the walking dead, like the ones last night. But no, you started breathing and grabbed me without so much as a thank-you.”

All in one breath, thought Tier. Amusement won over the horror of hearing that something had thrown his daughter from a tower. It helped that Rinnie had survived.

Phoran bowed. “Thank you, my lady. I was remiss when I forgot to thank you earlier—though I believe the fear for your life took precedence at the time.”

Rinnie looked pleased, and said smugly, “I can’t wait until I get home and I can tell people that I saved the Emperor’s life.”

Lehr smiled at her. “No one will believe you, pest.”

“Where is Hinnum?” asked Hennea.

“The Shadowed was coming,” said Jes, who had exchanged his wolf form for the mountain cat. “Hinnum was already hurt, but he wouldn’t let me go.”

“Speaking of which,” said Phoran. “Should we continue going?”

“No,” said Hennea. “What we do, we can do here as well as anywhere. Seraph, this is as good a time as any to see if that ring will work for you. Phoran, where are the names from the Owl’s temple?”

“Willon burned them,” said Toarsen. “He said he was sealing the temple so no one else could get them again.”

“I remember one of them,” said Phoran.

Hennea frowned at him. “You know how to read the language of Colossae?”

He smiled. “I’m not just a drunken sot, my lady. I am an educated drunken sot. I couldn’t read the maps or the gates, but the alphabet is the same as Old Oslandic, which I do know. If Toarsen has that piece of char still, I can write it on the stones.”

Toarsen fumbled in his belt pouch and handed Phoran the charred stick. Phoran wrote some odd lines on the ground that might have been letters.

“Do you know to which one the name belongs?” asked Tier.

Hennea shook her head. “I don’t remember.”

“Ah, well,” said Tier. “Either would work I suppose. So what exactly do we do?”

“The six of us, you, Jes, Seraph, Lehr, Rinnie, and I hold hands. Then you speak the name of the god—I’ll tell you how to pronounce it.” Hennea sighed unhappily. “The rest of it we’ll have to improvise, I don’t know what will happen. The Orders are not the gods of Colossae.”

“We should wait until Willon comes near?” asked Tier.

Hennea nodded.

“Is there something I can do?” asked Toarsen. “He’s not going to make it.” He’d lifted Kissel’s head onto his lap and he touched his forehead lightly. “Lost too much blood. I need to have a hand in the destruction of the man who killed him.”

Tier hunkered down beside the big lad and put a hand on his too-cold cheek. He looked at Seraph, who nodded.

“Don’t give up on him, yet,” Tier told Toarsen. “Kissel’s survived worse than this—and we’ll have a Lark to help him, eh, Seraph?”

“I don’t intend for the Shadowed to kill any more of ours,” said Seraph.

“So there,” said Phoran. “Seraph has said so—Kissel won’t dare to fail her.”

A faint smile appeared on Kissel’s face.

“See,” said Tier. “All men must bow to my wife’s whims. You’ll do, lad.” He looked up at Toarsen. “I think this battle will be beyond steel, but I’ve no objection if you keep your sword handy and use it if you see a moment to do so.”

Toarsen nodded solemnly.

“Seraph,” Tier said. “If you’re ready, Kissel has been doing his best to hold on, but he could really use some help.”

Seraph fingered the tigereye ring and closed her eyes, trying to feel what was different, but she felt the same as she ever had. Just the same as she had when she’d tried to work some healing upon Gura a few minutes ago.

She looked down for a moment upon the young man who’d fought by her side against the Path that night in Taela. When she settled next to Kissel, Toarsen looked up at her with all the welcome of a bitch guarding her pups from a stranger.

“I’m not going to hurt him,” she told him, though she wasn’t at all sure of that.

“There’s not much that will hurt me at this point,” murmured Kissel unexpectedly, with the subtle humor that he liked to employ. He always seemed best pleased when his audience wasn’t quite certain he was trying to be funny.

“I’m glad to hear it,” she told him, though she wasn’t at all sure he was still conscious.

She tried to remember what Brewydd had done when she had been repairing Tier’s injuries—but she’d been distracted and hadn’t paid much attention to the Healer.

“Lehr?”

He sat on his heels beside her. “What do you need, Mother?”

“Did you ever watch Brewydd heal?”

“She’s a Lark, Mother,” said Lehr. “Can Ravens heal, too?”

Seraph held up her hand so he could see the ring she wore. “I’m a Lark today, too. But I need your help.”

“The Lark rings don’t work,” said Jes. “You and Hennea need to clean it first.”

Seraph turned to look at him. “Willon killed Mehalla to steal her Order, Jes. All those years ago. Something in this ring knows me, and I believe it means that this was once Mehalla’s.” She paused. “We need me to be a Lark today, but even if the gem contained nothing but the Order, I could not use it to become a Lark—any more than Volis was a Raven when he wore a Raven’s gem. I need to see if the person, Mehalla or not, who haunts this ring will help me be a Lark, just for today.”

“Try putting your hand on his wound,” Lehr suggested. “We’re going to have to take off the bandage.”

“Wait, let me do it,” said Tier. “I’ve a little experience at field dressings.”

He sat beside Seraph and cut through the cloth that held the pad over the wound. Then he tugged gently on the padding.

“The pad is stuck down, but not badly—because he’s still losing blood. That would be bad if we didn’t have a Healer.” He smiled at Seraph. “As it is, it makes it easier to get the pad off—but you need to get your hands over that wound. Lark or no Lark, the boy’s got to have some blood in him if he’s to live. Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

He took the pad off and, as he’d indicated, the wound began to ooze blood. She put her hand over the wound and sealed it with the palm of her hand.

Everyone waited, even Seraph, but nothing happened.

“Try visualizing the healing,” Hennea suggested. “Think of Kissel well and whole.”

She tried and felt her magic stir, but magic could not heal. She could have used it to bandage the wound though, and would if she could not heal him—but he was so pale, and there had been so much blood. If it came down to making do with magic rather than healing, she suspected that he would die.

“Hennea has part of it right,” Lehr said. “But this isn’t magic. I think, from watching you and Hennea, that being a Raven must involve a lot of thought. But Hunting is almost instinctive for me. I look, then I see the trail. I don’t have to think much about it. Jes gets upset, and the temperature anywhere near him drops to freezing. Papa starts singing, and people stop whatever they are doing to listen. Just let your body do the work.”

Seraph closed her eyes and tried to relax, but the more she tried not to think, the more she thought.