Keepers of the Flame (42 page)

“I
, too, can only
sleep with Elizabeth,” Faucon had said silkily when Sevair had made his
pronouncement at Bossgond’s tower. “And I have been taking good care of her for
some time now.” Faucon had run his hand down Elizabeth’s spine, sending a
little warmth, a little Power to ease her muscles. He
had
taken good
care of her.

Of
course, she’d given him, emotionally and physically, all she was capable of.
Now and then she had the lowering thought that that wasn’t much, wasn’t enough,
was far less than he deserved.

His
will had proven as steely as his sword, as hard as a certain part of his body
when they were in bed together. They’d had trouble sleeping, but had held each
other. He’d been called to battle a couple of times and then Elizabeth didn’t
sleep at all.

Her
own determination to follow Marian’s rules were strong. Strong enough that
Elizabeth could dismiss her body’s ache for sex. As for food…she stuck to
liquids, and her old standby, a raw egg in orange juice, both of which Faucon
provided. She also sipped on starfire. Every time she healed, every time they
attempted to heal the Chevalier’s disease, she took a little Power for herself.

All
their efforts to cure that sickness had been futile. Elizabeth shuddered when
the battle alarm rang, knowing Bri did the same. If they could have hidden from
the noise they would have.

Today
she had a bad feeling. The claxon had shrilled during breakfast, and she forced
herself to drink. Faucon flinched. He wasn’t on rotation. He’d lost another of
his Chevaliers to the sickness. If it hadn’t been for her, she thought he’d fly
to each battle like many leaders who fielded Chevalier teams, instead of keeping
to the schedule. That she
was
preventing him from fighting was a guilty
gratitude in her. A notion that somehow she was saving his life. Irrational but
true.

Then
the alarm clanged that the battle was over and they eased.

For
a half hour.

Telepathic
screaming and the bugling of terrified volarans hit her. The screams were
Alexa’s.
Elizabeth, help. Help!

She
shot from her seat and to the Landing Field taking whole flights of stairs at a
time and landing softly…hurrying magic.

Alexa
screaming. Disaster. Doom.

Oh,
God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Elizabeth!
shrieked Marian hysterically. That was
even worse.

Bri!
Marian and
Elizabeth cried in unison.

Bri
yelled back,
I’m on my way. Nuare brings me and Zeres.

Elizabeth
didn’t argue, but zoomed through the maze, pulled along by the linked Power of
the other Exotiques. Calli was crying softly. Elizabeth burst out onto the
Landing Field, shouting herself as she saw a clump of impenetrable backs and
wings. “Make way!” She plunged forward, and beings were shoved from her path as
she fell into focused emergency-room mode.

Koz
was lying in a flat net on the ground, his left leg nearly torn from his body,
gray faced and with blood trickling from a head wound. Adrenaline dumped into
her, and all her years of medical training clicked into place.

“He’s
dying
!” Marian screeched, holding the leg in place, draining herself of
Power and energy and all her strength, sending it to her brother.

As
Elizabeth kicked a fold of the net aside, her Song quested along his body. His
femoral artery had been torn but repaired, by his team or the Shield he’d
worked with or himself. Or all three.

“Why
is he
here
? Why didn’t you set up healing circles on the field after the
battle! He’s lost blood. He’s lost energy, coming here.” Elizabeth knelt,
reached for him.

Alexa
wept. “Because we
lost
Partis and Thealia.” Alexa wrapped her arms
around herself and rocked. “They and their volarans fell. Partis always led the
healing groups. We lost another new Marshall pair. No one…we couldn’t…we
didn’t…” Alexa halted. “Our team is shattered.”

Elizabeth
spared her a glance, saw a shiny red burn covering half her face. The half
without the scar had tears dribbling down her cheek. Some of her hair was gone.
She was buried in grief. Her mentor gone, and her mentor’s partner, the man
whose voice had called every Exotique to Lladrana.

As
always, Elizabeth spared only an instant for a flash of her own grief at the
loss of the gentle Shieldmarshall and his fearsome wife, then she blocked her
emotions and those screaming from the other Exotiques. Definitely not the
optimal atmosphere for surgery.

Bri
appeared dazed, shook her head, sent her emotions away, too. Elizabeth smiled
grimly. She’d learned her professional distance from doctors in the emergency
rooms of hospitals. Bri from health care workers in refugee camps.

One
last stray thought—the Marshall team was torn. Alexa would have to be the one
who mended it.

Other
medicas joined them.

“We
will have to take his leg,” Jolie said.

Marian
wailed, pressed harder on the leg they’d aligned.

“No,”
Elizabeth said. “See to Swordmarshall Alexa’s hurts. I place her in your care.”

Jolie
frowned but moved away. Elizabeth upped her flow of starfire into Koz. It was
only keeping him alive, not healing him. Knitting his muscle sinews, tendons,
arteries and veins together would be a massive undertaking. Elizabeth refused
to fail.

Time
to see just how much starfire she could pull. She drew on the Power. Human and
volaran auras sparkled, Songs filled her. The rhythm of the planet Amee itself
throbbed through her, renewing her strength with such Power she had to keep her
mind knife-keen to stay conscious. She began to work cell by cell until she
could do more.

Nuare’s
dark shadow draped them in cool shade. People gasped, volarans whinnied.

“Easy.”
Bastien’s voice trembled. “Calli, I need your help with the volarans.”

Marian’s
knuckles turned white over Calli’s hand. “Andrew. Koz, needs it more.”

Calli
said, “I can do both. Send calm to the volarans and you.” And she did.
“Elizabeth, can we link with you? Five of us would be mighty strong.”

“More
than five,” Bri said, placing her hand on Elizabeth’s. “Nuare and Zeres are
here, too. They can help. Calli can link with Koz’s volaran—”

“He’s
hurt, too.” Calli’s voice caught.

“Then
we’ll link with him and heal him, too,” Bri said. “Link with those of the herd
who will help. Marian, can you connect with Jaquar?”

“He’s
on his way from the island, Bossgond, too.”

“So
we’ll have Circlets joining us, and Chevaliers.” Bri raised her voice. “Listen!”
Her words echoed around the Castle. Quiet blanketed the place. “I want every
Chevalier and volaran hurt in the battle to join in the healing circle, the
most Powerful unharmed on each side of those injured, then we will connect.”

“That
can’t work, alternating unharmed and healthy,” Jolie muttered, shocked.

“It
will
work,” Bri said.

“I
haven’t seen a healing circle like this since Parteger Island,” Faucon
murmured, placing a trembling, savaged volaran—Koz’s volaran—on Bastien’s free
side. Bastien had one arm around Alexa’s shoulder. The volaran folded to the
ground and Bastien tangled his hand in its mane. Faucon did the same on the
opposite side. Jerked at the force of the energy cycling up and down their
line.

“You’ve
never seen a healing circle like this.” Bri’s smile was so strong and fierce it
twitched Elizabeth’s lips up too. “We are the Exotique Medicas. We will show
you how.”

“We
need to close this circle,” Jolie said.

“Yes,
for the moment.” Again Bri’s voice rang out. “When others arrive, they will add
to the circle. Luthan, I want you to be the gate-point. You will open and close
the circle with new additions, connecting them to the person before you.”

“Always
the end of the chain when you open,” Elizabeth said.

“Right.”

“Ayes,”
said Luthan and he began ordering hurt and whole.

A
shaken Marwey, clothes ripped open along her side showing a long, acidic
scratch, took Bri’s other hand. Both Bri’s and Marwey’s hands were brought down
to Koz’s wounded leg. The leg first, then the head. He moaned. Bri opened
herself and a river of Power flowed through them all, leaving more than
Elizabeth gasping.

You’re
fixing Koz
.
Joy lit Bri’s tone.
Good work.

I
AM a doctor.

Yes,
you are, and we will rely on all our skill to heal this leg. Marian?

Will
he die?
Marian gibbered.

No
, Elizabeth and
Bri said at the same time.

He
will not lose his leg, either,
Elizabeth said.
Though he will have
damage to it. I suggest a new career.

Definitely,
Bri said,
especially
with his head wound. We don’t want him to harm that again.

Playtime’s
over,
said Alexa with forced insouciance. She seemed to hear the echo of her own
words and stifled a sob.

Elizabeth
let Bri regulate the Power, keep it even and strong. Steadying as each new
person or winged horse was added to the circle, pushing it through the injured,
healing them and flushing their bodies with her healing starstream.

A
beautiful, melodious chant rose and fell around Elizabeth, suffused her.
Letting her mind and fingers mend Koz, she listened, heard a lovely masculine
voice, looked up to see Calli’s Marrec Singing. Before her eyes, strands of
black turned to silver over his temples.

Power.

What
we are doing not only heals,
Elizabeth sent to the circle, to Alexa,
it is making us more Powerful.
She could feel her own scalp tingle, hair
raise, understood that she’d be another with a streak of silver.
The
Marshalls’ team might be fragmented for the moment, but when it returns it will
be stronger than ever. Chevaliers, too
.

Bri
Sang, her voice low but tuneful. Her hair looked the same, brown, purple
streaks gone. No silver. Bri smiled, tears running down her face. Elizabeth
blinked, but her eyes were dry. No way was she going to cry in the operating
room.

Bri
sent down the circle,
We Sing and sorrow is shared, comfort is shared
.

Every
few minutes someone else joined. Elizabeth felt the sparkling youth of a young
female volaran and her dam, became aware of the auras and the Songs of others
already connected. The steady strength of Sevair Masif, the whispering wind of
the roc, Nuare, Luthan’s clear tones.

Faucon,
Powerful and true.

All
the while she mended capillaries, twined muscle together, reknit sinew like a
surgeon, and Bri healed beside her.

Jolie’s
soprano spiraled high in counterpoint.
So beautiful.
She, too, wept.

Luthan
opened the circle, Power diminished.

Then
surged, swamping Elizabeth, letting her mind dissolve into instinct. She
faltered. Bri was there with her, sending the excess energy into Koz, brushing
his brain with slight Power.

Fascinating
, came in a dry,
observant tone. Elizabeth didn’t have the vision to see, but she recognized
Bossgond.

Plugged
into a whole different energy,
Bri said.

I
do not like these Exotique phrases
, Bossgond grumbled. He’d bloodbonded
with Marian—he had an idea of the concept.

A lightening
of spirit flowed around the circle.

Elizabeth
never knew how long it took, the healing of Koz enough so that he’d live, mend
on his own, then pinpointing other hurts: Alexa’s burn, Marwey’s slice. When
Luthan finally wrapped up the Song, the day was still a few hours away from
sunset. Sometime during the circle, they’d all sat. It was the strangest
medical experience Elizabeth had ever had.

Many
fell over.

With
a grunt, Bastien stood, wobbled a little, scooped up Alexa. “Going to bed,” he
said thickly. No one had the energy to comment. Marrec stood and gestured to
the commander of the Castle soldiers who had stayed alert and away from the
circle. “Can you help us take Koz to—”

“Our
suite,” Marian said loudly. “The Tower Community’s Suite in the Castle.”

“He’s
going to love that,” Marrec grunted.

Marian
ignored him, stood and swayed with regal grace, put her hands on her hips.
“He’s staying with us until he’s completely well.”

Now
Jaquar grunted, and with fisted gestures, gathered wind. Elizabeth thought her
mouth fell open as she saw Koz rise from the net, cradled on an invisible
gurney of air.

Sevair
pulled Bri up, kept her within his arms. His feet were planted solidly. He
wouldn’t fall.