Magical Lover (22 page)

“What’s a Seer?” Keara said simultaneously. Of course, no one paid her any attention.

Zeke slammed his fist against the ground. “Forget it. He’s in there and she won’t let me in.”

Thoren’s jaw worked like he had something to say and couldn’t get his lips to open. But she didn’t have to hear his words, or mind-speak with him to know he was not pleased about his brother’s revelation. Why? Maybe he didn’t like Halflings, which would explain why he refused to admit she was his wife.

She needed to change his mind about that belief. Not now though. Now they needed her help.

Drawing her feet under her, she rose.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Thoren grabbed her hand.

“To help.” She gave Thoren’s hand a squeeze and headed toward the door Zeke had indicated his son lay behind. So what if she didn’t take her grand tour of the outdoors? She hated to see children hurt or sick. Healing the sick and caring for the ill were the parts of being an apothecary that she loved.

“Wait! You can’t go in there.” Zeke’s eyes seemed to fill his face.

“I’m an apothecary by training and Annaliese has asked me to assist her in the infirmary. I might be able to help.” With that, Keara twisted the dragon-shaped knob and pushed.

The door stuck, but she shoved it with her shoulder and it opened enough for her to squeeze through.

“Hey! Wait!” Thoren appeared in front the door quicker than she could blink, but lucky for her, shutting the door was easier than opening it.

The resulting bang and ear-popping change in pressure was loud enough to hear through the stone walls. Keara rubbed at her ears, opening and closing her mouth.

Annaliese looked up from where she bent over a bed. A fuzzy haze covered the bed, obscuring the person lying there from sight.

“How did you get in?” Annaliese rose to her full height, her normally placid face a rush of emotion.

Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. “I opened the door.” Annaliese continued staring. What else did she want? “It was rather hard to open.”

“That could be because I have a containment spell on it. Which is why your overprotective dragon is roaring in the hall.”

“He is?”

Annaliese waved her hand back and forth, as she walked toward Keara. “Never mind him. It’s you that interests me. No one, with the exception of the High Priestess and me can get through that door when there is a containment spell on the room. Not even a male with full powers.”

“Why a containment spell?”

“I do not know what sickens the boy, but it felled his entire village. The only reason he still lives is because Draconi do not often get ill. We tend to repel illnesses. But this illness has brought the child to the edge of death. I put two containment fields in place. One on the room and the other over his bed.”

“That’s what the fuzzy haze is?”

The priestess nodded. “Why did you come in?”

“Because I thought I could help.”

“You felt drawn to him, did you not? Like you had to help no matter what?”

How did she know that?

“Because I feel it too.”

Great. Learning to mind-speak, or more correctly, how not to project thoughts, was now in top place on her to-do list. Forget the great outdoors, once she made it out of this room, Thoren was teaching her all about mind-speaking.

“To feel the draw to heal another is part of what being a healer is about. Some like the thought of helping others, but have no affinity for it. But others, like you and me, can’t stop the ability no matter what we do. It’s in our blood. It’s part of who we are, what makes us us.”

“True.” Keara smiled. Annaliese understood her. Words couldn’t describe how much that meant. “So what’s wrong with the child?”

“High fever, wet cough with blood. Zeke said the village residents bled from their eyes, nose and mouth.”

Keara felt her forehead wrinkle. “I’ve never seen an illness like that.” But she had no doubt if she touched him, she could draw it into herself and heal the boy. “May I look at him?”

“Yes. You may touch him. The containment field will purify your hands.”

Keara walked to the bed. Up close, the haze dissipated, allowing her a clear look at the child. Red hair stood straight up from his head, drenched in sweat. A light sheet covered him, leaving his arms exposed. Pale white skin, peeling around blackened nails, gleamed through a map of red mottling. A sickly sweet smell hovered around the boy and she swallowed.

Don’t gag, don’t gag, don’t gag.

Keara looked across the bed at the priestess. “Are you sure it won’t hurt me to touch him?”

“You walked through a containment field. I don’t think much of anything will hurt you.”

Maybe not physically, but when Thoren left it would break her heart.

Enough moping. She had a healing to attend.

Tentatively Keara reached her hand through the containment field surrounding the boy, garnering a raised eyebrow and a half-smile from Annaliese. Cold seeped through her skin wherever she touched the field. A shudder shook her spine. Her fingers brushed the boy’s skin, softly so as not to cause more bruising. Heat rushed into her fingers from his skin, darting through her veins, burning at the cold of the field.

She wanted to pull away from the heat, instead she concentrated on drawing the illness up from her fingers into her body. Heat raced up her arm as far as the containment field and then stopped, only small tendrils snaked past the field. How was she supposed to heal, if the illness went no higher than her elbow?

Gritting her teeth, Keara concentrated on drawing the sickness past the containment field but couldn’t. Heat built in her forearm and hand, pulsing in time with her heart. What did she do now? Ask for the containment field to be dropped? Disperse the illness?

Wait. What had Aryana said to her about dispersing the magic from a male’s Change? Didn’t she say that the priestesses threw the magic away? That there were special urns for that purpose?

Keara’s gaze darted around the room. Maybe one of those urns rested in here. There. By the brazier. A bronze urn.

Pulling her hand out of the containment field, she aimed it at the urn and released the energy. Zap, bang! The urn flew a foot in the air and landed with a clatter, firing sparks of energy into the ceiling.

Good thing the containment field over the room held in magical outbursts.

Annaliese raised an eyebrow. “Try not to destroy the room.”

“Sorry.”

Keara stuck both hands through the field, resting her fingertips lightly on the boy’s arm. Closing her eyes, she imagined the illness drawing toward her fingertips, running out of the boy’s veins. Her hands pulsed with heat, her forearms turning red with mottling. Yanking her hands free, she aimed them at the urn and zapped it again. This time it shattered, pieces flying toward her.

She ducked, throwing her arms over her head, but she didn’t feel the pieces hit. Raising her head in small movements, she stared at the bronze pieces hovering in mid-air.

“You’re lucky I have practice stopping shattered items.”

Wasn’t that the truth? Without Annaliese, the urn particles would have sliced through her skin. Keara shivered. Annaliese flicked her hand and the pieces joined to reform the urn.

“What do you normally do when you heal?”

“I normally draw it into my body and change it, but I can’t draw the illness past the containment field.”

“Then I will place you and him in the field and see what happens.”

Narrowing her eyes, Annaliese stared intently at the field until it started to expand. With another ear-popping snap, the field swallowed Keara, hovering around her. This close the smell of death assailed her nostrils and she clamped a hand over her mouth. Would the boy even live?

Ah, the red mottling seemed like it lessened where she had touched. Yes! She was helping.

This time when she touched the boy, the heat poured through her, circling in her veins, pounding against her skull. She let go and shook her hands. Her red mottled hands. Her breath caught, and for a split second, she felt fear ice her veins.

But why should she fear? She’d done something like this a million times.

Just never with an illness this serious, but it was the same concept. Wasn’t it?

At least the boy’s mottling looked better. Not as angry. Like a mild sunburn. Much better.

His skin felt cooler too, the heat slackening. Lids scrunched, Keara concentrated on drawing more of the illness into her, on transforming the boy’s illness inside her into something innocuous. But no matter how hard she tried, nothing changed, except the red mottling in her skin disappeared. The boy’s skin remained the same.

She tried again, this time touching his other arm. Still nothing. Since when could she not draw an illness into herself? The tightly curled ball of magic deep inside her creaked, a tendril slipping out. Her hand smoked.

And she’d been doing so well holding it together.

The containment field felt cold to her heated skin as she pushed through it, stepping beside Annaliese.

“I couldn’t fix him.” A bolt of magic shot out of her hand, bouncing off the wall.

Keara and Annaliese ducked and the energy bolt slammed into the urn, clanging it into the wall. Annaliese glanced at the urn.

“Well, it held together. You need to work on—”

“I know, I know. Keep my magic inside. But I couldn’t heal him.” Tears pressed against the back of her eyes and she dashed her fingers under them. Apparently, the lack of magical control brought on a crying fit. Lovely. And the poor boy remained ill.

Annaliese walked to the child’s bed, peering through the containment field. “He looks better.” She reached a hand through, resting it against the boy’s forehead. “He feels cooler too.”

The boy coughed, a deep hacking noise, and blood seeped out the side of his mouth. Annaliese wiped at the blood with a cloth lying on the bed.

“Well, that cough hasn’t changed, but I’d say overall he’s improving. How do you draw the illness into yourself?”

Keara leaned against the wall and sank to the floor, resting her arms on her knees. For some reason, this healing didn’t make her as tired as they usually did. Maybe because she didn’t really heal the boy. Or maybe it had to do with her powers being unlocked. Despite the lack of normal post-healing tiredness, her recent experiences left her weak. Sitting sounded like a good idea.

“I don’t know. But it works the same with cuts and bruises too.”

“Do you become ill?”

“Never have before, but in there,” Keara pointed at the bed, “my forearms turned red and mottled like his. But I imagined the redness disappearing so they’re back to normal.”

Annaliese tilted her head and pierced Keara with an eyes-narrowed stare. As if Keara was prey and the priestess the hunter.

“Where did you say you were from?”

What did that have to do with anything? “River’s Run in Cautasia.”

Annaliese grunted and pressed her lips together. “My mother had that ability. It’s very rare.”

Keara shrugged. So she was an aberration in Draconia too. Nothing new. But if taking an illness into herself and changing it was rare, she could only imagine how her other ability would be perceived.