SINGING THE HEALING 
Monsters, tombs, a Rider in ancient garb, torture, and Blackveil cycled through Karigan’s dreams. Her brief interludes of waking were no less nightmarish, her consciousness overlain by shadows and dominated by pain. In bouts of panic, she felt that she must get up, get up and—and do something. King Zachary. She had to get him away from Second Empire. Then she’d fall into a restless sleep again with dreams full of blood and disaster, Nyssa and her whip of vipers.
Periodically, songs of peace would roll over her, and all the troubling visions, and even the pain, would dissipate for a time. She was quite certain the words were Eltish, and yet she seemed to understand, or perhaps she merely dreamed it all.
From the bones of the earth beneath,
Along the rivers that flow
through root, branch, and leaf,
Rising into the air of the sky,
Into the cleansing fire of the stars . . .
She imagined some power of the Earth rising through her, building as it rushed through her blood and continued onward into the heavens. It made her feel lighter, until Nyssa reappeared and the lash fell once again.
• • •
She cried out and jerked awake. As before, everything was a hazy veil around her. The pain washed over her anew. What was the hour? The tent walls were bright enough that it was daytime. The same day as her earlier awakening? Or, a day later? The thought that it could be a day later brought on the panic and she tried to rise.
“Easy, Galadheon,” Enver said. He was sitting beside her.
“How much time have I lost? Since my last awakening?”
“It has been only a few hours.”
Could he be lying? Telling her that just to placate her?
He placed his hand against her forehead, and then her cheek. His touch was cool and the tension went out of her muscles.
“You should drink,” he said, “especially with the fever.”
He helped her sip from his flask of cordial, which cooled her without chilling her; then he switched to water. It was not easy to drink, she just did not feel like it. He encouraged her with quiet words.
“I need to go to the Lone Forest,” she said.
“I know. Resupplying your body with fluids is important for you to be able to do so.”
The urgency was building within her once again. “Yes, but—”
“Galadheon, it has not even been two full turnings of the Earth.” He described how he’d been treating her with oils, herbs, and salves to fight corruption of the wounds, and to ease her pain. He said, “We have been singing the healing, even Lady Estral, whose voice has begun to deteriorate.”
“Oh, no,” Karigan murmured.
“You must come to an accord with the healing of your body. You will be weak for a time, and it may be that, due to the deep injuries to your back, you will find it difficult to do all you did before.”
Her sword work. “Permanently?”
“I do not know. You are young and in otherwise good health. It could be you will find new ways of completing old tasks.”
He was being very careful in his wording, which made it all somehow worse. The darkness in her mind only grew deeper, and the only piece of sanity she could cling to, to keep herself from going under, was her need to return to the Lone Forest and retrieve both King Zachary and Lord Fiori. She would do it if it was the last thing she ever did.
She must have dozed off, for Enver was suddenly gone. The heaviness, the darkness, descended on her once again. All seemed so bleak and gray, but then soft footfalls padded alongside her and a soft furry body plopped beside her face and started purring.
“Hello, Whiskers,” she murmured.
His fur smelled of the cold air and a sunny rock, and of an indefinable cat spice. It hurt to lift her hand and reach up to pet him, but when she did so, she was rewarded with even louder purrs.
She’d been hurt before, injuries inflicted during clashes with enemies, but never had they been so systematically applied. She’d been made to feel as helpless as possible, unable to defend herself. Nyssa ensured she’d had no control over the situation. Though Nyssa had demanded information, Karigan knew it was only a pretense. She’d seen the look in Nyssa’s eyes, that she enjoyed the torture for the power she held over others. She liked inflicting pain just for the sake of it.
I did not give away the king’s presence, Karigan tried to tell herself, but Nyssa’s voice came into her head, I did not care. Any illusion that Karigan had maintained some vestige of control by withholding information evaporated. A small cry passed her lips, and Mister Whiskers’ purrs grew louder, more resonant. He licked the sweat from her brow with his rough tongue, then settled down again next to her face. More soft footfalls entered the tent, and a small warm body snuggled against her leg. Midnight added her purr to Mister Whiskers’, and perhaps it was their own form of singing the healing. While they were with her, she did not lapse into dreadful memories of Nyssa and her whip.
• • •
When Nyssa did return to Karigan’s dreams, it was King Zachary who was chained to the beam. Only, King Zachary was Cade. She tried to reach for him, crawl to him, but he was always too far away and she was held back by a web of knotted yarn that burned where it touched her. She had nothing with which to slash it.
King Zachary, with Cade’s face, turned to look at her. “You left me behind.”
Nyssa’s lash fell.
• • •
She awakened with a gasp. Sweat dripped into her eye and stung.
“Karigan?” This time it was Estral who sat beside her, her journal and pen in hand. Enver’s muna’riel emitted a gentle glow for her to see by. It was night. “Bad dream, eh?”
“One of many. Sometimes I can’t tell what’s real and what’s not.”
“How are you feeling otherwise?” Estral asked. “Any, er, improvement?”
“Hard to say.” Her whole body was still blanketed by pain, but she did feel slightly more clear-headed.
“Well, Enver is out doing whatever it is that he does, and he instructed me to make sure you drink, and to offer you some broth. Do you think you could handle that?”
“Don’t know.”
Estral gave her a skin of water to drink from, and stepped out to retrieve the broth. When she returned, she said, “Enver thinks this will help you regain your strength.”
Karigan sniffed the contents of the mug Estral presented. It did not smell disagreeable.
“The gryphons went hunting and brought back a wild goose. They shared.”
A sign of spring, Karigan thought, if geese were to be found in the north. She raised herself on her elbows and stirred the broth with the spoon Estral provided. Chunks of meat swirled in the liquid. When a spoonful cooled enough to be tasted, she determined that, under different circumstances, she’d probably drink it right down. After a few spoonfuls, she pushed the mug aside and rested.
“Can’t you please try to eat more?” Estral asked.
“Not right now.”
“If you don’t try, you won’t regain your strength to help the king and my father.”
“I’ll try again later.” When she gazed up at her friend, she saw that her eyes had dark circles beneath them and that there were bruises on her face. Her expression was drawn with worry. “Truly, I’ll try again.”
Estral nodded slowly. “Do you promise?”
“Yes.” It was tiring just to talk, but she asked, “Are you doing all right?”
Estral blinked in surprise. “You’re asking me?”
“Yes.”
Estral placed her face in her hands as if to weep, but then she looked back up and folded them on her lap. “I am out of tears, completely dried up.”
“Perhaps you need broth, as well.”
“Karigan G’ladheon, I wish, sometimes, you’d stop being so damnably you.”
Estral did not swear often, which lent more weight to her words.
“I’m sorry?”
“Even when we were in school, you were like this, standing up to the bullies. Now it’s—it’s—” She waved her arms about in futile explanation. “More extreme. You just do these things, and now that I’ve actually seen you do what you do, I wish you’d just stop it.”
Karigan closed her eyes. In her condition, it was difficult enough to make sense of straightforward sentences. “You don’t want me to tell off bullies?”
“Oh, Karigan, you have no idea, do you?”
“About what? I’m having trouble following. So tired.” Her words were met with silence. She opened her eye to see that Estral still sat beside her with head bowed.
“You do know, don’t you,” Estral said, “that not just anyone would go running after me into the Lone Forest?”
“You’re my friend,” Karigan said. “Of course I would.”
“You knew it was dangerous, but you went anyway. You were hurt horribly as a result. You should have left me.”
“I would never—”
“And you still want to go back.”
“The king and your father are—”
“Most people,” Estral said, “after what you’ve been through, would leave such a rescue to someone else.” She then listed several of Karigan’s acts—her rescue of the then Lady Estora, jumping into a river to save Fergal Duff, going into Blackveil. She finished with, “It’s—it’s just too much.”
“Well, when you list it all like that, it does sound rather mad.” Karigan started to drowse, the waking world becoming a distant twilight. “I’m sorry,” she murmured.
“And now you’re the one apologizing when I owe you everything. Why do you have to be the hero all the time? I am not sure I know who you are anymore . . . or what you are.”
Karigan tried to shake herself awake for Estral was clearly agitated. It took great effort. “I know it’s not normal, but I’m still me.”
After several moments of silence, Estral said, “Oh, gods. I’m sorry. That was a terrible thing for me to say. It came out all wrong. I just can’t believe . . . It’s hard. Your back, and all of it. Why must it always be you? I hate that these things happen to you, especially when the latest is all my fault.”
“Nyssa’s fault,” Karigan muttered. She was too tired to offer further comfort.
“I hope you can forgive me, and I’m sorry for carrying on like this. It’s not what you need.” Estral paused. “I did want to tell you that I am probably leaving in the morning.”
This woke Karigan up enough to ask, “What? Where?”
“Enver wants me to ride Mist to the River Unit for reinforcements.”
“That’ll take too long,” Karigan replied.
“I know, and my father is so close. I don’t want to go.”
An image came unsummoned to Karigan of a pale cat sitting beside her with a message tube attached to its collar. Was this some fancy, some whimsical detail out of one of the novels she liked to read? Or, was it memory?
“Send a cat,” she told Estral, and finally she let go, slipping into a deep slumber.