Sovereign Night: A Fantasy Mystery Novel: Gael & Keir, #2

By J.M. Ney-Grimm

What dark secret lurks within the Glorious Citadel at the heart of the city-state Hantida?

 

Gael, an illicit mage, hunts redemption with Keir, a healer who helps all who cross her path. Gael loves her loyalty to her calling—and to him—but knows that mere friendship must suffice.

 

Together, the two seek a cure for the affliction that not only erodes their bodies and minds, but keeps them apart. The magical lodestone that holds their salvation lies hidden in the Glorious Citadel where the city-state's sovereign dwells.

 

Posing as physician and physician's aide, hired to preside over entertainments hosted within the Glorious Citadel, they find their quest for healing entangled with the corrupt and deadly undercurrents spiraling among the courtiers and servitors of the palatial stronghold.

 

The trail of clues—a would-be assassin startled from the shadows, twin handmaidens stealing from the library by night, and heavily-armed warriors called reavers smuggling kidnapped victims into the citadel precincts after sundown—leads toward the ancient artifact they need, but also to the risk of a horrific death.

 

Both Gael and Keir must learn honesty about who they love, who they hate, and who merits their championship, or lose not only each other but life itself.

 

Sovereign Night is the suspenseful second novel in the Gael & Keir epic fantasy series. If you like vivid characters, high-stakes mystery, and immersive world-building, then you'll love J.M. Ney-Grimm's riveting adventure tale.

 

Buy Sovereign Night to discover the real treasure at the labyrinth's heart today!

About the Author

J.M. Ney-Grimm lives with her husband and children in Virginia, just east of the Blue Ridge Mountains. She's learning about permaculture gardening and debunking popular myths about food. The rest of the time she reads Robin McKinley, Diana Wynne Jones, and Lois McMaster Bujold, plays boardgames like Settlers of Catan, rears her twins, and writes stories set in her troll-infested North-lands. Look for her novels and novellas at your favorite bookstore—online or on Main Street.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J.M. Ney-Grimm
• Release date: Dec 30, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393709848

J.M. Ney-Grimm

J.M. Ney-Grimm lives with her husband and children in Virginia, just east of the Blue Ridge Mountains. She's learning about permaculture gardening and debunking popular myths about food. The rest of the time she reads Robin McKinley, Diana Wynne Jones, and Lois McMaster Bujold, plays boardgames like Settlers of Catan, rears her twins, and writes stories set in her troll-infested North-lands. Look for her novels and novellas at your favorite bookstore—online or on Main Street.

Book preview

Sovereign Night

RECONNOITER HANTIDA

The Spider’s Foyer

Chapter One

The young boy leading them through the evening along one of Hantida’s roofed and lantern-lit walkways was tense.

Keir could see it in the set of his slight shoulders beneath the faded brown linen of his robe. She could see it in the tightness at the corner of his mouth, making a triangular dent in the dark roundness, like matte-black suede, of his still-soft boy’s cheek. It was evident in the restless swivel of his head, turning this way and that, probing the crowd of evening shoppers ahead, scanning the clog of rickshaws and sedan chairs in the dirt street to the left, and checking the column-fringed walkway on its far side. She could even hear his unease in the staccato clatter of his wooden sandals against the wide floorboards underfoot.

Keir wished she could reassure him.

But until she saw his sister, examined the severity and extent of the girl’s burns, Keir dared not utter easy promises that might prove false. If only she’d been summoned to attend the girl right away, she would feel more sanguine. She possessed resources—magical resources—that allowed her to succeed with patients beyond the help of less gifted healers.

But she and Gael had likely been just entering the city gates when this girl’s accident occurred. There’d been no chance for word of their coming to spread, or for word of need to get back to them.

Severe burns, neglected for days . . . there could be infection; there would be fever; and the patient would be weakened. Sometimes, even with the magical blessing of energea, a healer was just too late.

Keir trusted that she would not be too late this time. But she could not ease the boy’s anxiety.

His shiny black curls, tumbling down over the back of his neck, bounced with the vigor of his head turning. Keir noticed that he ignored the bright shop windows on the right, with their luxurious wares in view on polished shelves within, shutters folded back and rice paper screens slid aside.

All his attention was for the outdoors.

Abruptly, she understood that the boy’s tension had a source other than the worry he must feel for his sister.

Beneath the softness of the warm evening air, behind the glow shed by the red paper lanterns, and beyond the gay crowds lay an undefined menace. Something lay in wait. Something watched for an opportunity. Something hungered for prey.

Keir glanced aside to her companion. Did Gael feel it, too, that looming threat?

Her gaze found the back of his head, with his straight dark hair newly confined to the strange folded-over queue favored by the men of Hantida. Gael was scrutinizing the street.

Keir frowned, trying to pin down the true source of her unease. She didn’t believe in supernatural manifestations of evil—ghosts or haunts or disembodied spirits. If danger were present, then it had a physical source, most probably a human source.

She studied the throng.

Most of the people were wealthy, wearing bright silks, costly hair sticks ornamented with gems, and lacquered sandals featuring the tall double ‘teeth’ that raised their split-toed socks and the hems of their garments well above any dirt underfoot. Surely these men and women were too impractically garbed to pose a threat. And yet . . . Keir’s sense of something amiss did come from them.

She assessed those closest to her more carefully—all moving along the colonnade at a leisurely pace.

A few, after a startled glance at Keir’s pale face, steered a wide course around her. Others stepped closer to stare at her. But the reactions of a few to a foreigner in their midst were superficial disturbances.

Nearly all the Hantidans were beautiful—at least, Keir found them so—the dark skin of their faces smooth and matte-finished, the curve of their full lips graceful, the gloss of their dark hair lustrous. She and Gael would never really blend in, despite Gael’s adoption of the most popular men’s hairstyle, and despite the fact that they both wore the local side-fastened robes with asymmetric necklines. At least Gael was not quite the flaring torch that was Keir herself, blond, gray-eyed, and milk-pale complected.

She glanced at him again, and this time he was looking at her.

His olive complexion was browner than she’d known it back in the north, no doubt because of the stronger southern sun, but his skin was healthy and firm, which gave her joy. Lines no longer bracketed his hazel eyes or his firm-lipped mouth, as once they had. His aquiline nose was well-proportioned, also unlike when she’d first worked with him. The strong, square bones of his jaw remained unblurred.

He looked the man he ought to.

The treatment she’d administered back in Belzetarn—nearly eighteen moons ago now—was holding, praise Ionan. If only the lodestone she’d wielded—a rare and magical artifact from the ancient past—were still hers to use. But it wasn’t. That lodestone had been ruined.

She straightened her shoulders. That lodestone had been ruined, but at least one other existed. And it was located somewhere in this city. That was why she and Gael were here. If they could obtain it, she could heal Gael and every other individual afflicted with his malady.

Whatever she had to do to obtain this lodestone intact—she would do it.

Gael lifted an eyebrow at her extended scrutiny of him.

Keir felt a blush heating her face, but refused to be sidetracked. You feel it, don’t you?

It’s all around us, a wrongness, he answered. They spoke in their own tongue.

A puff of air escaped her nostrils as her lips flattened. These— she gestured abruptly —these decorous folk pose no risks. They’re no predators. They’re prey.

Precisely, Gael agreed, his voice dry.

Keir flushed again, this time at her own obtuseness. Of course. The wealthy shoppers of Hantida might hide it better than the boy guiding Gael and Keir, but they too were on edge, their smiles too quick, their eyes darting, their movements overly controlled.

What were they afraid of?

As Keir pondered this question, their guide reached the corner of the block and turned right, leading them along a continuation of the tile-roofed and be-lanterned colonnade. The crowd of strolling shoppers thinned somewhat, and stairways leading up to a balcony level above punctuated the array of unshuttered shop windows and open shop doors.

From somewhere, the twanging music of a lute mingled with the murmur of the ambling throng, the muffled clatter of their sandals, and the occasional call of a rickshaw man in the street. The sweet scent of jasmine wafted from the open doorway of an incense shop.

They walked for several blocks, traversing cross streets on the raised stepping stones characteristic of intersections in the wealthier precincts of Hantida. The continuing colonnade featured more and more residence entrances and fewer shop doors as they went, and the crowd thinned further. Shadowy stretches grew more frequent as the numbers of lanterns decreased.

Keir felt her forehead smoothing and her shoulders relaxing, as her sense of lurking menace ebbed. Simple darkness she could handle, which made her wonder if her earlier unease were due merely to her unfamiliarity with cities. She’d grown up in a tiny hamlet of reed huts, after all.

And yet . . . she liked Hantida—despite the few days that had passed since she and Gael had entered the city. The piquant upward curve of its roofs with their bright tiles charmed her. The array of goods to be purchased in its markets and shops made her feel like anything one could dream of could be obtained within Hantida’s walls. And the city’s bustle exhilarated her. She might be a rural rustic in her origins, but it wasn’t the city that intimidated her.

Beside her, Gael seemed even more vigilant than before, his eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared.

And the boy—his eyes darting to a brief uncharacteristic flicker of open flame far down the street—the boy had active alarm in his face as he whirled and hissed, Bakotuli! Reavers.

She found herself dragged into a narrow slot between two closed shops and hauled down to crouch behind an empty barrel stinking of fish. Gael, half-standing, peered over the barrel. What did he see?

Keir leaned to peak around the barrier and felt the boy next to her doing the same.

The colonnade and street were empty.

Where had everyone gone? There’d not been many present, but the place hadn’t been deserted as it was now. Keir started to inch forward, wanting a clearer view. A small, but strong hand fastened around her wrist—the boy’s hand—and yanked her back.

About to turn and question him, she paused at a flutter of movement across the way.

A row of one-story, wooden residences lined the opposite side of the street. No colonnade linked them, but the warm glow through their bamboo lattices and rice paper panels looked welcoming. A series of stoops marked the separate entrances, and at one of them a young woman emerged.

Her hair—dark and straight—hung past her hips. She wore a loose, side-fastened robe of pale golden silk over her slender form. The fabric glimmered a moment in the light escaping from some inner hallway. Keir caught just a glimpse of her face, smooth and dark like every Hantidan, but set and frowning. Then the door shut and the shadows closed in.

The young woman—really a girl—stretched and seemed to turn her face to the night sky. Then she straightened and glanced the way Keir and Gael had come.

Keir started forward and was stopped once again by the boy.

Shouldn’t we warn her? Keir murmured. She didn’t know what these reavers were, but clearly this girl remained unaware of danger approaching.

The boy muttered, Too late.

And then a rush of footsteps arrived from the other direction, along with the glare of fire on upheld cressets. The two cresset bearers wore short, flaring jackets over bloused breeches and boots. Their hair was restrained in the characteristic folded ponytail, one straight-haired, the other curly.

With them came four men in spiked bronze helmets and short, bronze scale coats sporting formidable shoulder panels. Black ribbons wove ominously through the scales of the armor.

The girl on the stoop spun, reaching for the latch that would let her back inside.

The foremost pair of the armored men rushed upon her, grabbed her by the arms, and slammed her up against the door, which gave forth a hollow booming.

Keir felt Gael surge forward.

Then the boy was positively hanging on his wrist, holding Gael back with the full measure of his boy weight. Keir didn’t doubt that Gael needed holding back. She dodged behind him to grab the other wrist, and hung on.

Gael jerked abortively once, and then settled back and down.

Keir wished they could help the girl on the stoop, too, but . . . goddess only knew what they would be tangling with if they did.

The guardsmen yanked their captive away from the door, manhandled her around to face them, and held her still as one of the cresset bearers lowered the flame toward her face. She emitted a strangled squawk.

Gael jerked forward again, but relaxed when the cresset bearer contented himself with merely illuminating the captive. The girl’s wide eyes leaked silent, scared tears.

One of the guardsmen swore. Malvat! She’s not accursed!

His fellow brandished a fist. We could make her so.

Idiot, muttered the cresset bearer. It doesn’t work that way.

It doesn’t always show, suggested the other cresset man. We could take her in. Have him check.

No, insisted the swearer. He needs a cursed one tonight. If she’s not, then . . . He gave the crying girl a shake. Get inside, he told her. Don’t you know better than to risk being out now?

The girl didn’t answer, but the guardsmen didn’t seem to care. He reached past her to the door latch, opened the door, and thrust her through. She stumbled, but then the door closed, shutting her from sight, and the posse of men went striding away up the street.

Keir let her breath go. Ionan! she grated. "What in Cayim’s hells was that?"

"Not here, physio-han," pleaded the boy.

Gael nodded. We can ask questions when we get there, he said. Likely the householders will know more anyway.

That was undoubtedly true, but Keir already knew she didn’t like it, whatever it was, whatever was behind this aborted arrest.

*     *     *

The boy made them wait a short interval before leading them out of the slot they’d sheltered in and down the street. Other pedestrians emerged from hiding more slowly, but the colonnade remained sparsely populated.

As they passed out of the shopping district altogether, the streets—now fully deserted and no longer lined by colonnades—lay in shadow, bereft of lanterns. Fortunately the moon was just rising above the ridgelines of the uptilted roofs, shedding welcome silver light on the modest house fronts with their latticed windows and solid doors or gates.

The boy’s pace quickened, and a moment later he was letting them through one of these gates into a miniscule graveled courtyard, sheltered by high tiled walls, ornamented by a row of bamboos in pots, and dimly illuminated by a stone lantern.

The boy clattered across a line of stepping stones, calling, Mama-han! Papa-han! Hurling himself through the entrance to the house, he left Keir and Gael trailing.

Keir exchanged a wry smile with Gael—this seemed more normal boyish behavior than the tense caution on display earlier. She took the high step up through the entrance, its door ajar in the wake of the boy’s passage, to the stone-floored vestibule within. A bench rested against one paneled wall, with a shoe shelf opposite. Beyond the bench, another step led up to a wooden floor and an open doorway.

The house looked to have the same arrangement that a thousand others in Hantida possessed. The front room on the street would have one or two middle chambers stacked directly behind it. The entrance courtyard and vestibule were tucked alongside the front room, but the main door entered one of the middle rooms. Behind the middle room would be a tiny enclosed garden, with a ceramic storehouse behind that. The whole configuration was very narrow, but deep—so much so that the local slang named these houses ‘eel beds.’

Keir sat down on the vestibule bench to struggle with her boot straps, while Gael went straight across, slipped out of his thonged leather sandals, and stepped up to the wooden flooring in his split-toed socks.

Keir grimaced to herself. Really, she should have adopted the local footgear when she adopted the local robes. All the doffing and donning of shoes made boots impractical. Except . . . she liked the solid feel of boots.

Lumalang,—good evening—called Gael to the empty inner entryway. May we enter?

A short, slight man with a shaved head appeared at the open doorway. The smooth black skin of his face and scalp was tight with tension and worry—was he the burned girl’s father?—and his eyes widened slightly when he marked his visitors. It was a normal reaction to Keir’s pallor. But he omitted none of the courtesies of greeting: bowing, placing slippers for his guests, and uttering the formal words of welcome, My home is blessed by your grace.

Gael had time to bow and give the correct response, Forgive my rudeness,—and then Keir’s boots were off. She bowed where she stood, paused for her host’s return bow, and then hurried into the provided slippers. The sooner she saw her patient, the better.

The wooden floor beyond the doorway proved to be a mere nook on the side of a large room covered in deep rush mats, which meant the slippers had to come off again, since one did not walk on the mats in anything but socks.

Keir almost kicked her slippers aside. She could hear a woman sobbing softly somewhere, along with murmurs from their guide, "Mama-han, I brought the physio-hama. She will make Suchi-han better, I promise. Mama-han, don’t cry." But beneath the boy’s reassurances came the whimpering moans of a child in desperate pain. Keir had never felt more impatient with the politeness of the Hantidans.

The girl’s father drew back a sliding door to reveal a smaller room with a girl, perhaps twelve years old, lying on layered quilts atop the floor matting. Her eyes were closed, her dark face clenched and sweating, and her long hair tumbled across her pillow in a tangled mess. She wore only undergarments—a light tunic and pants—and the left pant leg had been cut from ankle to nearly the waist, with the flaps of fabric laid back to display a pulpy mass of blisters and angry, weeping flesh on the thigh.

The girl’s mother knelt beside her daughter, sobbing into her sleeve, while her son awkwardly patted her shoulder. Keir hissed and lunged forward to kneel at the girl’s nearer side, scrutinizing the wound. Why hadn’t they bandaged it? It was vulnerable to all kinds of infection like this!

Keir allowed herself only one small head shake. There was little point in spending amazement on the ill-advised things patients and their families did or did not do. They were ill-informed and often did more harm than good with their own attempted treatments. Never mind. Keir would do her best for this child, and Keir’s best . . . had been known to accomplish a lot.

Settling herself more straightly over her shins and ankles, she closed her eyes and prepared herself to examine the burn wound energetically—magically, as the ignorant would say. Breathing in slowly, she allowed her crown to lift while her hips dropped, bringing a more gentle curve to her spine. Breathing out even more slowly, she relaxed her hands on her thighs, palm up.

She could hear Gael’s voice, low and kind, asking questions, getting names, learning the history of the accident. She and he made a good team. They’d been healing their way across the continent for the last year and a half, and had grown practiced in divvying up the tasks.

On her next in-breath, she opened her inner sight, controlling her wince at what she saw.

The silver arc of the energea curving through the girl’s thigh possessed scarlet edges, which was dangerous. And the multiple energetic spirals connecting that arc to the flesh of the thigh were curled too tightly and glowed crimson, a few nearest the surface so dark as to seem black.

The blackened spirals meant dead flesh, the crimson meant dying.

Keir resisted the tension that wanted to creep into her shoulders. This girl might lose her leg, but if Keir were going to save the limb energetically, she must stay loose to do it.

With the peculiar, yet familiar internal reach that marked energetic healing, Keir drew on the energea of her own heart node, sending sparks of green flowing down the silver arcs of her arms, through the demi-node in her palms, and out through her fingertips. As the spray of green light washed the girl’s thigh arc, its scarlet edges faded to pale rose, then white, and then their proper silver.

Keir felt the relaxation in her shoulders grow more natural with relief. That the girl’s thigh arc could be restored to its normal color was an excellent sign, although there remained a good deal of healing work yet to accomplish—work that would take its own toll on Keir.

She continued her energetic lavage, directing the stream of sparking green through the tightly curled spirals of the girl’s flesh, washing the crimson brighter and lighter: to scarlet, to pale rose, to white, to silver. A half dozen of the darkest refused to brighten, which Keir had expected with a burn this severe. It would cost the girl some pain, but it would not cost her her leg. Or her life.

Keir scrutinized the full energetic array within the girl’s thigh. Its main arc lay in its correct shallow curve and gleamed a healthy silver. The majority of the spirals curling off of it had released their tightness and also shone silver. Keir’s work was good.

She allowed the flow of her energea to cease, took a last calming breath, and opened her eyes.

The girl’s wound still looked a mess—fat blisters and weeping flesh—but it would, until the next stage of treatment was completed. The wound was familiar ground to Keir, but the room was not.

The reality of the space in which she knelt pressed forcefully upon her senses.

The grassy herbal scent of the rush matting was intense, although a hint of citrusy lemongrass threaded through it—incense, perhaps? But the give of the mats beneath Keir’s shins was comfortable, and the mellow lantern light on the wall panels and the rice paper sliding screens was soothing. The girl’s mother had stopped crying, but the girl’s moans were louder and more continuous. Partially healed flesh hurt more than nearly dead flesh, unfortunately.

The muffled step of socks on matting sounded behind Keir and she glanced over her shoulder to see Gael stepping through the opening from the larger room.

He nodded reassuringly. I’ve explained to Marou-han—Desh-han, he corrected himself, what needs to be done. We’ve set up for it in the garden. And— Gael broke off as the girl’s father entered the room on Gael’s heels.

The man went directly to his wife and son, urging them to their feet.

Come, come, he said, Avya-chan, Tanas-chan. In here. He slid aside another rice paper screen and gestured them into the mat-floored room there.

Gael knelt at Keir’s side. Poor child, he murmured, looking at the moaning girl’s clenched face, her eyes screwed shut. Four days ago, he said to Keir.

The household had boiling water? Keir asked.

Indeed, a stockpot full, Gael answered. It’s been moved to the garden, along with the other things, and I’ve cooled it to tepid for you.

Keir felt her lips tightening. There was only one way to cool boiling water so quickly, and she didn’t like Gael using energea for anything other than absolute necessity. It would wear on the treatment by which she had restored him to health back in Belzetarn. I wish you hadn’t, she said.

Gael smiled at her, his eyes warm. Keir loved that smile of his.

Actually, I tried something new, he said.

She raised a questioning brow.

I made Desh-han set out every clean vessel the house possesses, and then we dipped a skimming of water into each one. It cools surprisingly fast that way.

Keir found herself grinning. Of course Gael would apply the same efficiency that he’d used back at Belzetarn in the weapons forges and his tally chamber to the discipline of healing.

The girl’s father stepped back through the opening to the other room, sliding the rice paper screen closed behind him. Avya and Tanas will stay there. I’ve warned them—he grimaced and looked worriedly at his daughter—I’ve warned them that Suchi may scream. Gael-han explained that the next part is painful.

Indeed. Keir wished she could ameliorate the pain energetically, the way she might if the wound were smaller and less severe.

With a nod, she rose to her feet. Yes, I’m sorry. Have you the fortitude to bear it, Desh-han?

The man swallowed. It seems wrong to leave Suchi with strangers in the moment of her extremity, he said. I will not interfere with the treatment, Keir-han. I promise.

Good, said Keir. Will you allow us to carry her to the garden? Or would you prefer to do so yourself?

Desh bowed. Please, I’m sure you will move her more skillfully than I.

Gael did not wait upon further permission, but slid his arms beneath Suchi, one supporting her head, shoulders, and back, the other beneath her knees. Her burned leg was on the side away from Gael, the burn wound untouched.

Gael rose smoothly to his feet.

The girl seemed not to notice that she now lay in a stranger’s arms, still lost in the agony of her burned limb.

Her father led the way back through the large reception room, through a sliding screen at its far end that opened onto a wooden walkway surrounding three sides of a small green space.

Short palms and evergreens occupied the corners of the garden amidst a sea of low-growing plants with broad leaves. A winding path of flagstones crossed the garden, passing a heavy millstone over which a bamboo pipe poured water, and beyond which lay a patch of moss. On the moss were arranged a patched quilt, a cauldron of water, and a ewer.

Gael carried Suchi directly to the quilt and gently laid her down. She moaned softly. You may hold her hand, he told her father.

Desh gulped and knelt on the quilt beside his daughter.

Gael filled the ewer from the cauldron, taking up a station opposite the burned leg.

Keir sat crosslegged beside the wound.

I’d prefer to remove her pant leg, Desh-han she said.

He nodded his permission.

Keir pulled a small folding knife from a pocket in her robe and lengthened the slit already present in the garment, cutting all the way down to the ankle. Then she pulled it out from under Suchi’s leg, carefully, and cut the linen away.

Keir took a breath. You understand that I will not touch the wound with my hands? she said.

Desh nodded again, strain on his face.

Good, she said. Then we’ll begin.

As she closed her eyes to begin her centering breaths, Keir saw Desh tighten his grip on his daughter’s hand. And then she was drawing on the energea of her crown node, a flow of prickly violet light that she directed down through her brow and throat nodes and out through her fingertips, slicing at the blackened spirals in Suchi’s thigh.

Suchi screamed, a high, thin sound that meant the pain was too great to permit a full-throated roar.

Keir hated it when she had to hurt a patient. She wished that all healing led to comfort and ease immediately. Sometimes it did. But not this time, not for a burn that needed debriding.

To her inner sight, the process looked almost beautiful, a play of light: the silver of the healthy arcs, the crimson black of the dead arcs, and the violet of Keir’s own energea. But as she sliced those blackened arcs away, the sight visible to outer eyes would not be so pretty. Shreds of dead skin and dead flesh would be separating from the healthy flesh, to be washed away by pouring water.

And, yes, there was the spray of moisture as Gael poured from the ewer.

Between two of Suchi’s screams, Keir heard her father praying in desperate murmurs, Dragon Lord, Empumalanga, save her, preserve her, oh, please, let her live!

The scent of the putrid flesh—rank, but with a sickening sweetness—rose to Keir’s nostrils.

She ignored it, slicing and slicing until all the blackened spirals were gone.

Suchi’s screams had changed to whistling gasps, but relief was coming, thank Ionan.

Keir switched the flow of her energea, drawing from her plexial node, directing a stream of pale green light to wash Suchi’s leg from groin to knee. The girl’s gasps changed to sobs, no doubt from relief as the searing pain of the debridement gave way to the soothing effect of the plexial lavage.

Keir kept it up until she felt herself tiring. She possessed a lot of stamina as a healer, but even she could not continue indefinitely. This would have to be enough.

She stopped on the out-breath and opened her eyes.

The wound . . . was not a wound anymore, although the healed flesh bore a mottled appearance. Smooth black skin covered the patches that had been burned brick red. Slightly shiny brown skin covered the areas that had oozed skinless. The new skin would be tender for a deichtain—a ten-day—and regain its normal pigmentation over a longer span of time, several moons.

Keir looked up to her patient’s face.

Suchi was staring at her wonderingly, tears still wet on her cheeks, but her expression free of suffering and tension. Although . . . was there something . . . strange?

Keir smiled.

Suchi smiled.

And then Keir registered the strange thing, recognized it, knew it for what it was. Dear Ionan, no! Suchi was a troll. A troll, like Keir herself. A troll, like Gael.

*     *     *

Gael rotated his shoulders surreptitiously as Suchi’s sobs quieted. He wondered if he would ever grow accustomed to the pain that healing sometimes entailed. Certainly the eighteen moons that he’d been assisting Keir hadn’t been enough to strengthen his nerves.

Keir seemed quite calm in the face of patient pain. But Keir had started training under her physician father when she was only sixteen, and now had