These three stripped her to the skin, indifferent to the agony of her shoulder, and brutally searched her. Then one by one, they raped her with the same brutality and indifference. By that time, she was nearly senseless with shock and pain, and it hardly seemed to matter. It was just one more torture. She couldn’t even concentrate enough to use her Gift to defend herself, and when she’d tried feebly to fight back, the one using her had knocked her head against the stone floor so hard she was barely conscious.

When they had finished with her they hauled her to her feet by one arm, and threw her into a dirt-floored, stone-walled cell, then tossed what was left of her bloodstained clothing in behind her. It was the cold that finally roused her, cold that chilled her and made her shake uncontrollably, and awoke her lacerated shoulder to new pain. She roused enough then to crawl to where they’d tossed her things and pull them on over her abused flesh.

Not surprisingly, nothing had been done about the wound in her shoulder, which continued to bleed sluggishly.

I’ve—got to do something—she thought, through the pain and cold clouding her mind,—got to—get it out.

She got a firmer grip on reality; thought she remembered that the arrows she’d seen the guards carrying had had leafpoints. Right— She steeled herself against the inevitable, got a good grip on what was left of the slippery, blood-soaked shaft, and pulled.

It came free—she passed out briefly as it did. When her vision cleared, she bound the wound with one hand using a scrap from her shredded shirt as a bandage, and hoped that this would at least stem the blood loss.

Selenay. Elspeth. She had to warn the Queen—

That goad was driving her past the point where she should have collapsed, and continued to drive her. She had to warn the others. For that she must stay aware—and alive, much as she longed to die. She curled in on herself, forcing herself into trance, driving herself regardless of the pain of her brutalized body. With this much pain behind it, even she should be able to reach the Border.

But she met with the same wall that had protected the Prince from her probe. She battered herself against it like a wild bird against the bars of a cage, and with as much effect. There were no cracks, no weak points in it. Try as she might, she could not reach her Mindcall past it. Weeping with bitter pain and tortured frustration, she gave up, and lay in a hopeless huddle on the floor in the darkness.

There was no way of telling how long she lay there before an anomalous sound roused her from a nightmare of shock, pain, and confused grief. She listened again. It was the sound of someone whispering.