“Not much I can tell. Told you about the mindblock. Same mage kept Ancar shielded. Hulda shielded herself, I think. She looked physically about twenty-five years old. Could have been illusion, but don’t think so. She’s old enough to have been actually Ancar’s nurse—makes her at least forty. Saw her make a witchtight—” Talia pulled her bandaged hand away from Dirk’s for a moment, and pulled her loose gown away from her shoulder. Selenay and Elspeth gasped, and the Seneschal bit back an exclamation at what was revealed there—a handprint, burned into the flesh of her chest as if with a branding iron. “She did that, while they were—playing with me. Just laid her hand there, casually. Like it was easy as breathing. Rumors were they can do worse; lots worse.”

The four Healers were beginning to look drawn; even with their aid, Talia was visibly fading.

“Tired—” she said, begging with her eyes for a rest.

“We’ve got enough to go on for now,” Selenay looked to each of the others and they nodded in confirmation. “We can get our defenses organized, at least. Rest, my brave one.”

She led the others out; one by one the Healers disengaged themselves. As they did, Talia seemed to wilt, and more than a little. Devan caught Dirk’s shoulder before he had a chance to panic.

“She’ll live; she just needs rest and a chance to heal,” he said wearily. “And she’s going to get at least some of both right now—if I have to post guards to keep people out!”

Dirk nodded, and returned to her side. She opened her eyes with an effort.

“Love—you—” she whispered.

“My own—” His throat closed for a moment, and he fought down a renewal of tears. “I’m going to leave you for a while; Devan says you need rest. But I’ll be back as soon as he lets me!”

“Make it—soon—”

He left, walking backward; she keeping her eyes on him until the door closed.

As Alberich had suspected would be the case, when dawn came, the bivouac on the Border as well as the smaller collection of Councillors and officials at the Keep were in an uproar. Units of the Guard—heartbreakingly small—arrived every hour. Tales, more or less garbled, of what had occurred the previous night were spreading like oil from a shattered urn, and were just as potentially flammable. Talia slept in an induced Healing-trance, blissfully unaware of the confusion.