But Straum was an experienced dragon, and he had really big claws and a tail, as well as one of his children to guard him. Not to mention Ryslind himself, standing over there with those glowing eyes and all of Straum’s magic at his command. At one time those eyes had frightened Jig. After seeing Shadowstar, he found them an annoyance, no more. He wanted to run over and pull tiny curtains over Ryslind’s face.

“The rock overhead is almost a quarter of a mile thick.” Straum’s wings flapped in a quick, small movement. A nervous twitch? The sound reminded Jig of rugs being shaken clean.

“I’ll need enough room to flap my wings. At least thirty paces wide. Once I’m free, you may help yourselves to anything you like from these walls.” He shifted his weight from one pair of legs to the other. “Begin.”

Are you ready?

“Yes.” The voice in his head had startled him into answering aloud. Luckily everyone’s eyes were on Barius. Nobody noticed the discarded goblin in the corner.

I feel bloated, Jig complained. The magic had filled his body while he watched the others. All stuffed up and constipated.

Please stop. Shadowstar sounded disgusted. You’ll get used to it. For now, what you want to do is place your hands over the worst injury. That would be the place where your spine takes a right-angle turn, right below the sternum.

I know, Jig thought, annoyed. He touched the part of his chest that bulged worst. As long as he didn’t think of it as a part of his body, he could keep from throwing up.

You’ll have to push the bones down as the magic works.

Gross. Why does healing have to be so disgusting?

Why do goblins have to be so fragile? Next time you’ll know better than to stand in the way of a dragon’s tail. Now when you press down, imagine the magic inside of you flowing through your hands and into the spine. You need to visualize the flow.

The only thing flowing out of Jig’s hands was sweat. So he used that. He imagined the magic seeping through his sweat and oozing into his chest.

Strange, but it’ll do, was Shadowstar’s reaction.

Overhead, illuminated by the blue glow of the walls, a circular hole began to recede into the ceiling while the displaced stone formed a ring along the outside. Barius clutched the rod in both hands. His entire body had gone rigid with concentration. Everyone watched as the hole began to grow.

That was good, because it meant they still hadn’t noticed Jig’s struggle to put his bones back into place. The pain really wasn’t too bad. True, Jig had never felt anything this excruciating, but he was sure there had to be something that could hurt more. He simply couldn’t imagine what it might be.