He stepped over the traitor. “Knight-Commander,” he said. “Come and help me.”

“What you do?” asked one of the Pargunese lords in Common.

“Try to save him,” Kieri said. The king’s eyes were almost closed, but focusing on Kieri. “Breathe,” Kieri said, as he would have to one of his soldiers. “Don’t stop.” He slit the king’s doublet, the winter shirt, the undershirt, and cursed himself for not insisting the king wear mail. The wound in his side was clearly poisoned, already discolored; dark blood flowed out.

“Cannot. Is death wound,” the Pargunese lord said.

“Be quiet and breathe,” Kieri said, to the king. The Knight-Commander knelt at the king’s head; he and Kieri locked eyes. “Knight-Commander, I ask Falk’s aid for this brave man, a king, who has fought for honor—”

“Yes. I will pray—do whatever you plan—”

“I hope the gods will give me healing for him.”

Kieri put his hand on the wound, as Paks had done for him. He had no idea what she had done or how; they had never talked about it. He had thought it beyond anything he would ever do or need to understand. He felt nothing at first but the hot blood, and the heart beating somewhere inside. Then, slowly, something nudged, pushed, urged him to—to what? He tried to understand, but it was not words or thoughts he could follow, just a feeling that this hand had to move, had to—He stared at the elven dagger he now held, his grandmother’s coronation gift.

“No!” One of the Pargunese lords lunged at him, but two King’s Squires stopped the man.

Kieri concentrated … lay the dagger so … let his desire flow down his arm into it … Let him live. Let him live. A shaft of white light shot up from the dagger’s jeweled hilt, then reversed, glowing for an instant in the wound itself. The king cried out, jerked, and something dark flew out of the wound and landed clinking on the floor: the blade’s tip. Bright blood flowed around the elven dagger, then stopped … and Kieri had a sickening view of the wound closing, the gaping flesh pulling together, layer by layer, the blood flow slowing … stopping … and the skin closing over it.

Kieri felt a great exhaustion settle on him, almost like that he had felt at Aliam’s, and yet different. His vision darkened; he did not realize at first that his light had failed at last.

He looked around, blinking. The Pargunese lords huddled together; the one who had stabbed the traitor dropped his sword. It clattered on the inn’s wooden floor. Elis still held her brother’s arm. The Pargunese guards and Halverics still faced one another, tense and worried.

“You … saved me.” The king lifted his arm and looked at his blood-streaked side. “How—?”

“Better gods than yours saved you,” Kieri said. His head hurt; he felt dizzy. “And my grandmother’s dagger.”

“Elf-made?” The king looked scared.

“Yes.” Kieri’s head swam; he tried to push himself up and instead nearly fell over. Strong arms clasped him from behind.