Kieri heard Arian give the orders for a basin, for hot water, her voice steady. He thought of the blood on her clothes—was she in danger? He tried to ask; she put her hand over his. “My clothes were riddled with holes like yours,” she said, “but I had not so much as a scratch.” She took her hand away and moved back as the Kuakkgani went to work.

He felt peculiar lying there and doing nothing, but he found it hard to summon the energy to speak. He could not feel whatever the Kuakkgani were doing to his back and shoulder. Shadows crowded his mind, as they had at Midwinter, visions of death and dissolution. Then Arian’s living face appeared in his sight, and her warm live hand touched his face, stroked his forehead. As before, he clung to her—the hope of her and the reality of her. A sharp, clean smell came to his nostrils, the scent of a forest in winter, firs and spruce and pine. Some errant current of thought wandered from firs to Paksenarrion—from Three Firs, he remembered—and he remembered how she had healed him … after a Kuakgan healed her.

The dark shadows and portents faded, replaced by visions of a crackling fire, Arian’s face, Paksenarrion’s face, and the sound of humming. Humming? He felt his body now, felt the bones within, the blood running through his veins, his heart steadily beating, the air moving in and out of his lungs. The humming seemed to be within and without, and his awareness of himself moved outward through sinew and muscle to his skin. Now he could feel the pressure of hands on his shoulders and a sensation rather like the direct touch of the sun on a spring day.

“That’s better,” a voice said. Aliam, he thought.

Kieri opened his eyes. The familiar coverlet, a slice of vision that included Arian’s face. He tried to smile at her and speak. She laid a finger on his lips. The feeling of sunlight went away; he felt a sudden chill on his shoulder, dampness exposed to the air. Quickly, something warm replaced it, almost too hot for comfort. He watched Arian; her gaze shifted to someone above him, someone he could not see without turning over. He had no desire to turn over, though he felt stronger and more awake every moment.

Finally the humming died away. He felt no pain.