It was just as well Rebecca was light, or he wouldn’t have been able to mount Ragger with her slung over his shoulder. Once seated, he managed to turn her so she sat astride, leaning back against him, head tucked under his chin, one of his arms curled about her body to keep her from sliding from the saddle. The bow was in its boot at his knee, but it would do him no good riding double as they were. He’d be nearly helpless if they came under attack. He touched his amulet, reassuring himself.

He hoped the heat of his body would help. Hoped Willo was at Marisa Pines and not visiting one of the other camps. Hoped they wouldn’t meet any more assassins along the way.

Hoped he would not have to hold Rebecca Morley as she died.

C H A P T E R  T E N

THE PRICE
OF HEALING

By now it was completely dark. The birds had quit their evensong and it would be hours before the moon rose behind a layer of cloud. It was unnaturally quiet, as if the world was holding its breath, waiting to see how it would all come out. The only sound was the crunch of Ragger’s hooves on snow.

Han wanted to slam his heels into Ragger’s sides and propel him into a gallop that would take him to Marisa Pines Camp in a hurry.

There was such a tiny chance of success, all the odds stacked against them. If they went too slowly, Rebecca would die. If they went too fast, and Ragger broke a leg, Rebecca would die. If they ran into more assassins, Rebecca would die.

Rebecca lay mostly quiet in his arms, moaning now and then when he jostled her, otherwise exhibiting no signs of awareness. He sensed she was moving farther and farther away from him, retreating from the poison into some interior sanctuary from which she might not return.

Han struggled to remember Master Leontus’s lectures on healing, the recitations he’d drowsed through. I’ll never have need of that, Han had thought. I’m being trained to kill people, not heal them. He’d thought everyone he’d ever want to heal was already dead.

He’d been wrong.

Han concentrated. Bits and pieces came back to him. Leontus marching up and down the classroom, Adam’s apple bobbing wildly as he attempted to convince his skeptical audience of students to consider healing as a vocation.

Gifted healers work by taking on the illnesses and injuries of their patients. This involves considerable pain, suffering, and expenditure of power.

Healers search out discordance in the bodies of their clients. They create order out of chaos, protecting body and spirit from toxins.

It’s important that healers set boundaries during the healing process. You are of no help to your patient if you yourself succumb.