The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume II

fever.
    She wished for Amaranth’s comforting presence, but knew the superstitious villagers feared that cats sucked breath out of babies and ailing old people. They’d forbidden her to bring her familiar into Granny Katia’s home.
    Another great spasm of coughs racked the old woman’s body. Shudders ran the length of her wasted frame. Myri helped her patient bend over and expel the fluid in her lungs.
    “Drink some water now, Granny Katia.” She held a small cup to the old woman’s lips, still keeping one hand on her back. Strength continued to drain out of Myri into her patient.
    Granny Katia tried to push the cup away. Her hands were so feeble she barely touched the cup.
    (You can’t help her. She’s too ill, too weak. Save yourself. Your strength is needed elsewhere.)
    An uneasiness in the back of Myri’s neck, like an itch that got worse with scratching, followed the whisper in the back of her mind. She knew a sudden urge to pack her few possessions and move southward. She could travel no farther east.
    She pushed the compulsion aside. She’d had enough of being manipulated by magic when she was with Televarn.
    “Please, Granny. You have to drink.” Karry and the other villagers will never forgive me if you die. They’ll blame me, threaten me, drive me away.
    Or burn me. The villagers had heard Moncriith preach. If Granny Katia died, they would blame her.
    “I want to stay here. This village feels like home.” You promised me a home, she accused the voices.
    The old woman passed into uneasy sleep before Myri could force more than a few drops past her thin lips. Myri’s talent reached out. She poured more magic into Granny Katia, trying once more to draw fluid out of her lungs.
    Dizziness scattered Myri’s senses. She had trouble concentrating on the healing. Her lungs felt heavy and her breath rattled when she exhaled. Her eyes refused to focus. The walls of the tiny hut spun around her. She dropped her head and scrunched her eyes closed.
    “If you don’t take the medicine, you’ll die, Granny. You have to drink,” she said when the room righted itself and she could concentrate once more.
    The old woman roused slightly and took two small sips before losing consciousness again.
    Myri bathed Granny’s fevered brow with a cool cloth. The old woman’s skin felt too dry and thin, like a fragile leaf ready to fall in autumn. The fever burned her vitality like fuel in a hearth. Every ragged breath stole air from Myri’s lungs as well.
    “The cure isn’t working, Myri.” Karry stood in the low doorway of the hut, arms crossed, grief already dragging down the corners of her mouth.
    “I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to do for her.” Myri bowed her head.
    “I can see that you have tried all within your power.” Karry looked pointedly at the blue glow of energy surrounding Myri’s hand where it lay against Granny’s shrunken chest.
    Myri resisted the instinct to jerk her hand away and hide the evidence of magic. She tried distracting Karry’s gaze by pressing the cup of medicine on Granny once more.
    “Leave off with your smelly cures, child,” Granny Katia whispered weakly. “Let me die. I’m too old to endure another Festival. ’Tis the Equinox Festival today. A good time to die. Make room for the new lives beginning tonight.” She chuckled dryly and coughed again.
    This time Myri had to lift her body to a sitting position, so she wouldn’t gag. Her lungs gasped in sympathy with the old woman.
    Karry rushed to wipe the bloody spittle from her grandmother’s mouth. “She’s coughing blood now.” Fear widened her eyes.
    “She’s been coughing blood all night,” Myri said. She wiped a few drops of blood from her own lips with the back of her hand. Her empathy with her patient had brought the disease into her body already. Would she have the strength to cure herself?
    (Leave the woman. Her death is killing you!)
    Tremendous heat pushed her hand away from Granny Katia’s chest. This time, Myri let the power separate her from her patient.
    Karry sat back on her heels. Her face paled, and her hands shook. Amaranth pushed open the door Karry hadn’t closed completely and climbed into the pub-keeper’s lap. He rubbed his head against her chest, offering his sympathy. She wrapped her arms around the cat, clinging to his body as if he were the spirit of her beloved grandmother.
    Granny Katia gasped again as another coughing spasm gripped her. Myri tried to lift her inert