The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume II

if he had healed. His wings remained tightly folded and hidden.
    The wind pushed her south, around the pub and up a narrow trail toward the top of the cliff. Thick loam of half-decayed leaves and everblue needles muffled her footsteps. No one could hear her passage. If someone sought to betray her, they would have to seek with other senses than sound.
    She walked rapidly, not looking back at the gathered faces that watched her. Faces that could betray her as easily as welcome her. She might see Karry’s face in the crowd. Karry who had just lost a beloved grandmother.
    “Stargods, comfort her,” she prayed. “Give Granny an easy passage to the next existence.”
    No reply, only the shifting wind guiding her away from the village, uphill toward the mountains that formed a near impenetrable border between Coronnan and Rossemeyer. Somewhere in these mountains lay the hidden city of Hanassa, home of outlaws. Rovers, exiles, anyone who didn’t belong in the three civilized kingdoms.
    “Maybe that’s where we must go, Amaranth. I don’t belong anywhere within the borders of this kingdom.” The relentless wind increased and pushed her uphill. She set Amaranth down to walk beside her or fly if he chose. He walked.
    Their path circled around: west, then south again and finally back to the east until she heard the pounding surf in the cove below the village. She paused as soon as the wind let her, looking around. An opening in the trees beckoned to her. She looked out over the village from a perch well above the milling people.
    The bright colors on the Equinox Pylon drew her eye. (Careful,) Amaranth warned her. He half-spread his wings, ready to launch into flight if danger threatened.
    “So you’ve had enough time to heal?” She touched the place where he had been badly bruised.
    (Time enough and love enough.) He ruffled his wing feathers and stretched wide with an almost visible sigh of satisfaction.
    Myri stepped back into the shelter of the trees, but no one looked up from the daily activities to espy her or the flywacket.
    “Why here? What am I supposed to find?”
    “Oooooh. . . .” A moaning sound greeted her.
    Was that the wind sighing in the treetops or . . .
    Her talent leaped to awareness.
    Pain. Blood. Darkness.
    She started the long slide into full rapport with the injured one. Not yet. Don’t let me lose consciousness yet. Not until I find him.
    Amaranth nipped her ankle. The tiny pain kept a part of her awareness inside her own body. Part of her continued to blend with the one who lay wounded and bleeding. The encroaching darkness slowed. Certainty that the victim was male increased as she gained control of the rapport.
    Slashing pain, sharp, intense across her midsection. Difficulty breathing. She reached her right hand out, questing for the source of the agony that ripped her patient and herself in two.
    Not again. Not so soon after losing Granny Katia!
    There, stronger to her left, farther uphill. Not far.
    One slow step after another she pushed herself closer to the pain, knowing that running away from it was as impossible for her as for him.
    She nearly stumbled over a huddled form collapsed on knees and forehead. His threadbare cloak of mud brown with hints of dark green in the weave blended with the forest floor, making him nearly invisible.
    Her hand still reaching out, she scanned his body. Blue sparks of magic arced from her fingertips to him. A vague sense of familiarity touched her. Had she met this man somewhere before?
    “Oooooh . . .” he moaned again. His arms convulsed as they clutched his middle.
    A desperate need to keep his life’s blood from draining into the soft blanket of leaves filled her mind and emotions. She’d just drained herself of strength and stamina in a desperate and futile attempt to heal Granny Katia. What did she have left to give this new patient?
    (His destiny is not yet fulfilled. You must Heal him. We will give you what strength we can. Too much of you passed into the void with the old one.)
    She touched the man’s shoulder. A vision of two men bound together by a nearly tangible bond leaped into her mind. They argued. One threw a knife, then retrieved it and left. Myri tried desperately to see faces. The wound filled her vision. Blood. Too much blood.
    She’d treated knife injuries before, but never one inflicted purposely by a friend.
    Was this the betrayal the voices had warned her of? Or had the villagers planned some treachery toward her?