The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume III: Volume III

her leather trews.
    “I can’t make it stop bleeding, Jack,” Margit said. A touch of panic edged her voice. “It’s stiffening up, like there’s a tendon damaged.”
    Katrina gasped, then bit her trembling lip.
    Jack knew her thoughts without reading her. She feared she’d never hold her lace bobbins again.
    Margit closed her eyes, then spoke without looking at either of them. “Jaylor’s going to kill me if I fail in this mission. He told me specifically to take care of her.” She worked her cheeks in an effort to control her own panic. “Even last night when I reported that I was an unnecessary extra on this mission, he ordered me to stay with her.”
    “Let me see,” Jack took her place beside Katrina. He concentrated on sending out an aura of calm authority to both of them.
    When Margit’s eyes quit darting about, he took Katrina’s hand gently, probing the wicked cut across the palm, just below the finger joints. His eyes saw torn flesh and new puddles of blood. His magic found the severed blood vessels and gashed tendon. He took three deep breaths to trigger a trance.
    “Are you going to cauterize it?” Margit rested her hand on his shoulder as she watched.
    “Sort of.” Jack narrowed his focus. “A healer would do this without effort and without pain to the patient. Just bear with me, Katrina.” A nearby ley line winked at him with silvery-blue energy. He tapped it to fuel his work.
    A little magic bound him to his love. A little more opened his TrueSight to the layers of tissue and energy in her hand. Flesh became translucent. Beneath it, he saw the pulsing vessels, the twitching joints, the binding tendons and cartilage.
    “Sing something, Katrina. Sing your magic to match my own,” he breathed, still within the throes of his trance. “You knew how to heal burned-out ley lines with your Songs. Sing to heal yourself now.”
    “I—I can’t.” She grimaced. Her pain became a visible layer of blackened red infiltrating all the layers of her aura. She kept trying to tug her hand out of his grasp.
    “Trust me?”
    “With my life.”
    He caught her frightened eyes with his own gaze. In a moment she quieted. Her breathing slowed to match his own.
    A small Song of magic worked its way out of his heart into his voice. Their song. The little lullaby she’d sung in their prison cell. The one that had spawned tiny, spidery ley lines of energy where no ley lines had existed for many centuries. Together they had discovered the magic all women invoked when singing over mundane tasks. Unconsciously, they set up layer upon layer of protection for those they loved.
    He’d tapped the ley lines Katrina had brought to life to release their shackles and aid their escape while Queen’s City shook and crumbled in the aftermath of multiple kardiaquakes.
    Slowly, gently, with the Song still lighting his mind and his magic, he sent a needle-fine probe of magic to the first small blood vessel. He encouraged it to mend. Then the next, a larger one this time. He needed a second, hotter touch to make it seal off.
    Katrina gasped and tried to wrench her hand away.
    He held her tighter, seeing precisely how much pressure he exerted with his solid hand against her seemingly transparent flesh.
    A moment more and the last vessel closed. He encouraged the tendon tissue to knit and expel foreign matter so tiny only Jack’s magic could see it. Then he brought the muscle and skin together, binding them loosely with magic. Best if they finished healing on their own.
    At last he sat back on his heels and withdrew from the intimate contact. Sweat poured from his brow and his heart pounded erratically. Too tired to eat, he just wanted to curl up and sleep. He closed his eyes and still saw the pulses of energy and layers of color in the hand he kept within his own.
    “You did it, Jack,” Katrina said quietly. “I knew all along you had the healing touch. It only hurt a little.”
    Judging by the quieting layers of energy in her aura, that was a lie she almost believed.
    She brushed a stray lock of hair off his forehead. Her fingers lingered and traced his cheek. He turned his face just enough to kiss her palm.
    “It will be stiff for a few days, while it finishes healing. But you’ll be handling bobbins with ease after that,” he reassured her.
    “Time to get moving,” Margit said brusquely. She stood up and brushed her trews clean of the creekside debris. “Has your cat found the pack steed yet?”
    “He’s