Raven's Strike (Raven #2)(130)

"Did you ever watch Brewydd heal?"

"She's a Lark, Mother," said Lehr. "Can Ravens heal, too?"

Seraph held up her hand so he could see the ring she wore. "I'm a Lark today, too. But I need your help."

"The Lark rings don't work," said Jes. "You and Hennea need to clean it first."

Seraph turned to look at him. "Willon killed Mehalla to steal her Order, Jes. All those years ago. Something in this ring knows me, and I believe it means that this was once Mehalla's." She paused. "We need me to be a Lark today, but even if the gem contained nothing but the Order, I could not use it to become a Lark - any more than Volis was a Raven when he wore a Raven's gem. I need to see if the person, Mehalla or not, who haunts this ring will help me be a Lark, just for today."

"Try putting your hand on his wound," Lehr suggested. "We're going to have to take off the bandage."

"Wait, let me do it," said Tier. "I've a little experience at field dressings."

He sat beside Seraph and cut through the cloth that held the pad over the wound. Then he tugged gently on the padding.

"The pad is stuck down, but not badly - because he's still losing blood. That would be bad if we didn't have a Healer." He smiled at Seraph. "As it is, it makes it easier to get the pad off - but you need to get your hands over that wound. Lark or no Lark, the boy's got to have some blood in him if he's to live. Are you ready?"

"Yes."

He took the pad off and, as he'd indicated, the wound began to ooze blood. She put her hand over the wound and sealed it with the palm of her hand.

Everyone waited, even Seraph, but nothing happened.

"Try visualizing the healing," Hennea suggested. "Think of Kissel well and whole."

She tried and felt her magic stir, but magic could not heal. She could have used it to bandage the wound though, and would if she could not heal him - but he was so pale, and there had been so much blood. If it came down to making do with magic rather than healing, she suspected that he would die.

"Hennea has part of it right," Lehr said. "But this isn't magic. I think, from watching you and Hennea, that being a Raven must involve a lot of thought. But Hunting is almost instinctive for me. I look, then I see the trail. I don't have to think much about it. Jes gets upset, and the temperature anywhere near him drops to freezing. Papa starts singing, and people stop whatever they are doing to listen. Just let your body do the work."

Seraph closed her eyes and tried to relax, but the more she tried not to think, the more she thought.

Tier got up, but she didn't look to see what he was doing. He was back in a moment and began playing his lute. He picked one of her favorite songs, an evening song that had lulled their children to sleep when they were teething or sick. The husky, soft tones slid over her and soothed the tension from her neck and shoulders. She let his voice coax her away from the blood and danger and back into their home and evenings when, with the work of the day done, she and Tier would sit on the back porch. Gura's wire coat tickled Seraph's bare feet as the setting sun colored the mountains red.

As she relaxed something stirred at the tips of her fingers, a whisper at first. She coaxed it with a breath of interest just like she'd have puffed at a reluctant spark when she was trying to light a fire the solsenti way.

"He's stopped breathing."

Toarsen's voice, thick with grief.

But when she would have paid attention to him, Tier's song brought her back to her little spark of... healing. See, she coaxed, directing it to the flesh under her fingers. I have something for you to do.

Fire shot up her shoulders so unexpectedly that she jerked and gasped, but someone's hands locked on her wrists and held her hands against Kissel. She opened her eyes and knew the damage Ielian's knife had done, though it was buried under her hands and beneath Kissel's skin.

The power of the Lark eased through Seraph's hands and into Kissel's body, repairing the gross damage to the tissues first, then moving on to smaller things. His heart had stopped, but her power hit it and it could not resist her and began beating.

There isn't enough blood, Mother. He won't live without more blood.

"Who said that?" asked Jes.

"Said what?" Lehr whispered. "Keep your voice down, Jes, you'll distract her."

Mehalla? Seraph asked, uncertain whether that soft voice had been real or imaginary. There was no answer.

Whoever it had been, she had been right. Kissel needed blood the Lark could not supply him with.

But Seraph wasn't a Lark, or at least, not only a Lark. Leaving her right hand, the hand with the Lark's ring to cover the closed hole in Kissel's chest, she brought her left hand, covered with Kissel's blood, to her lips and touched it with her tongue.

She called her magic to hand. Find this, she told it, showing it Kissel's blood. Her magic took the dried blood from the bandages, from her hands, from Kissel's bloody clothes. She touched her tongue again. Make it like this. The dried, dead blood became clean and alive again. Put it here. The part of her that was Lark found the collapsing blood vessels and showed the magic where it needed to be.

Seraph took a shuddering breath. "Let go," she told Lehr, who held her wrists in a bruising grip. "He doesn't need me anymore."