“What are you doing?” he demanded.
She laid the scabbard on the boy’s chest and brought his hands up to rest against it. “It will do no good to revive him if he’s so wounded. This will hasten his healing.”
Her lips grimaced in pain and he watched as the wound on her leg began to trickle blood.
“But what about your wound?”
She shook her head. “The bolt just grazed me. I will be fine.”
“You need a healer yourself.”
“I don’t have time, Alensson!” she said in scolding tone. She averted her eyes and sighed. “I am sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled at you. When I revive him, I will lose all my strength. I’ll be helpless as an infant.” She looked up at him. “I trust you, Gentle Duke. With all my heart. Bind my wound and let me rest. I will recover soon, have no fear.” She looked down at the body again. “Have no fear. What’s done is done.”
He put his hand on top of hers. “What do you mean by that?”
“What’s done is done,” she whispered. “I knew this would happen. I knew it, yet I believed he would become the man he could be. I hoped.”
“Who? Chatriyon?”
“Yes,” she answered wearily. “The Fountain warned me.” Then she looked him in the eye with heart-wrenching tenderness. “I knew this would happen, Gentle Duke. All of it. I chose it willingly.”
“You speak in riddles, Genette,” he said with frustration.
“I know. I know,” she nodded, her shoulders slumping. “If I say more, I’ll lose my courage. I cannot falter. Even if Chatriyon does, I cannot. Just know this, Alensson. I chose to answer the Fountain’s call. Now it bids me to heal this boy. You must watch it. You must hear the word of power. Someday it will save the life of the heir of La Marche. A little babe—stillborn.”
Her words burned the inside of Alensson’s chest as if she’d grabbed a poker from the coals and jabbed him with it. A stillborn child. His wife was pregnant with their first child. Would the child be stillborn then? Would Genette’s word of power be able to save him? A mix of grief and hope and fear battled inside him, and he didn’t know what to say, let alone what to think.
“I will only say the word of power once,” Genette said, cupping her hands together and placing them on the corpse’s waxlike hands. “You must remember it. You must never forget it, Gentle Duke. Promise me.”
“I swear it,” he said. “On the—”
“It is enough,” she said, cutting him off. She leaned over the boy’s face, the peaceful face beneath the thatch of thick flaxen hair. Alensson felt his skin prickle and gooseflesh spread down his arms, across his neck. He shivered and started to tremble. Her face was serene and, despite the smudges, filled with unearthly beauty.
“Nesh-ama,” she breathed and then planted a gentle kiss on the boy’s cold lips.
There was a distant rushing sound like a waterfall.
And then the boy began to breathe.
Alensson watched as the boy’s chest rose and fell and color blushed his cheeks. The squire’s fingers stiffened against the scabbard of the sword. Then the black wound on the boy’s chest began to shrink before his eyes. The duke felt as if he were in a holy place and could not utter a word for fear of disturbing the reverence.
Brendin’s eyelashes fluttered open. He stared up at them in confusion, but with a look of tranquility. Genette stroked his fair hair tenderly, then Alensson watched helplessly as her eyes rolled back in her head and she slumped to the ground unconscious.
The Duke of La Marche had helped knights get in and out of armor many times. But getting Genette out of hers was fraught with peculiar sensations. She was a woman, not his sister, not his wife—of no relation to him at all. But she was his friend, and their friendship had been forged in the furnace of war. A sister in arms, truly. He removed the battered breastplate, bracers, and greaves.
Her skin had turned chalk white and she was listless and unresponsive. The doctor he had summoned lifted her eyelids, checked her pulse, and tried to rouse her with hartshorn—which failed. The bandages the doctor wrapped around her leg were soon soaked with blood. He used needle and thread to stitch the wound shut, but the bleeding did not stop. Alensson paced in the tent, gazing down at her and fearing that she had traded her life to save the boy’s. Her breath was too shallow to hear and her chest rose and fell at distant intervals.
The squire was sleeping on a pallet, clutching the sword to his bosom. Alensson had inspected the lad’s foot where the bolt had pierced it—all that remained was a pink scar.