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“Now—just like meditation.” She nodded and closed her eyes, feeling his fingers come to rest on her temples. His hands were warm. Carefully she breathed, pushing the sounds of her heart and lungs out of her mind until she barely heard them. Her muscles relaxed one by one.
Now she heard a thundering—Numair’s heart. She pushed the sound back and let her hearing spread. Tahoi slept, dreaming of rabbits. A sea lion cow had started labor nearby, bringing a new pup into the world. Another pup, already born, suckled at his mother’s teat. She heard doubled heartbeats in some of the other cows, signs of pups to come.
Inside, Numair said. Obediently she looked for her wellspring of copper fire. She dropped in and they fell through it, until she saw a white core to the fire. It bled into the copper as the wild magic bled tendrils into it. Suddenly she was inside the white column, looking out.
A shadow glittering with bits of light came between her and the magic. In its tracks flowed a glass wall, its surface etched with odd runes. When the shadow had circled her, the beginning and end of the glass connected.
Her head was clear: for the first time in weeks she felt sure of herself. Examining the white fire around her, she found it untainted by her magic, just as the magic was entirely apart now from her inner self. She also knew that she was alone—Numair had gone. She followed him to the real world and opened her eyes.
“How do you feel?” asked the mage.
She tried to stand and nearly fell over. She was stiff! “A bit rusty, but aside from that, wonderful. Am I fixed? Am I all right?”
“You tell me,” he said. “Try the listening again. Sea lions live in groups like wolves and horses. If you’re going to lose yourself, you should be able to with them. If not, the Rider ponies are just down the beach.”
Daine closed her eyes, took a breath—and she was among the females of the harem, hearing their sleepy talk of fish and weather. The cow in labor had given birth: her new pup suckled contentedly. The mother barked at him, teaching him the sound of her voice so he’d always know which female she was.
Daine opened her eyes and grinned at Numair.
The mage smiled back. “Did you forget who Daine is?”
“Nope,” she said gleefully.
“Sure you don’t want to plunge into salty water and eat live octopi? That’s what they eat, among other things.”
She looked at him suspiciously. “What’s an octopi?”
“One octopus is an octopus. Two octopuses or more are octopi.”
“So what’s an octopus?”
“I take it what all this means is you were able to stay Daine.”
“It does. What’s an octopus?”
He laughed. “All right, magelet. Let’s go to sea.”
She worked the day through, learning about ocean animals (no whales were within range, she was disappointed to learn) and about calling groups of sea animals to her. Afterward, it was a pleasure just to eat, clean, and mend tack with the others, and listen to Sarge talk about daily life in Carthak. Onua had to wake her up to get her into her bedroll.
The sea otter found her in the night, hobbling on three paws. The fourth dangled uselessly. She told Daine she’d been hunting in a tidal pool when a wave slammed into her, jamming her into a rock crevice. A second wave had yanked her free, but the paw got caught and broke. Cradling her patient and whispering reassurances, the girl eased out of the tent where she’d been sleeping. Sticking her head into the small tent the trainees had pitched for the mage, she said, “Numair?”
He sat up in his bedroll. “Daine? Is something the matter?”
“I’ve an otter with a broken leg here. I hate to disturb you, but—now I’m doing better with the magic, I thought there might be a chance I could—”
“Of course. Come in.” Light filled the inside of the tent, making Daine and the otter blink. “Sit.” She obeyed, cradling the otter in her lap with a care to the broken leg. “You’ll go deep, but into your patient instead of yourself. You need to see her bones from the inside—do you understand?”
“I understand right enough. I’m just not sure I can do it.”
“I can help with that part. What you must do on your own is apply your magic to the break and will it to heal. You need to burn out any infection. Make sure the muscles, veins, and nerves knit together, not just the bone.
“The strength of your desire is what will complete the task. You must want this to work more than anything, and keep on wanting it, no matter how weary you become. That’s the hard part—maintaining the concentration to finish. As it tires, your mind will want to attend to something else, just as it does in meditation. You’ll get a muscle spasm or an itch, and you’ll want to see to it. You can’t—not unless you plan to resume splinting your friends and hoping you can keep them quiet long enough for an injury to mend.”
Daine looked at her patient. The otter gazed up at her calmly. She had sensed that Daine could help her, and she was content.
“I’ll do it,” the girl said grimly. “Let’s go.”
The magic came swiftly into her hold. Numair guided her into the copper-laced animal in her lap and to the broken limb. Gently he shaped the grip of her mind around the injury and showed her an extra-bright strand of copper fire from the deepest part of her magic. She grabbed it and brought it to bear on the shattered bone.
It was hard work. She was tired; her head began to ache. It required patience. For a while it seemed nothing was happening. Once she almost gave up, but she remembered the otter’s wholehearted trust and the promise to heal her. Ma had always said, Never break a promise to an animal. They’re like babies—they won’t understand. Daine hung on.
At last she saw movement. Tiny bone spurs grew across the break, slowly at first, then quicker. Marrow formed, building itself inside the protection of the spurs. Bruising in the muscles around the break began to vanish.
She got sleepy. Her back cramped almost unbearably. Nuh-uh, she thought fiercely. No quitting—not ever. If I’d known this, I could’ve saved Mammoth. If I learn it, I can
save others.
She did not allow herself to think of anything else until marrow, bone, nerve, vein, and muscles were whole and healthy.
When she opened her eyes, she was cocooned in blankets and fiercely hungry. The otter was gone; so was Numair. She crawled out of the tent to see the trainees practicing hand-to-hand combat in the rain. Day had come.
“How do you feel?” Numair was sitting under a canvas awning, writing in a fat notebook. He capped his ink bottle and put his quill aside.
“How is she?” Daine asked.
“She’s fine. I saw her swim off a while ago. We had lunch. I kept some for you.” He passed a small bag to her.
She fell on the contents—chunks of smoked ham, bread, cheese, dried figs, an orange—and polished them off in record time. “I can’t believe how hungry I was,” she said when she finished at last.
“You worked hard. Of course you’re hungry.”
“How long did it take?” she asked, running her fingers through her hair.
“Some hours—that’s to be expected. Healing in wild magic is more difficult than it is with the Gift. Wild magic depends on the body’s own power to mend what’s damaged. The Gift simply restores health that was lost.”
“One thing I don’t understand. Onua said I must’ve healed the birds in the marsh—remember? But I didn’t know how to heal then, and it took me hours to do it now.” She bit back a yawn. “I’m also worn out. Maybe I fainted in the marsh, but I never felt like this.”
“Hmm.” Numair fingered the bridge of his nose. “Several possible theories exist, but only one fits both of the limitations you just described. I’d have to say the birds’ need to be healed pulled the magic out of you in raw form. You didn’t force it to work within the limits of your strength then—you served only as a channel. The magnitude of the power transfer made you lose consciousness, but your overall health and reserves of strength were unaffected. That is the problem with wild magic—it has been known to act without the cooperation of the bearer.”
