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Momentum behind her, Sister Brigh barreled on. “A father working the demon arts. A fugitive brother running from the Amhas-draoi. The family of Douglas is cursed. And the sooner you’re gone from here, the better for the order.”
Sabrina turned a hot gaze on the elderly nun.
“I said enough.” The whip crack of Ard-siúr’s voice finally silenced Sister Brigh, though she remained red-faced and glaring with suppressed fury. “This is neither the time nor place. If you have valid arguments to make, bring them to me at another meeting and we can discuss it further.”
Turning her attention to Sabrina, Ard-siúr smiled. “My dear, I requested your presence merely to deliver a letter that’s come for you by messenger.”
How did one simple sentence drop the bottom out of her stomach and create an immediate need to draw nonexistent covers over her head? In her experience, letters never boded well. Like holding an unexploded bomb in your hand.
The door burst open on the flustered face of Sister Anne. “Ard-siúr, Sabrina’s needed in the infirmary right away. A man’s been brought in. Found half drowned on the beach below the village.”
“May I go?” Sabrina cast beseeching eyes in Ard-siúr’s direction.
Sister Brigh looked as though she chewed nails, but the head of the order dismissed Sabrina with an imperious wave of her hand. “Go. Sister Ainnir needs your skills. The letter will await your return.”
Plucking up her skirts, Sabrina dashed from the room in Sister Anne’s wake. She could kiss the unlucky fisherman who’d rescued her. Saved in the nick of time.
It was only fair to return the favor.
“Guide the mage energy as you would a surgical instrument. Precise. Focused,” Sister Ainnir advised quietly over the still form of the man lying between them.
Sabrina fought to check the magic simmering in her blood, humming along her bones. Less the accuracy of a stiletto than the bluntness of a battle-axe. Release the power now, she’d char the poor unfortunate man to cinders.
“Pay attention, Sabrina. Your mind is not on your work.”
No, it was still seething with resentment at Sister Brigh’s accusations. Lack of dedication. Above the rules. Frittering. If Sabrina wasn’t careful, the head of novices would have her on a coach to Belfoyle before the year was out. Nasty cow.
“Sabrina! Careful.”
The mage energy surged in a dramatic arc of red and gold and coral and the palest green. Lit up her insides until she felt the buzzing in her ears, the zing of it lifting the hairs on her arms, squeezing her chest like a pair of whalebone stays.
The man spasmed, gasping for a breath he could not catch. Animal rage boiled off him in waves. Desperation. Terror. Panic.
The emotions raked the inside of Sabrina’s skull like caged animals. She staggered against the instant throbbing behind her eyes. Spots and pinwheels bursting across her vision like Guy Fawkes fireworks.
His throat constricted as he vomited a trickle of seawater from lungs full and useless. He flung out a fist, sending Sabrina leaping backward.
Frustration. Disappointment. Fury.
Stark and immediate and enough to make Sabrina dizzy. She threw up every mental barricade, yet still the echoes of his pain battled through to sink razored claws into her brain.
“Don’t stop,” Sister Ainnir urged. “Don’t break your concentration. It’s too soon.”
The Fey threads of Sabrina’s magic danced along her skin like an increasing storm charge. A shimmering will-o’-the-wisp at the corners of her sight. Whispering in her head like a breeze or an echo or a rush of water over rocks.
She wrapped herself in the sensations, the empathic crush of overpowering emotion lessening to a bearable degree. No longer in danger of passing out, at any rate.
Gathering the healing fire, she renewed her lost focus. Used her lingering anger to hone her determination to scalpel brilliance. Returned to his bedside, bringing her powers to the assistance of Sister Ainnir, whose strength waned after hours of fighting the underworld for possession of this lost sailor’s soul.
“That’s it. Feel the way it bends to your will. Careful. Don’t force it.” The infirmarian took Sabrina’s hand, moving it to a spot just above his right lung. His flesh was icy cold, the palest milky blue but for the crisscross web of silver scars. “There now. See? Do you feel the way the life wavers just there?”
Sabrina let the rise and fall of his faltering breaths bear her along. In and out and in and out, winding her healing magic into the pattern. Steady. Unerring. But wait . . . something not quite right. Not as it should be. Instead, unfamiliar strands tangled and knotted and bound themselves without her aid or her powers. A new pattern. A strange weaving of life and mage energy, unfaltering darkness at its core. A rippling, slithering brush against her mind as she worked.
Then nothing. The unidentified magic vanishing as subtly as it appeared.
She delved deeper, but a jerk of the man’s head and unconsciousness became sleep. Death receded.
“Sister Ainnir, did you feel that?” she asked, stealing a long, frowning look at the patient.
