fearful of you while she is saving us all. Do you understand what you must do?”
“I have taken her to gamata. She will be protected with my sword, and with my life if necessary. Is that not enough?”
She looked at him with obvious despair in her eyes. “So there is little hope for us, then. You cannot seek your heart to understand what one such as she will need, can you?”
“I am a warrior king. I am capable of many things.”
“Of fighting, perhaps. Of forcing others to do your will, most definitely. Of taking what you want. But that is not what she will need of you.”
“Then what is it she will need? Tell me, and I will see that it is done.”
“You wish to see what it is she needs? How about why she needs it?” Anger tinged her words and had him stepping back. She stared at him for what seemed like an eternity. “Very well then. Enjoy. ”
She waved a hand and Koios was knocked back more than twenty feet, until his back slammed into a wall.
His head cracked against something and darkness pulled him under.
Chapter 6
THEY returned to a castle at war. Bronwen heard the yells the instant they flashed into the main hall. Rathan and Ren both cursed, and began barking orders at everyone around them. Bron felt someone tugging at her hands.
Eaudne. Bron recognized the scarred hand and the power that emanated from the other woman. Eaudne just felt different whenever they touched. “Come child, you are needed in Thrun.”
Thrun, the once Rhacshas city that many of her people now lived in. It was overseen by Nalik, and she was aware of him flashing himself out an instant later. He’d somehow learned that demon trick, hadn’t he? Was there any limit to what he could do?
Pain shot through her. She could feel the suffering of many, though they were at least two hundred miles from Thrun. “What can I do?”
Eaudne laughed. “Every healer will be needed, you most of all.”
“Why?” Did the woman ever give a straight answer? Bronwen didn’t think so.
Eaudne put a hand on each of Bronwen’s cheeks. Heat blazed across her skin, and for an instant only, Bron could see her. She gasped and stepped back. “This is not how it was intended you learn of it, but time waits for none. When in Koios’ keeping months ago something was changed in you. You’ve gained your full power centuries before you should have. It is one reason for your disorientation now. But your skills as Healer are needed, your calling awaits. It is up to you whether you answer that call.”
She couldn’t understand it. “I don’t—”
“ Decide , child. This is what you were meant to do. Think you would have survived infancy, as weak as you were, if there were not a greater plan in store for you? I tell you this, you are as my own child, and I would lead you not wrong.” Eaudne was still touching her. Bronwen wanted to push the older woman away, but didn’t.
What else was she to do? “How can I heal if I cannot see? I have never been to war. I do not know how to help.”
“Child, you were not born to help. You were born to lead.”
Eaudne wrapped her in her arms, and then Bron felt the air around them pulling on her. Just as it had when she’d been flashed by Koios, and then by Ren a few moments earlier.
This time she controlled her stomach contents much better than the last. “I wish people would stop doing that to me.”
“Then stop letting them.”
“How do I do that?”
“You’ll figure out the answers to that question soon. But we have more important things to be concerned with now.”
They both could hear the screams of the dying. Bronwen froze, afraid to move, afraid to think about what was happening in this city. Her next words were whispered. “What do we do?” She had never healed anything on a grand scale before. Her work had been done at Kindara’s side for as long as she could remember.
“We find the center, find the wounded. Together we do what we do best. We