Tavi took a slow breath. "Ah. And she chose you. Someone to lead the less-experienced healers."
Dorotea inclined her head slightly, as if she was afraid something might spill out if she tipped it too far. "Our senior folk were all conferring when..." She shivered. "When you saw us. Kitai's was a remarkably rational decision, under the circumstances. Emotions tend to overrule reason when one is in pain and afraid for another. And her feelings for you are disturbingly intense. She could easily have let those feelings control her. And I, my son, and your friend Maximus would all be dead."
"She made the right call," Tavi said. He looked at Max and Crassus. "How are they?"
Dorotea tightened the blanket around her slightly. "I assume that you know that watercrafting does not simply make a subject whole again. It draws upon the body's resources to restore what has been made unwhole."
"Of course," Tavi said.
"There are limits. And... and my Crassus had so many injuries. Broken bones. Shattered organs." She bit her lip and closed her eyes. "I did all that I could, everything, but there are limits to what can be repaired. The body can only sustain so much of its own regeneration..."
She shuddered and shook for several seconds. Then suddenly Dorotea seemed to master herself and lifted her face, wiping tears briskly from her cheeks. Her voice was unsteady, but she attempted to use crisp, professional description. "Crassus's injuries were extensive and serious. I repaired enough damage that they should not shorten his life. Assuming that there is no infection - which is an acute danger when a body is so badly strained - he may be able to walk again. Eventually. His days as a Tribune are finished."
Tavi swallowed and nodded. "Maximus?"
"The vord Queen hit him on the head rather than anywhere vital," Dorotea said with tired, almost fond irritation. "He's fine. Or will be, when he wakes up. It could take a while."
"How am I?" Tavi asked.
"The priority was to restore you to complete function," she said. "The actual trauma wasn't bad. The poisoning was acute, but not as difficult to overcome as others might have been. The only issue was keeping you breathing, for a while. You should be able to enter battle if you need to."
Tavi nodded slowly. Then he sat up, and said, "You look terrible. Get some rest. Battle's coming."
Dorotea looked over at Crassus again. "I won't leave him."
"You've already said you've done all you can," Tavi said, gently. "And other lives are going to depend on you. You'll rest. That is an order."
Dorotea's eyes flickered back to him, hot for a half second, before her mouth turned up into a slow, tired smile. "You can't give me an order, sir. You aren't the captain of the Free Aleran. My orders come from him."
"But I can order him," Tavi said testily. "Bloody crows, what does a man have to do to get a little respect around here? Am I the First Lord or not?"
Dorotea's smile widened, and she bowed her head. "Very well. Your Majesty. There are guards around and over and quite likely under the tent. But speak, and they will be here."
"Thank you."
Tavi waited until she had left to ease himself out of the tub. He felt shaky, but no worse than he had any of a number of other times he'd endured a healer's attentions. He climbed out without help and found a clean set of clothes laid out for him.
Tavi got dressed, though it was painful to bend at the waist. The strange sword he had been stabbed with had left an equally strange scar, a stiff ridge of nearly purple tissue, and the area around it was exquisitely tender. He slid into his pants and belted his tunic on cautiously. A quick spike of pain went through him and made him clench his teeth over suddenly frozen breath.
The awareness of a gaze upon him made Tavi look back, and he found Crassus awake again, bleary eyes focused on him.
"M' mother," Crassus said. "She was alive. And you didn't t-tell me."
Tavi stared at his friend in pure shock. It was true. He hadn't. Antillus Dorotea had been a traitor to the Realm, along with her brother, High Lord Kalarus. She had been snapped up for her talents in the slave rebellion that had followed the destruction of Kalarus and the chaos in Kalaran lands, and no one had known or cared who she was - only