The Whitefire Crossing - By Courtney Schafer Page 0,78
from him is by touch.”
“Damn.” I edged closer and peered at his arm with my hands clasped firmly behind my back. “That’s a bad break. If I can’t touch you, you’ll have to fix it up yourself. Awkward, but I’ve got a pains-ease charm that should help some—”
“A healing charm won’t work on me, not while I hold my barriers.” Kiran twisted to look down the valley. “If we can reach the trees, I think I could safely take enough ikilhia from them to heal it myself.”
“Yeah, well, that’s a good couple hours of walking. You’ve got to bind the arm and put it in a sling, or you’ll pass out from pain long before we hit treeline,” I told him. “Then we’d be well and truly fucked, because I sure as hell can’t carry you without touching you. Unless...” I peered at him. “You were out cold after the avalanche, and I hauled your skinny ass back to the convoy without dying of it.”
“My collapse then was from pressing my magic too far, not a physical injury.” Kiran looked down at his misshapen arm. His next words came out thin and airless. “I told you of the ritual Ruslan performed, when I came of age. That ritual did more than bind me to him. A whole and healthy body has a specific pattern—and mine is now linked directly to my magic. Any marring of that pattern, and my magic seeks to repair it, as instinctively as breathing.”
I swallowed, my mouth gone dry. “You’re saying that to not take power to heal yourself is like deliberately holding your breath.”
He nodded, eyes still downcast.
Every time I thought this trip couldn’t get worse, Khalmet proved me wrong. “How long can you...?”
“Long enough to reach those trees.”
Gods. I tossed Kiran the waterskin, and prayed the confidence in his words was warranted. “Clean that cut off with some water while I make some bandages.”
It took almost an hour, but eventually he got the arm bound up. I tied a rough sling for him out of a length of rope, and strapped his pack onto mine with another. My side felt like a rock bear had clawed it when I heaved on the doubled pack. “Mother of maidens, what I wouldn’t give for a mule,” I muttered. I’d need that pains-ease charm myself by the time we stopped again. Assuming I wasn’t a drained husk of a corpse.
The sun was already sinking into the haze above the forested hills. We’d never make the trees before it set. I sighed, heavily. Another grueling march in the dark, under a looming threat I had no defense against. Gods, I’d never thought the day would come when I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of the mountains.
At least we’d already made it over the worst terrain. Soon after we started walking, the valley widened, talus fields mixing with marshy tundra dotted with old snowbanks. A stream appeared from under the snow, gurgling downward through the rocks, the water shining white in occasional tumbling falls.
At first Kiran moved along in silence, his face pinched and inward-looking, his arm cradled in the sling against his chest. He wasn’t able to walk very fast, but I wasn’t exactly sprinting either, with my side screaming and the weight of both our packs crushing my spine and shoulders. We’d been going maybe an hour when Kiran spoke up.
“Do you think you could...talk about something?”
“What? Why?” I certainly didn’t feel like talking.
“I think it would help me,” he said, sounding apologetic. He was looking white around the mouth, and he wouldn’t meet my eyes.
I tried to sound casual, and not like every instinct was yammering at me to run. “Uh. Fine. What do you want me to talk about?”
He started to shrug, and stopped with a gasp, his face lined with pain. “I don’t know. Something—something interesting. How did you learn to climb, and be an outrider?”
I considered making up a tale, but I felt too tired and nervous to bother. He’d likely guessed most of the truth, anyway. “When I was a kid, I was a Taint thief. My handler taught all of us to climb. He thought it made us better at the job.”
“A Taint thief, truly? That’s why you were sold? I’d read of such things, but only in children’s tales...” He sounded fascinated. I guessed the distraction thing was working. “What did you steal?”
“Jewelry, coin, charms...whatever our handler asked us to get.” Which had sometimes included far stranger things