Tayla swung one leg over the crumbling wall. Her heart heaved in her chest and she was frustrated with the pounding in her ears that drowned any sound of pursuit. Her eyes smarted both with dust, and the blood that ran thick down her face from a cut by her hairline. She strained her sight into the darkened passage she had just emerged from, pausing on the rough wall just long enough to catch her breath. The dry husks of ancient rose briars scraped her bare legs as she carefully picked her way down them, wincing at every creak and snap along the way. She reached the bottom without trouble and gazed mistrustfully back up at the top. Too long. They'd left her alone for far too long. She leaned back against a stone wall and peered carefully down the arched hallways to either side. She slid one hand under her ragged shirt to rest her palm briefly on the cool metal resting over her heart. She was afraid the old leather thong it hung from would snap and fall while she fled. She'd come too far, and through too much, to lose it now. She tightened her grip on the rusty long knife in her left hand and prepared to resume her painstaking journey. A near silent scrape behind her was the only warning before two strong hands snaked out and grabbed her, one over her mouth and the other around her waist, hauling her into recessed shadows. She recognized Davri just in time to stop from burying the blade in his gut. "Fool" she hissed as she was released. Then she flung her arms around his neck and for a moment managed to set aside the terror of the last two days.
          "Did you get it?" He murmured into her ear, scanning the street, watching for danger.
          She straightened abruptly. "No, there wasn't anything there. Just a lot of death." She didn't even try to keep the bitterness out of her voice.
          "Did you get anything?" He asked intently.
          Tayla frowned. "Just a trinket, I fell, well, jumped, down a flight of stairs and landed on it. Here." She tugged the metal triangle out from under her clothes and offered it to him, then stared when he very deliberately refrained from touching it.
          "Where did you say it was?"
          "Just lying in the floor at the bottom of a staircase. What is it?"
          "What makes you think I know what it is?"
          "Oh nothing," she hissed back, noting uneasily how the shadows were shifting at the far end of the corridor, " just the way you don't seem in the least bit surprised, and avoid it like a plague ridden corpse." He ignored her tone, all his attention absorbed by the activity down the hall.
          "We should probably continue this later, put it back under your shirt and lets go."
          Tayla shoved the necklace back into her clothes and swallowed her welling fear.
          "How do we get out of here?" No need to voice the obvious, that it had already been two days. That there was no food or drinkable water in this place, that they dare not stop even if there was. That exhaustion was already blurring their mind, vision, taking the edge off their speed, strength, sapping their will… She shook her head to clear it of such useless thoughts. She wasn't the only one hurting, probably not even the worst one. Her shirt was damp and sticky with blood from where she had hugged Davri. His lose dark clothes didn't show color to her appraising eye, but clung to his body in a rather suspicious fashion. "How badly are you injured?" He grunted in reply. Fair enough, it had been a stupid thing to ask. What was he going to do? Sit down and let them have him? He tugged a small leather wrapped ball out from somewhere and carefully peeled off the wrapping. As Tayla watched in confusion, Davri stepped out into the hallway, making sure he was fully visible. He grabbed Tayla by an upper arm and dragged her along with him. Tayla silently cursed his dramatic instincts. Holding the small glass, in which sloshed a pale blue liquid, in one hand, and her in the other, Davri calmly turned his back on the evil gathered at the far end of the hall and proceeded to head for the archway with the air and speed of one engaged in a casual stroll. Tayla winced, feeling his body tense in pain with every step he dragged her. She struggled along, glancing over her shoulder at the slowly approaching horde, no need for them to hurry; the path she and Davri were heading for was smooth and inescapable for as far as she could see. The monsters would have no trouble running them down. As they crossed under the arch Davri paused, Tayla, noting the ashen shade of his features and the sweat the beaded along his upper lip, was afraid he was about to pass out.
          "Get ready to run." His mouth barely moved, behind them the evil pressed closer.
          "What!" Tayla squeaked. "Run? It's a little late for that don't you think!"
           Davri smiled faintly, then, with an almost negligent flick of his wrist, tossed the shimmering ball into the gathered demons. To say the results were spectacular would have been gross understatement. Tayla and Davri were thrown almost a hundred feet in the initial explosion, and barely managed to maintain their footing through each of several successive bursts. Even through the near deafening she suffered from the blast, the wailing was horrendous and helped to drive her along the path. Tayla weathered being thrown roughly into a stone wall and bounced off the floor with minimum damage, minor scrapes and bruises. She assumed, when Davri rolled to his feet and hastened along in her wake, that the same was true for him. It wasn't until they reached street level and stopped in the shadows of a decimated stable, that she realized her error. Tayla reached over and grabbed her partners chin, hoping that what she had glimpsed was merely shadow. It was when he made no effort to evade her grasp and instead concentrated on breathing as shallowly as possible that she knew. She lifted his face into the light filtering through the quickly moving thick layer of overhead clouds, and felt as though she'd been kicked in the gut. Blood ran freely from his mouth, the thick rasp of his breath made its source obvious. She wondered distantly if he had broken the ribs in the explosion, or if being slammed into the wall had merely served to drive them into his lungs. She let him go and stared blank and silent at the castle parapets, illuminated against the heavy and unrelieved clouds, showing nothing of the great darkness they housed within. That this whole kingdom housed. The whole damned place. Tayla was filled with an odd sense of relief. It was over. They had gambled …and lost. Davri was the only one who knew the way out. Tayla turned back in time to catch him as he slid down the wall, leaving a long dark smear. Blood looked like ink in the half-light. "It's okay." She brushed filthy dark hair out of his face almost absently. "Everything is okay." He stared at her, something in Tayla flinched from the pain clear in his dark blue eyes.
          "Tayla…" She could barely hear him.
          "You shouldn't talk you know, you'll just die that much faster." Everything was so matter-of-fact.
          "It is important."
          "Well, you have my undivided attention." She giggled. He looked mildly irritated. The familiar expression, in such an alien place, served to sober her.
          "You must leave me."
          "No. Were going to die, it may as well be together."
          "I knew you would say that. You hate being alone."
          "So why ask?" She sank down beside him and picked absently at the dirt.
          "Because I made a promise, I can't fulfill it, you have to. You can't wait to see me dead, you have to go right now. They are coming. Alive I can slow them down …cast them off your trail …long enough to give you a chance …take the knives, you'll need them both …go…" His voice fell off into a rasp. She stood and stared over him, white faced.
          "Do you know what they do with living victims?"
           He watched her impassively, then turned and looked resolutely in the direction the monsters were coming from.
           "Well I do, I wouldn't leave a squashed roach for them, much less an infuriating bastard I consider my friend." A slight smile curved his lips, it was far and away the softest expression she had ever seen on his face. He beckoned her closer. She crouched. He collared her in a lightening fast move and hissed in her ear with his ruined voice.
          "Go to the village of Kandrel, speak with the first watch commander. Tell him s'Kellerac sent you. I am going to cast a spell, it will create a guide for you, it will guide you until you are free of this land, or three days are up, whichever comes first. You are going to leave as soon as I release you, because if you don't, I won't cast the guide spell, I'll kill you instead. I too, know what they do to the living. I have seen more of their victims than you." He tossed her away with strength unbecoming a man who was practically dead. "And Tayla," he smiled bitterly, "don't give up your 'trinket', not to anyone, for anything, ever."
          She scrambled back on her hands and knees, too stunned to really hear what he had said, watching in shock as he laboriously mouthed an incantation. He had never given even the slightest hint to her that he was a wizard. A blistering blue light the size of her hand appeared in front of her, it bobbed there for a few minutes then headed off down a side street away from the castle, a sudden chill breeze told her that the demons were approaching. She stood frozen between two imperatives: to flee after the light, and to stay with the last remaining member of her Family. In the end it was no choice. Davri was going to die no matter what she did, and he had expended the last of his strength to give her a chance to escape, she had no right to refuse the gift, not under these circumstances. Or at least that's what she told herself as she did what she so desperately wanted to do, and ran.

...much later...

           Tayla rested her folded arms on the cool stone, the fine cloth of her wide sleeves draped against the structure gave it an almost festive look. She smiled at the thought. She was up every morning before dawn to watch the sun rise and cast shadows off the land. She was twenty-eight now, it had been eleven years since, bloody, bruised and in shock, she had staggered into the watch commanders post in the border town of Kandrel and relayed her brief message. The commander had carefully pulled from her weary mind every detail of the horrors she had lived through, then passed her on through the chain of command until she had landed here, the royal palace. She had a quick mind and thought fast on her feet, so in return for her willing compliance with the many, many interviews she underwent about the …journey, she was given a position in one of the secretarial offices. She got an education, respectable income, clean clothes, food, respect, and did very little for it. Of course, to her own mind, and the mind of several others, she had done plenty. She had survived. The information she had brought back had saved thousands when the armies had driven back the darktide, an evil she, and she alone, had entered and survived. Eleven years, and she still woke up screaming more often than not. She wondered about him sometimes, who he had been, who he would have been if he had survived, how he had died. That last she tried very hard not to wonder about, but sometimes, when she stood out here waiting for the sun, she couldn't help herself. He had obviously not been the petty thief he had propositioned, and joined, her den as. No petty thief had influence with a royal watch commander, no petty thief casually tossed off spells and barked out orders like a drill sergeant. The Queen didn't remove herself from an audience looking as though she had swallowed a live, poisonous, and very large, spider, at hearing of the death of some petty thief.
           Tayla sighed and shifted position. The sun was burning on the edge of the mountains, she gazed in lighthearted expectation as the light eclipsed the rocky crags and shimmered over the land, over her hair, over her face. She shivered in pleasure and turned with regret to face the owner of the heavy boots thudding towards her. That they were looking for her was without question, she was the only one on this parapet, always on the parapet, before dawn, and the whole castle knew it. The stranger paused in shadow near the door. Tayla, blinded by the rising sun, squinted, trying to make out a face.
          "Summons for the Lady Taylinda."
          The voice wasn't one she recognized; though that was not really surprising in a building that housed the heart of an empire. Even after eleven years Tayla knew barely a handful of guards that made a life of service to the throne. It was odd though, that a summons would be sent with a soldier and not a page. For a moment she hovered on the edge of flight, something was wrong here… Tayla shook her head in irritation; it was dawn, likely there weren't enough pages up and around yet to deal with the court, much less fetch an errant secretary. Fleeing without cause from a royal guard would only further her reputation as being a bit touched, and quite possibly into trouble as well. She gave the light one last regretful glance and moved towards the man.
          "And they sent you to deliver it." She asked wryly. "Too early for the pages?" He made no reply. Tayla paused just outside of the shadows cast by the dew covered stone, she could clearly smell the fresh hay in the stables across the lawn, and hear the clatter from the kitchens where cooks scurried to prepare the days first meal. She reluctantly began her next step and fell back, her arms covered with goosebumps and her eyes still sun-blind; she shook her head a bit lamely and held out her hand.
           "The summons?"
          "Yes, Lady. I am to escort you…"
          ...and the voice was wrong, dark, rough. As he spoke, ice crawled down her spine. This whole scene was wrong. Even before the man finished his sentence Tayla was mentally cursing the weak-brained stupidity that had stayed her initial flight, she hadn't been too good for instinct on the street, what illness had made her start ignoring it now?
           "…to hell."
           Tayla was dropping even as his spoke, but too slow. Far too slow as it turned out, though she didn't fully realize it until, throwing herself desperately over the parapet and into the deep water, wounds she had taken on her right arm and chest left her too weak to swim, too weak to turn over. Too weak to do anything except sink slowly into oblivion, praying death claimed her before the dark.

          Her eyes opened, always looking for the same thing. She ignored the heavy bandages, ignored the thick cloth binding that restrained her, ignored the people watching. Laying on her side, her eyes moved slowly across the floor until they settled on the only thing that mattered, the intangible barrier between the shadows and the light. She lay on the bright side, and as long as that remained true there would be peace.
          "Some sort of poison."
           "Eh?"
          "Some sort of poison." Miria repeated patiently. "You asked what was causing this."
          "Oh."
          Miria sighed and walked over to the bandaged figure on the bed, feeling for fever and re-tucking the undisturbed sheets. "Whatever …hit her, was poisoned. That accounts for our inability to heal the injuries. Her body is healing them on it's own, but without aid it will be several weeks before she can sit up, much less move around.
          "Just as well then, that she's senseless." The man offered casually.
          Miria frowned. "Healing at all is of no help if she no longer has a mind. Regardless though, I believe you are mistaken. She is not 'senseless'. This," she waved a hand at the patient's still form, "is not the result of her injuries, at least not the physical ones, and she was not in the water long enough to cause brain damage." The king's seneschal frowned thoughtfully at the delicate seeming warder of all that was sick or helpless.
          "Then would you care to hazard a guess at what is causing it?"
          "No," the woman replied tartly, "I wouldn't. But since you asked so nicely I suppose I shall. She's afraid." From the blank expression on the man's face this was not the reply he was expecting.
          "She's been unconscious for two weeks because she is afraid?"
          "She isn't unconscious, or at least outside of normal sleep, and barring those first two days, she hasn't been." He scowled.
          "And what, pray tell, is she afraid of?"
          Miria gazed at the girl for a long time before she answered softly.
          "The dark." He waited for her to elucidate.
          "She opens her eyes sometimes, it started the third day she was here. It was daytime and I assumed that she was still in a coma, it isn't really that unheard of for people in that state to open there eyes occasionally after all and she hadn't moved or anything else to indicate that she was awake. I was awfully busy, you will recall, with the casualties of that infernally stupid gladiatorial tournament hosted on the grounds." He nodded impatiently. Miria wondered if it was real or feigned. Feigned she decided after a moment, no one in so high a position survived long without learning patience. "As I was saying. She was lying there with her eyes open and she started to move. That got my attention. She wouldn't answer me, and I was afraid she was going to pull her stitches, so I helped her roll onto her side." At his arched brow she added a bit tartly, "Her left side."
          "Ahh."
          Miria shook her head. "She stared at the floor for a few minutes, then fell asleep. I assumed that she had been dreaming, woke briefly, thought herself in her own bed and simply desired a more comfortable position. With the drugs she's on I doubt very much she is in any pain, and at the time doubted that she even knew she was injured."
          "You think differently now." It was not a question.
          "Do you want to hear this or are you just wasting my time?"
          He inclined his head in apology and gestured that she should continue.
          "During the day there are few to any shadows in here. When I accepted this position, I chose the room I would use for my working, and desired one with as much light as possible. Their majesties considered my aid enough of a resource to indulge my whim, constructed this one to suit, a room full of light. Not exactly good for defense, but if a war gets this far we're pretty much lost anyway." He smiled a bit at her matter of fact tone. "It was that night I realized I was wrong. When the long shadows of evening began to fill the room, I began to hear whimpering. I had almost a dozen pampered tourney youths in here with a variety of painful breaks and bruises, and since none of them had anything even remotely life threatening, assumed that the painful realities of abject stupidity were beginning to take their toll and perhaps impart a touch of good sense. My error asserted itself when just at sunset one of my aids tracked me down in the kitchens breathless and frightened. Those vague whimpers had turned into full throated screaming and not from any of those witless highborns. By the time I got there she'd managed to rip all of her stitches out and was struggling on the floor in the dark with one of the aforementioned nobles, a guard, and my remaining two aides, screaming all the while. I lifted the lantern I'd grabbed on my way in above the mess and demanded to know what was going on. Nothing, as it turned out. As soon as I lifted the lantern, and the light spread over the struggle, she stopped fighting and screaming and curled up. I had enough clues by that time to put two and two together. In short order I sent the noble back to bed, my aides for hot water, needle, knife, and thread, and the guard for candles and lanterns. We lit the place up like day. The whole time I was sewing her back up she never moved, didn't blink, just lay on her back like a rag doll, staring at a lantern and leaking tears." Miria paused to sip her tea. "First thing in the morning I had Nirrew down in the smithy help me rig up an arrangement that keeps her bed in the brightest circle of light we can manage throughout the night."
          "So you think it is this fear of the dark that keeps her comatose?"
          Miria sighed wearily. "That would be my best guess. And no, I don't know how long she will remain in this state. At this point, I would personally prefer that she stay like this at least until it is safe to move that arm. The damage will be less extensive and the recovery to the muscle, range of movement, and bone, far more complete if it doesn't move at all while the tissue reknits. The Seneschal gazed moodily at the bed. Miria regarded him out of the corner of her eye. She was greatly interested in hearing what had caused Tayla's injuries in the first place. A healer was too valuable to those of a less than noble nature, monetarily, to risk allowing anyone close, to allow herself to trust, to have friends. So while Miria was well known and highly regarded, she was also a bit of a wary recluse. Tayla, a determined young lady with a quick mind and keen instincts, who had through sheer stubbornness refused to leave the healer alone, was one of maybe three people in the city who could honestly lay claim to Miria's friendship. Having her friend lying shades from death in a fear induced paralysis suffering massive injuries from a unknown source was not making Miria overly pleased with her employers, nor doing anything for her temper. That she knew she was being kept deliberately in the dark was impossibly infuriating. She covered her emotions with the vague serenity she had learned to employ as a child. The game, however, had drug out enough, it was time to let their majesties know she had played as much as she was willing too.
          "Have you any leads as to what caused this?"
          "Ah, no, Lady. Though we search diligently."
          "I'm sure. I trust you will tender my apologies to their majesties then. I will be much engaged, though I will certainly make my formal farewells in court before the weeks end." That, she noticed with grim amusement, got his attention well and truly where she wanted it.
          "What?" He collected himself with visible effort. "Healer Miria…."
          She cut him off. "I will not stay here where my safety cannot be guaranteed. And no, the guard cannot protect me from something they have never even seen, much less caught. Lady Taylinda was on the battlements when she was attacked. Whatever injured her had to go through the entire castle first, and you say no one has even seen it? My gift is a rare one and I am good at it. I have many offers of employment from sources that I am confident will see adequately to my security and treat me as though I have some intelligence." She placed no particular emphasis on the last bit of her sentence. "And, before you protest, my contract to serve gives me the option of termination my employment here at any time I please. You may look it up in the archive in your leisure." She waited expectantly, letting a touch of haughty reproach shade her features as she gazed at the slack-jawed seneschal. She was not disappointed.
          "My Lady, please, I beg of you, do nothing so rash until their majesties have had time to consider the matter." Miria was neither surprised or particularly impressed with the seneschal's almost servile tone and words, she did notice with a wry humor that the more assertive she got the less overbearing he was. She was regarded by the court with much the same attitude as the treasury. Her talents were rare, and the number of people who advertised those talents rarer still. The number of people who both openly acknowledged their abilities and offered them in any length on time to a single service was rare enough that generations would go by without incident of occurrence. It would go very, very badly for this man if it were to be spread about that he was the reason for her leaving. This gave her an immense political power that, since she rarely wielded it, took many people upside the head when she did. Miria decided the time for tact had passed.
          "They have three days. Now get out."
          He gave her a wild look and fled. She sighed and sank onto the foot of Tayla's bed. She patted Tayla's legs awkwardly, then rose to go and see to her other patients.

          Miria cursed and struggled free from the sheets that seemed to deliberately wind themselves around her limbs in the most difficult fashion possible. Tayla was screaming again. After he initial panic Miria calmed a bit, probably a candle had gone out. Which didn't make the danger to Tayla's half-healed body any less, but having a likely reason for the blood-freezing howls gave Miria the clarity to extract herself from her bedding without further mishap.
          As soon as she passed the threshold of her room and crossed into the hallway that led to the larger connected rooms where the patients, not to mention all her supplies, stayed, Miria knew this was more than a blown candle. She hovered just over her threshold shuddering. She stared wide-eyed as any child at a dark that almost seemed tangible. The stone under her bare feet was freezing. The night that had always seemed a friend, armies don't battle in the dark, was now her fiercest enemy, and she was surrounded…. Abruptly Tayla's screams cut through the drowning fear that had been threatening to swallow Miria. Tayla was her friend, and her responsibility. She had to help her, there was no one else. Miria was struck by the realization, where was the guard that was supposed to be posted in this hall? She reached her inner senses cautiously in to invisible current of life her unique abilities gave her the power to touch, she reached for the guards life, she knew him, had read his imprint before… Recoiled in horror from the vast emptiness she found instead. Not just a death, but a destruction of self that refused her, something of him should have remained at the site of his death, a spark of memory if nothing else. She had no idea what this meant, but revulsion at its touch made her fall to her knees retching. She roughly grabbed hold of herself and ran down the hall towards the beacon of Tayla's weakening screams. Blindly avoiding the empty husk crumpled by the wall, Miria leaped through the shattered wreckage of what had been a foot thick iron bound oak door. She grabbed a long knife from it's hidden sheath under a counter and crept on bare feet through the depthless dark. A madly flickering flame clenched in her fist gave color to Tayla's terrified face. Miria crouched beside an overturned bed. Tayla was backed into wall, blocked on both sides by overturned furniture. The thickest concentration of darkness lay in front of Tayla. It looked almost like smoke in movement and a sometimes a drifting tendril so dense Miria lost site of the fire passed between them. Miria was unspeakably thankful she had so far gone unnoticed, and had no hopes this would continue for long. Her vague idea to grab Tayla and dash for the window that wasn't even five feet from where she crouched, lost appeal as she realized Tayla had stopped screaming. In fact, Tayla was staring hard into the very worst of the dark, Miria swallowed hard as Tayla rose up on her knees and actually looked like she might reach out a hand to it. Her face was no longer a mask of terror, but rather one of growing disbelief, compiled with a hope so strong that Miria thought for a moment that in the heart of darkness they had found an ally. She shook off the emotion after but a brief moment and lunged through the weakest area she could find to grab Taylas uninjured arm and haul her up against the wall, for once uncarng of the furthur damage she was inflicting. She could see nothing in the gloom that would cause her a bit of hope, it was thick and faceless and radiated more evil and danger than Miria would have previously thought possible. And still Tayla struggled against her, weakly, but struggled all the same, to go to it. Miria dragged her gaze away and sought franitically for an exit, any exit. The window. She had seen it before, invisible in the growing dark, still she knew where it had to be, she just had to stand up and reach out… The world was moving in slow motion. Tayla pulled free and lurched forward, Miria lunged after her, grabbed her around the waist, and with strength born of desperation hurled her at the wall where the window should have been. Oh pleaseohpleaseohplease let the shutters be open… Glass shattered, and explosion of sound in what has been an otherwise near silent room. The darkness swirled in agitation and reached tendrils towards her, Miria sucked in air and closed her eyes, retreating into the heart of her power, drawing on more pure energy than she had ever before. When her eyes opened again the darkness had retreated five feet off any point of her body, a body that was illuminated from within by a very very soft light. Around her the air was whispering. She stumbled towards the window, desperate to escape before her strength gave out. As her hands closed on the window ledge, unmindful of the glass shards slicing into her palms, and she began to lever herself out of it, into the still dark water below, the whispers were growing louder, if she waited a moment, she could hear what they were saying. The sudden desire to do just that made her pause. A scream rent the night from below, where a cooks aide had seen the body sinking in the pool below the healers tower, and the healer herself in the window preparing to jump. It was enough to break the spell and without furthur pause Miria lept from the window, careful despite her terror not to land on Tayla in the frigid water below. Miria shivered in the icy air. She had been sitting on the damp earth wrappd in a horse blanket for ten minutes now. She was aware of her surroundings in the vaguest sense only. She was aware she was alive, she was aware she was cold, and she was aware she was in shock. She was also marginally aware that the latter two of those conditions would combine to alleviate the first if she didn't do something about them. Unfortunatly sitting upright was all she could gather the wits to do. People were milling around her, guards, most of the night kitchen staff by this point, and a variety of others who had been roused by the alarm raised by the kitchen girls hasty report to the nearest guard post. They were swarming over both the pond area and the tower she had jumped from. She lacked the energy to bother identifying any of them. She couldn't remember ever being this tired, and was actually contemplating laying down on the muddy bank before anyone actually realized who she was. She idely listened into the conversation going on around her, not really hearing what was being said, just comforted by the sound of human voices.
          "Where is the Healer? The girl said she and Lady Taylinda leaped from the window. Taylinda was brought in immediately but no one has seen Lady Miria."
          "Ahhh, the kitchen help was first on the scene. They claim she was standing on her own, wasn't talking to them, but by then the guard had showed up demanding answers so they gave her a blanket and left her alone."
          "Are they mad? They left a half drowned possibly injured woman near comatose dripping wet on a freezing mud bank with an old blanket!"
          "Milord…"
          "Damn, I don't see her any.. wait. Someone sitting on the bank…"
          "Lady Miria?" Miria didn't register her name, attention caught by the flickering shadows created by the torch and mage lights. The voice gentled a bit and a hand carefully grabbed her shoulder.
          "Miria?" She leaned a bit into the touch, but didn't respond otherwise. It was so cold. She hunched a bit farthur into the blanket. Her face was tilted a bit towards a light, the voice gave a long sigh, "Oh, Miri." The hand moved down her arm and wrapped itself around her wrist, then pulled her arm around a warm neck and slid a strong arm under knees she could barely feel. She latched onto the man as he hauled her into the air.
          "Get out of my way. I am taking her to my chambers for warm clothes and a fire. If any of her staff can get themselves together long enough to bother I would appriciate their attentions there." She drifted into a kind of rough sleep. This was someone she knew, and trusted. She couldn't come up with a name right now…maybe if she slept first… She was rudely jolted out of her daze by what felt like a sudden application of boiling water.
          "Ouch!" She squirmed around, her escape attempt foiled both by the long gown still clinging to her body and entangled in her legs, and the firm hands wrestling her down.
          "Stop it Miria!"
          "Your trying to boil me alive!" She kicked at him but he used the opportunity to completely dunk her.
          "Don't be rediculous," she heard as she surfaced gasping, " the water is barely warm. I've got the boiling water sitting right here though, if you don't settle down. We have to raise your body temperature. I would assume you knew that."
          Miria took a deep breath and calmed herself. Yes, she knew that, she had probably taught it to him. She tried a reflexive analysis of her own status and was firmly rebuffed by the raging headache the attempt spawned. She groaned and leaned back against the tub wall trusting that he wouldn't let her drown. "I don't think I've ever been this sick in my whole life."
          "Good. Healers should suffer. Bring them sympathy for their patients. Though I must admit you could have chosen a less life threatening method." The tension underlying his cheerfulness barely registered as, too tired for word play, she drifted back to sleep.
          The next time she awoke she was wearing warm clothes several sizes too big and cinched around her waist with what looked like a drape cord pressed into service as a belt. Her hair was still damp and had been plaited and pinned around her head like a crown, no doubt to prevent it from soaking her clothing. She sat up, by the moonlight through the window she had been out of it less than an hour. Smarter than to try any use of her powers she tested her balance for standing and declared herself good to go.
          "Lady." She looked up and squinted, her eyes were still a bit on the unfocused side.
          "Rini?" It was one of her staff, one of her staff who had been asleep in the tower…
          "Lady we're all okay. Whatever it was, it made us all sleep through, whatever happened." Miria bit back an almost sob of relief. She had refused to allow herself to think of all the other people in the tower from the time she had heard Tayla's scream to the time she had woken up. Most of her staff were road trained herbalists who had passed her rigorous standards and been granted a job, the rest were local youths who wished to learn the trade and that she had handpicked and arrainged permission from their parents for them to live at the castle and study with her. All of them were her responsible, not to mention the patients themselves.
          "So just the guard on the door then."
          "Yes, Lady Miria. His throat was slit. It was quick." Rini threw out the last bit as if some sort of consolation. And yes, his physical death probably had been quick. But what had been done to his soul was anything but merciful.
          "Lady Taylinda?"
          "She was in the East wing being tended when last I checked."
          "Good. You may escort me there." Rini swallowed hard. Miria sighed,
          "What Rini?" "Milady, I am of course your loyal servant, and if you insist, will be more than willing to take you to the East wing, but maybe you should…" Rini was cut off by a somewhat amused voice in the doorway.
          "I think what your apprentice is trying to tell you, Miri, is that I've appointed myself your temporary caretaker, and if you plan on going anywhere, you will first clear it with me."
          Rini fled as Miria raised less than pleased eyes to meet the gaze of Ilainds crown prince. She wrapped a hand firmly around the bedpost to support herself and forbade it to shake while she gathered herself to do battle.
          "Really, your grace. With the sudden influx of uncatchable intruders in the castle I would assume you to be more in the caretaken position, rather than that of caretaker. The glint in his pale eyes told her he was not fooled by her play of strength.
          "If you truly belive that, Lady Miria, then both you have failed to learn from the past, and I have greatly overestimated your observational skills."
          "And why should you believe me to have wasted any of said skills on yourself?" Her response was absurd and she knew it. Exhaustion, weakness, and a growing sense of dread were distracting her from a better show. Somehow he must have realized this because he let the comment pass unanswered and moved to help her stand. Miria pulled back sharply as he reached for her shoulder.
          "No." At his nonplussed look she clairified, "You aren't going to carry me around. I am a full grown, concious, adult. Not a lightskirted scullery maid, or a unusually warm sack of potatoes."
          He regarded her with a raised brow. "So you, who's arms are trembling with the effort of clinging to a bedpost, are going to calmly stroll across the entire castle, up three flights of stairs, and chat with the many officials who are absolutely drooling for a chance to interrogate you. Unaided."
          "Maybe." His words reminded her that she was the only avaliable witness to what had occurred, and chief of the interogatees would be the Royal Guard commander, a man who distrusted her abilities and have never made any disemblance otherwise. Not that she took much umbrage at this, suspicion was his job. But to be interrogated by him, now… Being comandeered by the crown prince was likely all that had spared her so far. Wonderful, she though sourly, now she owed Delian another favor as well. She sank back onto the bed and rested her face in her hands, rubbing wearily at her eyes. Maybe he would just go away.
          "Not likely." Delian answered her unspoken wish lightly. "The way I see it, you have two options. I can either carry you, or you can stay here for a few days and then walk yourself."
          Miria took a deep breath, "Or maybe we can compromise."