Jayereth, hear me… Hold fast… for your daughter, newly born to grace your house… for T’Vero who cherishes you… for your Prince who is in such need of your service… With everything I knew of Jayereth I commanded her to hold quiet - just for the moment it would take me to see what I needed to see.

She understood me, I think, for there came the briefest ebb in the death tide, an instant’s clearing in the red mist of her pain and madness that let me perceive a host of things too terrible to know: ribs smashed, lungs torn, blood… everywhere hot, pooling blood and fragments of bone, her belly in shreds… Earth and sky, how had they done this? It was as if they knew every possible remedy a Healer could provide and had arranged it so I could do nothing but make things worse.

Another instant and I was awash once more in Jayereth’s torment, feeling her struggle to breathe with a chest on fire and a mind blasted with fear. I could not give her strength or endurance, only my healing skill and a few pitiful words of comfort. But even as I fought to knit together the ragged edges of her heart, her last remnants of thought and reason flicked out. Her screams sagged into a low, flat wail… and then silence. I had lost her.

Let her go, I told myself, you can’t help her by traveling the only road she has yet to travel. That road is not for you… not yet. Forcing aside the wave of enveloping darkness, I gritted my teeth and spoke the command, “Cut it now.”

My companion cut away the strip of linen that bound my forearm to Jayereth’s and allowed our mingled blood to feed my sorcery. The cold touch that seared my flesh was not his knife - his hand was too experienced for that - but the sealing of a scar that would forever remind me of my failure in my young counselor’s last need.