She searched with owl eyes and Elf fingers, an excruciatingly slow process given the urgency she felt. Where was the damage? Where was the thing that was stealing away her sister’s life?
She found it when she was working her way up her sister’s left side. There, beneath her arm, barely visible even to Aphen’s owl eyes, was a pinprick from which nothing protruded and no blood flowed. Dirt and sweat had obscured it so thoroughly that it was virtually indistinguishable from the skin surrounding it. But when Aphen pulled back the skin from either side of the wound, she saw the sharp glint of metal. She held her finger to its tip without moving it in any direction and sent her magic down its long, slender length to discover that it was nestled against her sister’s ribs and breastbone and buried inside her heart.
She had missed finding it before, thinking it only a part of Arling’s bones. She had rushed herself; she had worked too fast. And it had nearly cost Arling her life.
Aphen sat back, terrified. Six inches of jagged metal, driven into her sister’s heart. She had to extract it at once, but she could do nothing that would cause it to go deeper or cut further. It had penetrated far enough and done such damage already that it was close to ending Arling’s life. It would take only a single mistake to finish the job it had started.
From somewhere not all that far away, she heard the sounds of a struggle and then a howl of anguish.
Faster! She had to work faster!
But that was exactly the wrong thing to do, of course. That was the mistake she had made before. She had to do exactly the opposite. She had to take her time.
Her owl eyes fixed and steady, her fingers splayed to either side of the wound so as to pull back the skin, Aphenglow Elessedil reached downward into the wound with her magic, wrapped its strands around the length of the metal shard, softened the edges and the razor-sharp spurs, and began to pull it out. She had only heard of the procedure; she had never done it herself and never seen it done. The Ard Rhys, it was rumored, had twice performed this form of extraction—but only once successfully. It was immensely difficult. Her invisible grip on the sliver of metal slipped repeatedly. More times than she cared to remember later, it twisted free entirely.
Her face felt hot and damp, and the effort of keeping her eyes open and fixed caused her to experience an ache that threatened to flatten her. But she held firm, stayed steady, and continued her task.
She heard Arling groan. She felt her start to move. No! She stopped what she was doing, waited without breathing, without doing anything but willing her sister to sleep.
After a few mind-numbing seconds, Arling did. Aphen went back to work at once. She was close, so close.
In the distance, another howl. This one was much worse, chilling and raw.
Then the sliver came free, and as it did so she heard Arling give a long, soft sigh. She let the metal shard drop and used her magic to close the wound so that healing could begin. She bent to her sister, feeling for her pulse, listening for her breath.
Both were smooth and even again. She was resting quietly, asleep but no longer threatened.
Aphen removed her tattered cloak and laid it across her sister’s body. Then she was on her feet, racing into the trees.
27
Stoon loped through the forest, working hard to keep pace with the animals ahead of him. The mutants were moving swiftly now, the scent they were following clearly growing stronger as their prey grew nearer. For such large creatures, they were surprisingly agile and silent, bounding ahead like great cats at the hunt. Even as disgusted as he was by what they were, and as contemptuous as he felt of their reduced state, Stoon could admire their athletic skills and feral instincts.