Stunned silence fell on the hall.
“No,” Isana said. She felt dizzy, stunned, and she had to close her eyes. “No. Bernard.” The enormity of that simple finality, of death, fell on her like a mile of chains. Bernard was her only living family, and she had been close to him since before she could clearly remember. She could not picture a world without her brother in it. There had to be something she could do. Surely, something. She had been so close to securing the help she needed. If Kord and his sons hadn’t been interfering, if they had only kept to themselves, there would have been two skilled watercrafters attending to Bernard before she was even awakened.
Let the crows take Kord and his murderous little family, Isana thought viciously. What right did he have to jeopardize the lives of others in order to protect his own position? Bernard could have been cared for. He could have lived.
She needed Bernard. The steadholt needed him. Tavi needed him.
Tavi. If anyone could find Tavi now, if anyone could help him, it was her brother. She had to have his help. She had to have him beside her. Without him, Tavi could be gone forever. He, too, could—
“No,” Isana said aloud. She took a breath, steeling herself. She could not let Kord’s viciousness kill her brother and Tavi all in one moment. She lifted her head and focused on Old Bitte. “No, this isn’t over. Get him into the tub.”
Bitte looked up at Isana, her expression startled. “What?”
“Get him into the tub,” Isana said. She started rolling up her sleeves in brisk, short motions. “Otto, Roth, get over here and prepare your furies.”
“Isana,” Bitte hissed. “Child, you cannot do this.”
“She can,” said Otto, his voice quiet, his pate gleaming in the light of the fire. “It’s been done before. When I was young, just taking my own chain, Harald the Younger’s boy fell through the ice and into the mill pond. He was under for nearly thirty minutes before we could get him back up through it, and he lived.”
“Lived,” spat Bitte. “He sat in a chair drooling and never speaking again until fevers took him. Would you do that to Bernard as well?”
Roth grimaced and put a frail hand on Otto’s shoulder. “She’s right. Even if we bring his body back, his mind might not come along with it.”
Isana stood and faced the two men. “I need him,” she said. “Tavi is out in the storm. I have no time to discuss the matter. You were willing to help me a moment ago. Now do it or get out of my way.”
“We’ll help,” Otto offered at once.
Roth let out a slow breath, his expression reluctant. “Aye,” he agreed. “Furies willing, the attempt won’t kill you.”
“I’m touched by your enthusiasm.” Isana stalked to the copper tub. Several of the holders, under Bitte’s direction, lowered Bernard’s limp form into the tub. The water stained pink, blood swirling languidly out from the wound in his thigh. “Get the bandage off,” she instructed. “It won’t matter now, one way or the other.”
She knelt down by the head of the tub, reaching out to rest her fingers against Bernard’s temples. “Rill,” she whispered, reaching a hand down to touch the water, briefly. “Rill, I need you.” She felt the water swirl, slowly, as Rill entered the tub. She could feel the fury’s reluctance, its motions vague and unsure — no, not Rill’s reluctance, but her own weariness. As tired as Isana was, doubtless Rill could not hear her clearly, could not respond to her as well as the fury usually might. In a moment more, that would not be an issue.
“Immi,” Otto whispered. Isana felt the portly Steadholder rest his hand on her shoulder, warm fingers tightening slightly in support. The waters stirred beneath her fingers anew, as the second fury entered the tub, a much smaller, more active presence than Rill’s.
Roth put his hand on her opposite shoulder. “Almia.” Once again, the water stirred with a stronger, more confident presence, the older Steadholder’s fury carrying with it a sense of fluid strength.
Isana took a deep breath, focusing through her weariness and her fear and her anger. She pushed her wild concern for Tavi from her thoughts, her uncertainty that she could help her brother. She cleared everything away but her sense, through Rill, of the water in the tub and of the body it surrounded.
There was a certain feel to a body submerged in water, a kind of delicate vibration spreading out from the skin. Isana willed Rill to surround Bernard, so that she could feel for that fragile energy around him, the tremors of life. For a terrible moment, the waters were still and she could sense nothing.
Then Rill quivered in response to the barest traces of life in the wounded man. Isana felt her heart lurch in relief, and she murmured, “He’s still here. But we have to hurry.”
“Don’t risk it, Isana,” Roth said, his voice quiet. “He’s too far gone.”
“He’s my brother,” Isana said. She flattened her hands against either side of Bernard’s thick neck. “You and Otto seal up the wound. I’ll do the rest.”
She felt Otto’s hand tighten on her shoulder. Roth let out a quiet, resigned sigh.
“If you go in, you might not be able to get back out again. Even if you are successful in reviving him.”
“I know.” Isana closed her eyes, and leaned forward enough to plant a gentle kiss on her brother’s head. “All right then,” she said. “Here we go.”
Isana let out her breath in a long, slow exhalation and poured her attention, her focus, her will forward into the water. The dull ache in her limbs faded away. The clenching tension in her back vanished. All the sensations of her body, from the too-cool skin beneath her fingers to the smooth stone beneath her knees and toes faded away to nothing. She felt only the water, the fading energy around Bernard, and the nebulous presence of the furies in the water with her.
Rill’s presence pressed close to her, something like concern pressing against Isana’s awareness. She touched Rill with her thoughts, giving the fury an image, a task. In response, Rill glided closer, into the same space Isana’s awareness occupied. The sensation of the fury’s presence overlapped with her own until she could no longer readily distinguish the two. Isana felt a brief surge of disorientation as she and the fury joined one another. Then, as always, Rill’s perceptions began to flow into her in a slow rush of sounds, murky vision, and in surges of tangible, tactile emotion.
She looked up at the vague, pale shape of Bernard’s body, at the even more blurred shape of her own, standing over him. Roth and Otto’s furies hovered anxiously before her in the water, each visible to her, now, faint colors in a pair of cloudy forms.
She did not speak, but from here, it was a simple matter to send the words to Roth and Otto, through their furies. “Gather him up and seal closed the wound. I’ll handle the rest.”