By the time Liv had brought the disk of mana up even with the platform, small flakes of snow had begun to drift down through the night. She imagined that most of them had been caught up in the boughs and pine needles far overhead, but a few managed to land on the fabric of her dress. After the heat of the Varunan jungle, it was jarring.

Liv slipped off the mana-construct and got her boots firmly on the wide wooden platform, but she didn’t allow the spell to fade away yet, keeping it anchored and solid with her intent. Instead, she hovered the disk at the level of her waist, keeping it at her side as she walked across the platform to the doors of the manor, where two armored guards awaited, their breath two plumes of white fog in the darkness.

“Would one of you please fetch my friend Arjun?” Liv asked. She turned to look Keri over, and saw that his eyes were closed. She hoped that he was simply dozing from exhaustion, and not dying of blood loss – but until they got his armor off and checked him for wounds, it was impossible to know. One guard opened the doors, and the second hurried off down the hall toward the guest rooms.

Liv considered lowering the disk to the ground and setting Keri down, but decided against it. Arjun would make a decision about where he wanted to put a prospective patient, and there was no point dismissing a spell she might need again in only a few moments. Liv reached over to put the back of her hand against Keri’s forehead, as Master Cushing had taught her to do so many years before. She didn’t think he felt feverish, though of course Liv had far more experience treating humans than Eld.

Arjun hurried back down the hall toward them, his wand of neem wood held in one hand, dressed in a sort of night gown. The guard came with him. “I need a place to put him down – a couch or a bed. Can you ask the guard, Liv?”

She nodded, and shortly the guard led them to the guest room that Keri had been given when he first arrived. Liv set the conjured platform directly over the mattress and then carefully dissolved it, but she couldn’t prevent Keri from being jostled just a bit when his body hit the bed, and it woke him up.

“I need to speak to the elders,” Keri gasped, eyes open. He tried to sit up, but Arjun bore his patient back down with one arm and his own body weight.

“Whatever it is can wait until I can be certain you aren’t in danger,” Arjun said, and Liv couldn’t help but grin. There was a noticeable shift when the young man changed from her friend to the healer – normally so soft spoken and friendly, he became much more assertive and confident. “Help me get his armor off, Liv.”

“I can undress myself,” Keri complained, but he made little effort to stop them. Liv worked through buckles and straps quickly enough. While Keri’s armor was enchanted steel, rather than leather like hers, the fastenings were similar enough that they didn’t give her much trouble. She carefully tugged off vambraces, pauldrons, and a gorget in turn, doing her best not to move anything. The entire while, Liv listened for a hiss of pain that might indicate a broken bone. She watched for a bloom of wet blood that would reveal a serious wound, hidden by the armor.

The guards who had let Liv and Keri into the manor must have gone to inform Saana Tär Taavetti, because the lady of the house arrived just as Liv and Arjun were peeling off Keri’s battered breastplate. Her son, Vari, followed her through the door into the bedchamber, and both were dressed – like Arjun – as if they’d already retired for the evening.

“Is he wounded?” Saana asked, taking up a position near the foot of the bed that gave Liv and Arjun room enough to move freely and work.

“I haven’t found anything worse than scrapes and bruises yet,” Arjun said. “But I want to get his gambeson off.”

“May I speak to him while you work?” the Elden woman asked. Arjun merely nodded, producing a knife with which he and Liv began to cut away the gambeson.

“Airis still held the pass when I left,” Keri began. “But it won’t be for much longer. The mana beasts keep coming in wave after wave, driven by the eruption.” He hissed as Liv cut his linen undershirt away, to reveal dark purple blotches, like bruises, spread over his torso.

“He’s bleeding inside,” Liv said. She’d seen it before, not only with Master Cushing but at the infirmary under Professor Annora. Of course, it was different when you knew the person lying on the bed in front of you as more than just a patient.

Arjun reached over and began feeling along Keri’s ribs; at the probing of his fingers, Keri gritted his teeth against the pain, and Liv could feel his entire body tense. “Fractured ribs, at the least. The armor was probably keeping everything from shifting.”

“Must have been the bear,” Keri grumbled.

“What does my daiverim need?” Saana asked.

“Everything you can give him. Rotate in fresh troops, at the least - he said this rift had never erupted for so long.” Keri’s body jerked under Liv’s hands when the tip of Arjun’s wand touched his ribcage.

“That’s true,” Vari remarked, from where he’d been standing out of the way, against one wall. “The Valley of Thorns is the most fertile rift we’re aware of. The Vædim used it to grow crops before us, and now it feeds most of the north. But the problem with that is that the same word of power that spurs crop growth also makes for more mana beasts than just about anywhere else. Usually, when the rift erupts, we see a brief surge that’s quickly exhausted.”

“Is there anything else you need to pass on?” Arjun asked Keri. “Because once I start fixing your ribs, you won’t be speaking for a bit.”

“My people are taken care of?” Keri asked.

“I had a guard take them to camp with the other soldiers,” Liv assured him. “Neither looked quite as badly off as you. He’s starting to feel clammy, Arjun.” She maneuvered around to get her hands on Keri’s shoulders, so that she could hold him down. “Vari, can you come help us?”

“I’ll have a messenger sent to be certain one of our healers looks at them,” Saana promised. “Let me know when he’s been treated.” The Elden woman left the room, closing the door behind her.

The moment Arjun began chanting under his breath, it was all Liv could do to hold Keri down, even with help. She’d tried to stop wishing that she was bigger and stronger, but at times like these it would have been nice. A part of her wondered who had held her down when Arjun engraved her bones - or whether they’d just strapped her body to the bed.

By the time the first spell had finished repairing Keri’s ribs, and the second had, Arjun assured them, stopped the bleeding, Liv felt exhausted herself. She straightened up and brushed an errant strand of hair back behind her ear.

“Will the healing break his fever?” she asked. It may have held off long enough for Keri to reach the city, but that was more luck than anything else. If he’d had to ride a few more miles, Liv knew, he would have fallen out of the saddle. When she touched the back of her hand to his forehead now, she could feel him burning up. Somewhere during the process, he’d lost consciousness again.

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“It will help,” Arjun said. “But you can help more, Liv. Do you think you can bring his body temperature down? Carefully?”

“Celet Æn’Is,” Liv muttered. Had it really been seven years ago she’d first worked this spell out at the masque in Freeport? Then, it had been to cool herself down after dancing all night, and she’d been rather flippant about it. Now, she had a better idea of what she was doing.

Carefully, very carefully, Liv used her Authority to suppress Keri’s, and cooled his body to a normal temperature, but no further. Only now did she realize to what extent Cade - whose word of power must have made him very good at controlling his own Authority years before she’d even been aware of the concept - must have allowed her to do this. He had deliberately opened up and trusted her not to hurt him.

“There,” Liv said. “I’m not addressing the root cause, though. Only the symptom. I’ll have to keep doing this, or it won’t last.” She rested her hand on the side of his head, using a small trickle of mana to keep him from overheating again.

“You need rest as well,” Arjun pointed out.

Liv shrugged. “One night won’t kill me.”

“I’m not certain it will even be that long,” Vari said, stepping toward the door. “If we’re going to send reinforcements, they need to leave immediately. If we wait until morning, it could be too late.”

“Then let me know once a decision has been reached,” Liv asked him. “I’ll be right here until either the fever breaks, or you come for me.”

Vari nodded, and left.

“You know what to watch for,” Arjun said. “Come and get me if he takes a turn for the worse.”

“I will.” Liv looked down at Keri’s sleeping face. “He has a little boy, you know? I couldn’t – he needs to get back to his son in one piece. No one should grow up without a father.”

“So long as you keep the fever under control, he should recover,” Arjun said. “You’ve put yourself through a lot worse than this and come out the other side.” He stepped out into the hall and swung the door shut behind him.

“It’s odd,” Liv said into the silence. “I’ve known you for seven years now, but only actually seen you a handful of times. At Freeport, and then when my grandfather died. And now. We don’t actually know each other very well. But don’t worry.”

As the hours passed, Liv closed her eyes, falling into a sort of trance there at the bedside. When Keri’s temperature rose, she cooled him down again. If it dropped too far, well, she had plenty of waste heat to spare to warm him. Always, she kept at least one hand in contact with his bare skin. She didn’t open her eyes again until she heard the nightingale floors squeaking outside, and then the door opened.

“How is he, child?” Aira Tär Keria asked, closing the door behind her again. Unlike those who had come to the room when Arjun was first treating Keri’s injuries, the old woman was now dressed for travel. Her clothing was stout wool, with boots and a winter cloak.

“The fever hasn’t quite broken yet,” Liv murmured. She didn’t want to wake Keri up. “But it isn’t as bad as it was a few hours ago, I don’t think.”

“Good.” The old woman nodded. “Because I need you to leave him.”

Liv sent a small flicker of cooling mana out through her fingertips. “There’s been a decision made about what to do?”

Aira walked around the bed to stand at Liv’s side. “Yes. I’m going into the depths of the rift. Can you get me there alive?”

“I’ve never gone into this rift before,” Liv reminded the older woman. “There have to be people more familiar with what you’re going to face.”

“There are.” Aira nodded. “My grandson, for one. Whether he’ll be in any condition to protect me by the time we arrive is debatable. We have enough warriors here to reinforce the gap, but not to drive into the depths. My grandson is no great warrior, Livara, nor his boy either. Inkeris is in no condition to get out of that bed. Either I pull your father back from Varuna, or I entrust myself to you.”

“The moment my father goes through that waystone, Ractia will attack our people at the dam,” Liv said. “It’s probably what they’re waiting for.” Which sent her thoughts in a new direction: the enemy would have to have scouts near enough to the new fortifications to see what was happening. Liv had a pretty good idea what kind of scouts that would be.

“Which is why I come to you,” Aira confirmed. “You’ve led your friends into the Well of Bones and the Foundry Rift. Get me to the center of this one. I know the way better than anyone else who is still alive.”

“You want me to lead you to where your mother died,” Liv guessed, and the old woman nodded. “What will you do there?”

“I will take control of this rift back from Ractia. Once I’ve done that, I can end the eruption.”

Liv looked down at Keri’s face. She would have preferred to have been there when he woke up – to be certain he survived the fever. If she ever met his little boy, she wanted to be able to look the child in the eye and tell him she’d done everything she could for his father. But if mana beasts swarmed over the walls and into Al’Fenthia, everyone would be dead just the same.

“I’ll do it,” Liv said. “But you need to teach us how. She isn’t going to stop using rifts against us, and we need a way to deal with it.”

“Agreed,” the old woman said, without hesitating. “Go and get yourself armored, and your people ready to ride. I’ll sit with the boy for a bit.”

☙

Liv wasn’t even certain what hour it was until she saw the horologe in her room, and she winced once she realized that she’d be waking her friends before the fourth bell. For Arjun, it would be the second time in the evening, so she kept him for last. Instead, she began with Wren, leaning over the huntress’ bed to shake her by the shoulder.

Wren came up with a dagger in her hand, which, upon reflection, Liv should have been prepared for.

“It’s just me,” she said, holding herself motionless.

Wren relaxed, and the knife fell. With a groan, she threw herself back onto her pillows. “What is it, Liv?”

“We’re riding out to the rift,” Liv told her. “Ractia’s using it to grind our people down so that she can hit my father’s camp in Varuna. I need you to go through the waystone.”

Wren blinked. “Wait, which waystone? Where am I going?”

“Ractia will have scouts watching my father and his soldiers,” Liv explained. “That way, she can send her forces in the moment we begin moving troops back to Al’Fenthia. Take one guess what kind of scouts she’ll have in the jungle.”

“My people.” Wren nodded, sat up, and swung her legs around, throwing back the winter blankets.

“I need you to find them and deal with them,” Liv told her.

“Deal with. You mean kill.” The other woman’s shoulders slumped.

“No, I mean deal with,” Liv insisted. “Talk them into deserting Ractia and going home. Lead them on a chase off into the jungle. Knock them unconscious and tie them to the base of a tree. I don’t care how you do it, Wren, just get rid of the eyes on my father. In fact, I’d prefer it if they all survived.”

“I can’t send myself through,” Wren reminded her.

“I’ll arrange for someone to do it,” Liv said. “And when it's done my father can send you back.”

“Alright. Just let me get dressed,” Wren grumbled, and Liv moved on to the next room.

She woke up Sidonie, who Liv lured out of bed with the promise that Aira was going to teach them how to wrest control of a rift back from Ractia. Then, Liv moved into Rosamund’s room.

The other girl’s confession made things different, as much as Liv had tried to pretend otherwise. She felt as if she was intruding, in a way that waking Wren and Sidonie hadn’t affected her mind. Liv walked over to the bed, where the moonlight fell on Rose’s face, and her dark hair splayed out across the pillows. It was longer than it had been: none of them had felt the urge to chop at each other’s hair with a belt knife while they were up in the mountains.

For a moment, Liv pictured Rose hurt like Keri had been. She imagined the other girl with broken ribs, bleeding from inside, skin pale and sweat-slicked with fever. In a way, it would be easier if she simply let Rosamund sleep. Leave her behind, rather than take her into yet another rift.

But that was what Liv’s father had done to her, when he went to Varuna – and she didn’t like the feeling of being left behind. She imagined that Rose would be furious. Instead, she sat down on the mattress. It shifted beneath her weight, and Rosemund turned toward her, still asleep. Liv reached out a hand to the other girl’s shoulder, and gave her a gentle shake.

“Hello.” Rosamund grinned the moment she saw who was in the room with her. “Now that’s a pretty sight to wake up to.”

Liv felt her cheeks and the tips of her ears heat up; her only hope was that the darkness of the room wouldn’t make her blush obvious. “We’re going into the rift,” she said. “I need to go wake Arjun up next.”

Rose put her own hand over Liv’s. “Sure. Just let me get dressed.”

For a moment, neither of them moved. Then, Liv tugged her hand free, turned, and walked to the door.