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“The lives and health of children are not to be bartered,” Amber said clearly. “What he can do, he will. But it may take a toll on the child as well. His body will heal him; the prince will but guide the process. It can be taxing. I speak from experience.”

The parents did not hesitate. “Please,” begged Nortel. I looked around at the clustered Elderlings. Some held children. If I failed, I had no idea what would befall us. I set my other hand on the boy that his father offered to me.Advertisement

I lowered my walls.

The Skill immersed me, as if I had stepped into a surging wave. It filled and flooded me and then connected me to the child I touched. I knew this boy, this Elderling child, and knew how he should have grown, and saw what his body needed to do to correct itself. The Skill that flowed through me diverted to flow through him. The lure of the Skill, the terrible danger of that heady magic that every Skill-candidate is taught to block and suppress, shone before me in all its glittering, surging beauty. We dived into it and swam through it. His own body opened what was constricted, loosened what was too tight. It was a perfect alignment of purpose and solution. I guided the power as if I were tracing the lettering on a precious scroll. Perfect. He would be perfect. He smiled at me and I smiled back. I gazed at him and through him and saw what a marvelous creature was this child.

“I, I felt him heal!” Someone said this, at a great distance, and then he took from me the beauty of what I had mended. I opened my eyes, wavering on my feet. Nortel held his son. The boy was weak but smiling. He held his head steady and reached up a thin hand to touch his father’s scaled cheek and then laughed aloud. Maude gave a shriek and embraced them both. They stood, the three of them a weeping, smiling pillar.

“Fitz?” Someone spoke close by. Someone shook my arm. It was Amber. I turned to her, smiling and puzzled.

“I wish you could have seen that,” I said quietly.

“I felt it,” she said quietly. “I very much doubt if anyone here did not feel it. The building seemed to hum around us. Fitz, this was a bad idea. You have to stop. This is dangerous.”

“Yes. But more than that, it’s right. It’s very right.”

“Fitz, you must listen to me—”

“Please. It’s her feet. They started to go wrong about a year ago. She used to run and play. She can scarcely walk anymore.”

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I gave my head a shake and turned away from Amber. An Elderling woman with hummocked shoulders stood before me. But they were not her shoulders at all. What I had taken for fabric-draped hummocks I now saw were the tops of her wings. They were blue and the tops of them were as high as her ears; the trailing plumes nearly swept the floor behind her. A girl of about seven leaned on her, partially supported by her Elderling father on the other side. His markings were green, the mother’s blue, and the child bore a twining of both colors. “She is ours,” the father said. “But from month to month neither of our dragons claims her. Or both do, and squabble over her growth as if she were a toy, one changing what the other wrought. Both our dragons have gone to a warmer place for the winter months. Since then, she has grown worse.”

“Tats, Thymara, do you think it wise to ask him to interfere? Will not both Fente and Sintara take this amiss when they return?” Queen Malta cautioned them.

“When they return, I will worry about it,” Thymara declared. “Until then, why should Fillia pay for their neglect? Six Duchies prince, can you help her?”

I studied the child. I could almost see the conflicting plans for her. One ear was tasseled, the other pointed. The discord rang against my senses like the chiming of a cracked bell. I tried to be cautious. “I don’t know. And if I try, I may have to draw on her strength, on the reserves of her own body. It will be her own flesh that makes the changes. I can guide her, but I cannot supply what her body needs.”

“I don’t understand,” Tats objected.

I pointed at her feet. “You can see that her feet strive to become the feet of a dragon. Some bone must go away, flesh must be added. I cannot cut nor can I add. Her body must do that.” I could hear the muttering of the gathered Elderlings as they discussed my words.

The green father dropped to one knee to look into his daughter’s face. “You must decide, Fillia. Do you want to do this?”

She looked up at me, in fear and hope. “I want to run again and not have it hurt. My face is tight when I try to smile so that I think my lips will crack.” She touched her scaled scalp. “I would have hair, to keep me warmer!” She lifted her hands to me. Her nails were blue and tipped like claws. “Please,” she said. pqdm.com