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"Drop the shield," I said to Ciana Without deies fell to the snoith an unfa the skin onher incessant questions, I knelt at Durbarge&039;s side as Thadd again breathed into his mouth

A small voice in the back of my head whispered that my life would be a lot easier if the assey were dead He had never done a thing to help me Even his current defense could be construed as self-serving I lifted a healing a the stone, a , on his stoe&039;s chest and started pu

The Fla in front ofplasma burns on my retinas One landed on Thadd&039;s hand, and he yelped, knocking the Flaained its shape and shot toward h-pitched buzz I closed lare and swatted at it "If you can&039;t heal hiet out of the way," I said

Instantly, the Flae&039;s torso and disappeared inside Thadd jue&039;s body lurched on the snow Lurched again A second Flaered claound, and vanished inside The other Fla that shrill vibration that hurt my ears Thadd didn&039;t seee jerked a third time And took a breath

"Tears of Taharial," the reporter whispered into herout over the SNN airwaves Thadd risked a shock and touched Durbarge&039;s carotid

The two Flaed once around Thadd&039;s head, and joined thethat was giving me a headache With a final swoop, the Flames separated and flew in five different directions, each landing on a wounded hu inside a body

"As you&039;ve just seen, the e commanded the Minor Flames to heal," the reporter said to the anchor only she could hear, "and they did Healing is a talent never demonstrated by these minor seraphic warriors How did you do that?" She thrust a er had been lessened but was still present

All I could think of was, seraph stones, e than she had used Someone called my na over a teenage boy and Iit with my thumb

The boy watched wide-eyed when I placed the a wound The an to stir

Thadd pointed to a knot of miners "You men Get some stretchers You" - he pointed to a e started You Get a fire brigade and start a bonfire to burn the spawn and succubi" Thadd pointed at Culpepper and ordered, "You Get thehall open for the wounded" Culpepper opened his ue, but stopped when the ca one last furious look at an to break up

At hed with relief I touched her chin and turned her face to ain step in front of a seraph to save amine expression, unrepentant "How&039;s Zeddy?" I asked

The ss over hiainst the wall of his house, Jacey bending over hi over his supine forhts, a shield I could see with huet a better view "What is it?"

"I don&039;t know The pin told e of the shield, I inspected it withincantation in the shape of a bell, the force of it pulsing with power that rolled across the sides like sound waves and into Zeddy&039;s body I had no idea hoas hter and hugged her hard, weeping, trying to get words past the joy clogging her throat "Thank you Thank you so s and feet swinging

Zeddy opened his eyes and whispered, "You&039;ll crush her, Mahed, a broken sound, and set Ciana on her feet, stroking her face and hair The huge boy&039;s cheeks, neck, and shoulders were puckered ounds in half-circular spawn bites, indentations where flesh had been torn away and eaten, dried blood where the teeth had pierced There were dozens of bites along his legs and torso Hundreds

No human could survive that e would have a probles zinged with reme had stopped, and the wounds were scaling over It would take a while to clean all the spawn poison out of his system, but I was pretty sure he would live

I looked at Ciana "Can you ed again, and I could see exhaustion in the set of her shoulders "Maybe Why?" It wasn&039;t fair to ask what I wanted, but if she could rievously wounded I explained what I wanted, and she looked down at the pin on her chest It was glowing softly "I can try But then they&039;ll know about me And the pin" She didn&039;t add that they would fear her, as they feared me

"If you want, you can pretend the shields are ain and said, "That elder would try to take away reed with her assessment, as well as the plan to fool the town "Okay"

Satisfied, Ciana and I walked together toward the old Central Baptist Church The fighting was over, but we had a second battle before us, as dangerous and difficult as the one with the Darkness Many had been bitten by spawn and were poisoned Except for the Fla amulets, there wasn&039;t much that would clear spawn venoht and all of Sunday passed in caring for the injured while the town fathers burned Darkness and cleaned up the town Abbreviated services - praise for the survival of the town,for the dead - were held in the town hall when the kirk was found to be fire-daed I didn&039;t attend

It was three am Monday when I lockedCiana was asleep in her nook of a bedroo the sleep of warriors It would be dawn before I could rest I had too much to do

Before I cleaned myself, I rinsedof cleansing salt to remove microscopic traces of Dark blood I oiled each blade, inspecting the cutting edges for nicks and slivers, and piled the weapons and my amulets on the kitchen table as I peeled off s The bloody cloth blazed up in a cloud of sulfur and acid Darkness could use the shtened me, but noas pretty sure the Power on the Trine knehere I was When it was ready, Forcas would co under a hot spray of cleansing water, I inspected s as caked black and crimson-rust blood dissolved and washed down the drain I was a lot better off than I had expected Close proxi shields had provided a residual effect, leaving me with fresh, shiny, red skin in place of blood-crusted wounds The new skin was thin, filled with fluid, and very tender, but it ay better than open wounds Even my feet, which should have been burned and frostbitten, looked better than I expected

I had suffered three spawn bites and one really nasty claound - enough to kill a hu flesh creased and tight, the wounds theether I wasn&039;t sick from the poison I had learned the hard way that iven s went, that one was pretty good Too bad I didn&039;t have an iruesome, and I smeared oint about the fight Wasn&039;t thinking about the attack of the townspeople in the street I was trying to keep it all, all the blood and stench and death and betrayal stuffed into a little pocket in a corner of , but as I cleaned up my body and my weapons, little bursts of ht of a man&039;s face, bled out in the snow, lips blue, skin crusted with blood and ice A severed dragonet leg, twitching, the joint opening and bending shut The re The sound of a child&039;s screa of another child, dying of spawn bites

Ciana&039;s pin had helped to heal me, but it hadn&039;t restored me, hadn&039;t taken away the shock of real war The only tiht before, except for the round, alone It had been followed by an attack on the Trine; a handful of huainst a small horde of spawn and daywalkers Neither had prepared me for all-out omen, children, and men dead in the street, dinner for spawn

I knew I&039;d never sleep And though I was exhausted, I still had work to do I had to have a little talk with Lolo Blinking away the ies, I dressed in soft, warm clothes and turned up the heat in the loft

Sore in every muscle, I pushed aside the kitchen table The five Flames had disappeared The two I had seen wounded I had picked up and carried back tothe pile of weapons The burned-out Flames looked like smoky quartz with black coal-like inclusions I held one to the light and wished I could fix them both, just like their buddies had healed so many of the townspeople

The makeshift hospital was filled to capacity with bell-shaped healing shields and recuperating townspeople, many of whom had been healed by the Flaanization of the town The reporter, whose naotten, had probably won a Pulitzer or a wartie on the attack and the town&039;s defense And the healing of the fighters afterwards