She hesitated, then shook her head.

He shrugged and left. He passed Asuli on the steps. The intern had the boy in tow, and she barely nodded to him as she marched determinedly up the

steps. Kiyun gave the boy a thoughtful look, paused, and after a moment went back upstairs. He stood in a shadow of the corridor and watched and listened.

Asuli barely knocked before entering the room. Dion didn't answer her, but

simply eyed her steadily.

"Healer Dione-" Asuli reached behind her to push the boy forward. "This is Roethke."

The boy stopped hesitantly. "Please," he said. He faltered.

Asuli pushed him forward again, then stepped back into the hall, away from

the doorway. She glanced at Kiyun, then pressed herself against the wall and like him, listened in silence.

Inside the room, Dion and Roethke looked at each other. Finally, Dion

spoke. "I'm no longer a healer, boy."

"Yes you are."

"I'm not."

"You are. That woman said so."

"I have no circlet, no healer's pack."

"But my mother-she's sick, and you can help her. Asuli said you could."

"Asuli knows nothing, and you have a good healer in this village to see to

your mother. Call on Elibi, not me."

"My mother has hairworms. They're in her blood. She didn't know, and they were there too long. Healer Elibi can't help her."

"Then I cannot help her either."

"But Asuli said-"

She cut him off. Her voice was harsh. "I'm nothing and no one."

"Please. Just look at her-"

Dion's palm hit the wall. The slam shocked the boy into silence. "I told

you, I can't help her. I'm no longer a healer."

"You have a healer's band-that woman said you used to wear it all the time. That you took it off because you didn't want us to know you could

help people like my mother. Why won't you do it? She's going to die. Why won't you help her?" he cried.

Something in Dion's chest broke. Rage blinded her, whirled through her

brain with the wolves. "Damn you-" She struck out, snapping the bedpost with her hand. Roethke trembled but stood his ground. Dion no longer saw him. Too many Gray Ones flooded her thoughts, swamping her with heat and fire, hunger and hate, lust and eagerness and rage. Yellow eyes mixed with the graysong, and ancient voices screamed. She spun, smashing the nightstand, then striking it again as a drawer hung out, half broken. Wood shattered; splinters flew. Like a wire too tight, her body shook. The howl that tried to scream out from her lungs strangled instead in her throat.

"Please," Roethke begged in the abrupt and jagged silence. "She's my

mother."

Dion's hands were paws; her skin was covered with a pelt of fur; her nose wrinkled back like a wolf. Her violet eyes were rimmed with yellow, as though a hundred wolves looked out her eyes.

"Please," Roethke said softly.

Somehow, the young voice filtered through. Slowly, Dion stilled. Her fists, clenched, pressed against her forehead; her ragged breathing smoothed. She

looked at him for a long moment. He was not so young, she realized. He was as old as Olarun-as straight and tall. His young, thin face was pinched with fear, but he didn't back down-he didn't retreat in the face of her rage. Slowly, her nostrils flared, and she caught the scent of his stubbornness. The Gray Ones that coursed through her brain picked up the scent and echoed it back.

"Please," he said. "Don't let her die." "Show me," Dion whispered.

XIX.

It does no good to grasp what you can reach. Stretch, because everything of value is beyond what you can easily see and understand. If you are afraid, if you have lost too much and withdrawn from others, you must stretch even further to touch what burns you and hold what you fear. It's the only way you will ever be alive again.

-Yegros Chu, Randonnen philosopher Previous Top Next The force of the Gray Ones hit her as she walked toward the boy's home, and she staggered with the weight of it. Roethke caught her arm to steady her, as though he had done it before, and Dion realized he must have nursed his mother as the woman had grown weaker. The pain caught her suddenly, like the stab of a knife, and she gasped. The gray wolves howled. The sound

was in her ears, not just in her head, and the boy clenched her hand sharply.

"It's just the wolves," Dion tried to soothe, but her voice was half growl, half words. 'They won't hurt you, " she forced herself to say.

"Why are they here? What do they want?"

"Me." She could hear the wolves gathering, thickening, closing in on the village. They searched for her voice in the packsong and howled when they

found the thread of it so close, so strong. Then, ahead of her, at the end of the road, one of the wolves gave voice.

Back at the commons house, Tehena, standing at the window, cocked her

head as the howl rose. "So," she muttered. "They did come."

Gamon, standing beside her, didn't hear her. "That's close." He frowned.

"They're practically in the village."

Absently, she rubbed one bare foot against the other. "They'll be closer,

too, before long."

This time, he heard her. He glanced at her, and his gray gaze caught her expression. "What do you know that I don't?" he asked. But there was a half knock at the door before she could answer, and Kiyun looked inside.

"Asuli brought a boy to see Dion," he said quickly. "She's gone to do a healing."

Tehena turned swiftly. "A healing? Now?" She pushed away from Gamon

and grabbed her socks and boots from the floor, hurriedly pulling them on.

Gamon stared at her, and she stomped to set her feet in the boots, the left one only half on. "That wasn't part of the deal-" She cursed as she hopped on one foot. "Moonworms on every Ariyen bootmaker... "

"Part of the deal-what do you mean?" Gamon grabbed her arm, steadying her. Then he caught the look on her face. His gray gaze went cold. "What have you done, Tehena?"

The woman paused. She looked him straight in the eye. "I Called the wolves," she said.

He stared at her. "Have you lost your mind? They almost killed you before."

"Between Dion and what y-" Her voice broke off. She shrugged. "I didn't figure I had much to lose."

"And your arms and calves-those bandages? They don't hide sap marks or rashes at all," he stated more than questioned. "You're hiding slash marks from the Gray Ones."

"You talk to the wolves, you pay their price." She jerked free and jammed

her boot on the rest of the way.

From the doorway, Kiyun looked at her oddly. "And the wolves," he said.

"They listened to you?"

Her voice was hard. "Don't worry, it's not likely to happen again." She

tossed her cloak around her shoulders.

He half shrugged in apology, but he didn't take his gaze from her face.