Paxa Sel didn’t allow Kezra to watch the soldiers at the lane mouth for more than a handful of seconds. With a sharp, practiced jerk of her chin, the healer signaled to Fellis Dain. Working together with the smooth speed born of months on high scree slopes, the two of them lifted Kezra by her waist and upper arms, half-carrying and half-dragging her three paces deeper into the sheltered recess behind the natural rock stone support prop.
The stone support prop was a massive spur of native limestone that projected six feet from the cliff face, shielding a narrow, stone-paved pocket from the biting northern downdraft that had begun to pour off the arrived plateau. Paxa kicked aside three dried thistle stalks, unrolled a thick, double-felted wool groundsheet across the flat stone slabs, and eased Kezra down into a sitting position with her back pressed against the warm, south-facing rock.
Kezra’s weight settled onto the wool. Then, the second wave of body recoil broke over her nervous system.
It began not with pain, but with a total, terrifying cold that seemed to originate in the marrow of her shinbones and spread outward through her blood. Her teeth chattered so wildly that she bit her tongue again. It filled her mouth with the warm salt taste of copper. Her forearms locked in rigid, reflex spasms. Her fingers curling into was tight, claw-like fists that she could neither open nor relax. A wave of deep nausea rolled through her stomach, dry and…
