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By Root 612 0

of my nail wounds every time I healed a solider. Did that mean that I could only heal as many as I had nails in my flesh? On the one hand, being healed would be good, but on the other hand, there were many more soldiers than the nails I had in my body. Would I lose the ability to heal the rest when I was healed myself? I didn’t want to stay injured, but…I let the thought go. We would do what we could, then we’d see. I did my best not to think too hard about anything. I did my best to keep walking, and let the men I’d saved help me. If I thought too hard, I’d be like Peter walking across the sea to follow Jesus. He did fine until he thought too hard, then he fell beneath the waves. I could not afford to fall. I could feel the need of the injured in the dark. That need called to me, and I had to answer it.

We found two soldiers together. I didn’t know what Cel and his people had done, but it was as if all of the wounded had crawled off to die. Where were the doctors, the medics? Where was everyone? I could hear the fighting in the distance, a little closer now as we moved, but whatever illusion had been used had made them crawl away to die, and not seek help.

Dawson and Brennan helped me kneel beside the fallen soldiers. It took me a moment to realize that one of the soldiers was a woman. She was hidden under a vest and some gear. Her skin was almost as dark as Doyle’s in the night of the trees.

Dawson said, “It’s Hayes.”

Brennan was kneeling beside the other soldier, who was collapsed on one side. “It’s Orlando, sir.”

I laid my hand against Hayes’s neck, and felt something sticky. I didn’t bother to raise my hand to the faint light. I knew it was drying blood. It shouldn’t be drying that fast, should it? Had I lost track of time?

I spoke out loud without really meaning to. “Was she ever wounded?”

“Yes,” Brennan said. “We both got hit in the same ambush. She dragged my ass to safety, just like she did Orlando here.”

“Was your chest wound an old wound?” I asked.

“Yes, ma’am. That prince, he pointed his hand at me and it was like the wound just came back. Then he ripped my vest back so he could see the wound. He seemed to enjoy seeing it.”

“Was she wounded in the neck?” I asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Cel was hurting my people. He was hurting people who had sworn to protect me. They were dying to protect me and mine. It wasn’t right. We were supposed to protect them, not the other way around.

I prayed to the Goddess as I touched Hayes. She was brave, and had saved lives once with this wound in her body. It seemed wrong to make her live through it twice, but even in the midst of the horror, she had grabbed another solider and dragged him with her. So brave.

There was pain, and this time I didn’t pass out. This time I saw the nail push its way out of my flesh in a spurt of blood. The blood spattered Hayes’s face as her eyes flew wide, flashing white. She gasped, and grabbed my arm. The nail fell on to her chest, and her other hand closed on it automatically, as if she hadn’t noticed.

“Who are you?”

“I am Princess Meredith NicEssus.”

She clutched my arm, her fist clutching the bloody nail to her chest. She swallowed hard. “It doesn’t hurt.”

“You’re healed,” Dawson said, leaning over her.

“How?”

“Let her heal Orlando, and you’ll see.”

Dawson helped me stand, but I was feeling a little better, and didn’t have to lean so heavily on his arm. I still let him and Brennan help me to my knees. I still couldn’t move my shoulder, though my hand and lower arm now had more range of movement.

There was no visible wound on Orlando, but his skin was cool to the touch, and I couldn’t find a pulse in his neck, not even that thready hesitation that Dawson had had. I tried not to think what that meant. I tried not to question this miracle, or to think too hard that I didn’t really know what I was doing or how. I prayed harder, and laid my hands on the man’s cooling skin.

A shower of rose petals blew across us, like pink snow. I felt the man shudder underneath my hands, and there was more pain, more blood, and another nail fell into