There was an awkward silence. She caught a frown from Oralee, and she could not even look at the sighing dragon. For a slight moment, Rosalea worried there was about to be a punishment since her attitude was in the open with the dragon able to hear her thoughts.

After that silence, all the dragon did was ask, “How is your magic?”

She felt startled. She tried not to look like it though, but that was not what she expected. “I have not looked.”

“Look,” he said.

Rosalea watched his feet as she sat down on the bed, noting he was not moving toward her, but she was conscious of him watching her closely. Since she was a little unnerved, it took a moment to focus. What she found was pretty bad looking.

There were shards of magic everywhere. And half of them weren’t hers. They were a dark steely gray. The dragon’s magic? That is what Galena told me last night.

I wonder if he can hear my thoughts here. She couldn’t feel him anymore, but then, she couldn’t feel anything external when she was here in the magical world. She supposed it didn’t matter too much, and she needed to get to work. She realized only about half the magic in her pool actually belonged to her, and that probably had a lot to do with how tired she was. I was very sick, I must have burned through all my magic, she recalled what Ulric had taught her about magic and a mage's survival rate. They couldn’t die until their body had burned through their magic. It made them more likely to live longer and more likely to survive illnesses. She pulled the dragon’s magic out of her, making a collection of it off to the side. Her river was all splintered and warped, and it took her quite some time to gather all the shards of magic and to smooth the splinters over. Her magic also hadn’t been tended in days, so it had snarled together‌, and it took her some time to get the blue and green especially apart.

The last of the magic settled in an orderly fashion within her internal river, and with that came a sensation of feeling relieved and less pained. It did leave her with a problem - she had pushed to one side a glowing, twisting silvery magic that belonged to the dragon. It filled her with distaste; she did not want anything to do with the dragon in her head or in her spiritual center. She pointed to it, “Go!” she tried commanding it.

There was a sensation of satisfaction as it seemed to dissipate and ooze away from her. Good. She made one more inspection of her magic, the way everything felt like it was flowing how it should. She began to come back to focusing on the real world outside of herself once she felt satisfied.

***

Kaylar was wondering what she would do when she was faced with the remnants of his magic that he had given to her to ensure she did not fade and die. One of the basic laws of magic for humans was they could not manipulate the magic of others.

It was a rule. However, she casually banished it.

He blinked with surprise. This was deeply confusing, and even concerning as the magic dissipated from her. The last time he had felt his magic move against his will, it had been the most painful experience of his life. But this did not hurt, it just tingled. It actually almost felt like something was smoothly brushing against his magic and softly directing it back to him.

He breathed out. Puzzles for later. Just what I always needed, aggressive personalities with deep secrets. When he saw her focusing on him again, showing that she was no longer working with her inner world, “I know you are only half-recovered, but it will have to be enough. I need you.”

What does he want my magic for? She flushed as the thought came automatically, and she knew he must have heard it.

“Good question. Come with me, and I will answer it.”

He turned and walked out. Rosalea followed him, but soon found her limbs were quite weak, and it was all she could do to walk very far as she got dizzier and dizzier each step. She didn’t like it, but she supposed the lingering effects of being badly poisoned were going to last more than an afternoon or two.

As she fell behind, Kaylar glanced back at her, “I see.” His tail curled around behind her, and she immediately tried to move away, but he predicted her movements and finished curling her tail about her hips and waist.

She squeaked with alarm, squirming to get herself free, but he lifted her feet from the floor, and she saw him actually smirking at her. Shame flooded red into her cheeks, and she forced herself to hold still. She absolutely refused to give him the gratification of clinging to him, so she folded her arms tightly against her body and held herself still.

“I need you to heal someone.” Rosalea’s heart immediately sank, and she froze for real. She could not possibly do what he was wanting from her, and now she did not know what would happen. He paused, tilting his head, moving her forward with his tail while he turned the front of him back, getting his face with all those big teeth nearer to her. “What is the matter?”

She shook her head no. She felt so much dread she could not even sort out what to say, and all she could do was remember Annie falling.

“I will teach you,” the dragon said. She didn’t quite understand him, so he repeated it. “I will teach you.”

She stared at him, but slowly nodded, and the panic faded a little. She watched as he turned himself forward again, moving another couple of steps, and then he pushed through another curtain. He pivoted and set her down in front of a bed. Rosalea scooted back away from his tail. He laughed at her. Which annoyed her, but she was instantly distracted by her name, “Rosalea?” The familiar black-haired girl was reaching out to her.

“Rhainnon!” Rosalea forgot about the dragon for just a second, ducking beneath his tail so she could take that hand. Rhainnon was alive!

“Rosalea,” she repeated, her voice really hoarse. “You look terrible.” She looked down at the bandage Rosalea was still wearing.

Rosalea felt her eyes sting and for a second she was afraid she would cry, “So do you.” Rhainnon was thinner than Rosalea had every imagined the girl could get, and so pale. Still, her friend laughed, and Rosalea felt so glad to see her, and, almost more importantly, that Rhainnon was actually happy to see her.

But that happiness faded a little bit. You are who needed healing… but, I cannot… Annie… she felt the sensation of panic boiling up again.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Calm down, I can teach you,” the dragon said. “Rhainnon will not pass away before our eyes this instant.” Then, a small pause. “I am sorry that you needed to know this skill before, but there was no one who could help you.”

Rosalea looked away, and all over again, she felt the rage she had felt again and again every day she had spent trapped in Mire. None of the bad things that happened to her would have happened to her if she could have left. In some ways, she despised the dragon even more. She had accepted some of what had happened to her because she believed that she deserved it for probably getting Rhainnon killed. It was why Haidi wanted to kill her. Everything she had told herself about needing to repent did not matter now, and Annie was still dead. She felt so caught between her gratitude and happiness to see Rhainnon and well and her hatred that she almost couldn’t breathe.

Kaylar made a thrumming noise that rumbled through his chest. “Rhainnon has an illness in the lungs we have not been able to cure through conventional means. You are a healer, Rosalea, so you will cure it. If you do not become more calm, you will not be able to do it. Is that what you want?”

Asking her if she wanted to feel how she felt made Rosalea want to grab Rhainnon’s tea kettle and fling it at the dragon’s face. How dare he patronize her? How dare he come around and ask what she wanted now? But she was also still facing Rhainnon, who had an audible rattle in every breath she took.

“I am calm,” she informed the dragon in tones that were soft so she could keep all the emotions out of them. “Please teach me.”

It was like capitulating to Ulric, but worse, because if she slipped and tried to think about what she wanted to say or how she wanted to react, it would be like she actually said it and reacted that way. So Rosalea focused on Rhainnon’s face and on her own breathing and how her own muscles on her face felt.

Rhainnon was smiling lopsidedly at her. “I am sorry I am so much trouble,” she said to both of them.

Rosalea shook her head, “I am happy to help.”

Kaylar shifted his weight. “Very well, Rosalea, place your hands on her body, probably over her shoulders. The healing magic will not be easy to reach. You should think of it as underneath your changer magic.” Rosalea did not look at him, but she felt confused, and she tilted her head slightly. The dragon continued. “When interacting with magic, most people give themselves physical qualities to interact with their magical core and the branching rivers from it. You could think of that as the space around magic. Healing magic is a special gift from the Myajacs, and it is a deep magic. A magic within magic. Once you get there, you will be able to build a connection between yourself and Rhainnon, and you will be able to help her.”

She looked back at him, but he just nodded toward Rhainnon.

That was not the best instructions she had ever received, but she went with it. Rhainnon needed her to be able to go through with it. So, she looked at Rhainnon and closed her eyes. She reached for her power, but the only ones that wanted to answer any kind of call to be beckoned was her terra, imber, and caelus. None of which were ones that she needed or wanted. “Go to your inner world,” Kaylar said, “reach through the magic. Changer magic isn’t the kind you call or manipulate like the other three.”

Rosalea did as bidden, sinking into her inner world. She instantly lost track of her awareness of everything in the room. Through the magic? Meaning what? She looked around. Her river was black in a lot of parts, because Uryan changer was her base magic. She decided to take it literally, and imagined her pair of hands, and then reached down into the pool. It felt tingly and light, just like when she was normally handling magic. She pushed down deeper, further, willing herself to find whatever it was that she was looking for.

She soon became surrounded by black, and she felt like she was in the middle of the lake. If I have to, I will go all the way to the bottom, she thought. She felt a distinct jolt and suddenly she was not within her inner world, or if she was, this was something she had never seen before. She was looking down on a bright white river and surrounding it on the banks there were the most vibrant plants she could have imagined. The further she looked away from the river, the more kinds of plants she could see. The grasses turned into bushes which turned into trees. There was a distinct breeze here, and clouds, and sunshine. A gift from Myajacs looked and felt a little like paradise.

She now remembered the Uryans talking from time to time about “healing ground” and how restful it was to spend time there. Everyone’s was a little different, and the Uryans believed it told a story about the person’s soul. Rosalea did not know what story it might tell about her soul that there was one river and a forest on either side of it full of colorful and lush plants. Everything had a magical glow to it, which almost made it feel more real than real life. But for right now, what I need to do is focus on helping Rhainnon.

So let us grant that the river is the source of magic for healing. Meaning what? I need to get this white magic water into Rhainnon? That seemed to make sense to what she remembered seeing. The magic flowed into the injury or person, and then deep into them to make their magic and then the person well. It was what she had been trying to replicate with her different magics with the dying horse.

She moved down closer to the water, and touched it. It felt cool and soothing, and much different than when she handled the rest of her magic. She gripped it. I need to become aware of my surroundings, but still manage to also be here.

It took her several tries, because every time she got close enough to being aware, she began to lose track of the river. She slowly realized that the only thing she could afford to be aware of was Rhainnon specifically. She remembered her physical body was holding Rhainnon's by the shoulders. There was already a connection between them.

Once she realized that, she could finally pull the magic from within her into Rhainnon. She became aware of Rhainnon as a frame of light, and around her chest and heart, there was an angry putrid purple-green color. It was an infection, but she did not know what. She thought it did not matter. She summoned the river, which moved languidly, to bathe into the spots. It obliged very slowly, and sunk deep into them, dispelling them one at a time, sweeping slowly over her friend’s body.

Rosalea had to really focus to keep control of the flow, otherwise it was inclined to sink into Rhainnon and just disappear. Or inclined to stop flowing altogether, which was very difficult to get moving again.

She felt odd as she was about half done, but she didn’t know why and did her best to disregard it. Maybe it was because she could so clearly see Rhainnon was still sick, and she could see what was hurting her. It was important to press all of the sickness out. As she was about three quarters of the way done, she really started to feel herself falling apart. I am almost done, she told herself. Push yourself a little harder, and Rhainnon will be safe.

Rosalea continued to push herself, even as she felt like the river of healing magic within her was entirely drying up. The last few drops were the hardest thing she had ever called out of herself, but she called them anyway. There was a sense of relief and accomplishment as her healing magic dispersed the last darkened patches of sickness within Rhainnon’s light. All of the darkness was gone from Rhainnon’s light. Rosalea let go and staggered away.

She was caught by a tail about her middle, and even half way to fainting, she did not want to be grabbed by the dragon. To her surprise, it actually gave way, and she fell hard - almost to the ground. Something invisible grabbed onto her and stopped her, pulling her back upright. She imagined if she were not magically spent, she would have seen the dragon’s magic clearly. He did not put her back down.

Before she had a chance to look at Rhainnon, she was carried from the room. The dragon said nothing, but brought her to a room that had a giant door, not a curtain and walked through. She was deposited on a bed, and the covers drawn up. “Sleep,” he said.

Every time she moved to get up, he was there with magic, pushing her down. “Rhainnon is fine. You went way too far. You just about ran yourself out of magic again. You will calm yourself, and then you will sleep.”

Rosalea did not want to be told what to do. She had not seen Rhainnon in months. Yet, there was the dragon staring at her, daring her to try to move again. She wanted to protest, to refuse him.

“I promise, she is fine. You can see her later. You need to settle down. You are really the most stubborn and reckless little creature I have ever been around. Did you really not feel that you were spent?” the dragon repeated in an irritated manner.

Rosalea huffed and just looked away from him. You are insufferable, she could not help but think about him.

***

Kaylar wanted to tell her they were in agreement about one another, but he held his tongue. I am just angry because I put you at risk by bringing you in too soon. You push every boundary and are stubborn and spiteful. Of course, you would recklessly pour your life into someone else after whatever happened to you in Mire. I could have guessed that from what I have seen of you so far. With the two girls better now, he thought again about visiting Mire and setting straight the expectations he had of his people… “Who hurt your hand? Who bandaged it?” he asked again.

“Just stay away from them,” she whispered, not looking away from the wall. I will never tell.

Kaylar did not know if she was the most ridiculous person he had met or the kindest. He breathed out slowly. From here on out, I want to make no more mistakes. Then I will not feel so guilty.

Despite how much she wanted to fight him, the warm bed was soft, and she was utterly spent. Kaylar waited until he was sure she was asleep, watching her carefully, and monitoring her magic. I think I will give her some time to properly recover before we do anything else agitating.