Conversation With Gera

Concordia, Eleven Hundred Years Before

Thaelen burst into the tent to find Isolte supporting Meguitte’s head whilst Caerin soaked cloth in a bowl.

Sigrid licked a wound on her wrist closed, turning to face him. “It is not good,” she told him grimly. “I gave her blood not knowing how long it would take Gera to find you, but my blood does not have your potency.”

“What is wrong?” Thaelen took Isolte’s place and accepted the athame that Gera brought him, slicing over his wrist and placing it at the witch’s mouth. She was unconscious, and he could feel the heat of her fever, smell the sharp stench of illness on her sweat.

“I do not know,” Sigrid told him, shaking her head.

“I think I do,” Isolte offered hesitantly. “I have seen mothers take suddenly like this, without warning, after hard births. The midwives say that it is an infection inside that spreads so quickly.” She shook her head to indicate that such cases were lost.

“No,” Thaelen shook his head in disagreement. “I refuse to let it