I awoke to total darkness, so dawn must still be hours away. Were my eyes open? The panic of the dream ebbed slowly away as I felt around for the stone I wore around my neck. There it was, beneath my shift on a long, leather thong as always. I pulled it out to rest on my clammy chest as I slowed my breath. No, not a dream. A memory. A knife of memory in my sleep.
"Touch me," he had said, in that curious half-whisper of his. I could almost see the wry twist of his mouth even now, his eyes carefully blank and piercing. Bare-chested, he had knelt before me in the cave two miles from the Temple on that humid summer day. It was still a boy's chest then, mostly ribs and collar bone. "I want to know what's inside." I had missed the animal fervor in his voice then, hypnotized by his supplicant posture. And I had knelt, my knees grinding against the coarse sand of the cave floor; I placed my palms flat against him, breathed deep, gone inside, and next had awoken two days later to a darkness much like this one, in my bed, with no memories of how I arrived there and shiny, taught weals stretching over the heels of both palms.
But in my sleep his voice had come clear, low, and lethal, as I had heard it that day, and as if I heard it now. The echo rang in my head. I made myself relax the grip I held on the crystal around my neck. Not Kaiburr, no one was stupid enough to wear that freely nowadays. But finely-cut enough to leave marks that throbbed from the force of my clutch. I let out a long hiss of breath. I was in my room. My room, I repeated, chant-like. Alone, and safe.
There was no going back to sleep now. Slowly, I raised myself on one elbow. Pain shot down my right arm into my hand, and I winced. I would need to make a poultice for it, and grimaced at the thought of wearing the foul-smelling herbs all day. I should have done it yesterday, when I had strained under the weight of carrying boiling water to and from the birth rooms. A stab of annoyance shot through me. That was apprentices' work, and though I'd only admit it to myself, I resented doing it, even if it was only temporary until the new initiates would arrive in the spring. There had been an astonishing number of new mothers this winter, and far too many sickly births. We would need the help soon. Until then, it was left to me and Healer Lentis, along with our staff of nurses, who were worn out despite their skillful ministrations.
I would tell myself for now, in the darkness, that the pain smoldering in my shoulder was just from those ordinary disciplines of a Healer's life on an ordinary day. The fact that it was an old injury - decades old - meant nothing. I pushed the thought away, and flicked on the light beside my cot. Outside through the window I could see it was still an inked, moonless night. How long had I been asleep? It had felt like hours, but perhaps not that long. I stretched out my legs, sitting on the edge of the bed, and reached for my robe. No longer tired, I'd go find something useful to do.
Black. The Healer's dress. I felt the rough fabric of the robe beneath my fingers as I walked down the dimly-lit corridors to - where exactly? I sighed, but kept walking. I liked the black. Some didn't. The Devaronian nurses at my station preferred earth tones, but I thought the black lent us solemnity, or inspired confidence. I liked that the dyed homespun covered me from neck to feet, allowed me to move noiselessly, erased my defining features and allowed whatever patient I treated to simply see the clinician, not the person. To those who thought the dark hues smacked too much of those Imperial lords from years ago, I had always waved a dismissive hand. But there was too much of black around me now, the remnants of the black memory still tugging at the edges of my mind, and I quickened my step, deciding to make for the library.
At the center of our small infirmary was a library, filled with references for treatments and guides for herbiculture. But in the side room where Healer Lentis and I kept a small office, in a locked box were some of the ancient texts of our craft. I wanted to see them now. I wasn't sure what I was looking for, but the thinning parchment under my fingertips calmed me. But as I approached the wooden door, I heard footsteps behind me. I turned swiftly, clutching again the stone that hung almost as low as my waist. To my relief, it was one of my nurses, Geena, looking tired.
"Healer Grev, there's someone here for you," she panted, as if she had been running.
"Someone? At this hour?" I felt the spider-crawl of cold fear down my spine, and fingered the songsteel filigree around the crystal.
"Yes, lady," she said, gesturing in the opposite direction. "He is with Healer Lentis now, in the receiving rooms." Though Greena was kind and gentle with all our patients, the expression in her eyes told me that whether I wanted to or not, I'd be coming with her.