And unfortunately, I still don't have a good explanation for my lack of updating. I have been working on another story, but creative ideas have completely run out of me, so I would love to have suggestions, and not just encouragement, in any reviews that you people would deign to send my way. A big thank you to everyone who did review and a few specific thank yous at the bottom.

Also, I am looking for a beta, because I rarely catch all the mistakes when I proof this, grammatical and typo checks, and a bit of keeping the characters on track. Witty dialogue suggestions also helpful.

So, Chapter ten has finally arrived, we have reached the action I promised and let's hope that this train can keep on going.

Chapter the Tenth

Gods thought the prince to himself, I must have been sitting here for at least three hours. He stood up from his desk, knocking the heavy oak chair away from him and stretched as the frenzied knocking continued at his door. "I'm coming!" he shouted. Whoever it was sounded as if the fury of Mithros himself was after them. Or worse, the fury of the Goddess.

He picked his way across the many crumpled drafts of the proposal on trade with Tuisaine that he had been working on, kicking a few out of the way before opening the door. And then he saw the bloody and limp body of his squire carried in the arms of a very distressed Sir Myles.

"Dear Mithros Man! Get inside!" Jonathon whispered harshly. Despite the older man's obvious efforts to disguise both the person he was carrying and what was so obviously wrong, it was painfully easy to identify Squire Alan, with a few added surprises peaking through the ripped and bloody shirt.

"I didn't know where else to go," the harried Myles said, following the prince as he swiped papers and pillows off the couch in the main room and laying the unresponsive girl down on the dark cushions. "Obviously, I couldn't take her to he palace healers."

"Obviously," Jon muttered in response, checking his squire's pulse unsuprised but still relieved when he felt the faint beating.

"And I thought that she had told you."

"Yes," Jonathon answered, wondering how Myles himself knew but too distracted to find out. "She told me two years ago, or explained at least."

"Can you heal her?" Myles asked the prince as the young man stripped off his tunic and pushed up his sleeves.

Jon didn't answer and instead carefully pulled apart the remains of his squire's shirt, sticky with half dried blood, and pushed it to either side. Now was not the time for modesty.

He frowned at the wound; it ran from the hollow at the base of Alanna's throat to just above her naval, still seeping blood. He let his hand hover just above the cut at her throat before sliding it in the air over the entirety of the slice. In the bare inch between his hand and her chest, a misty blue light shone, like the reverse of a shadow.

He pulled back after a minute, shaking his head.

"What is it?" Myles queried anxiously after having watched in worried silence. "What's wrong?"

"I think that I can stop the bleeding," answered Jonathon slowly. "Something isn't right. Her body is resisting the Healing, and I'm not that strong of a Healer to begin with. It's like a mage's defense mechanism, keeping foreign magic out of her body, only she's not here to turn it off."

"So wake her up."

"That's not what's wrong. I could heal her if she was asleep." At Myles's raised eyebrows, he elaborated. "She won't wake up, won't respond at all. The Healers call it a half-death." He didn't look up to see Myles's face grow even more worried. "I'm pretty sure that she's still in there, but wherever it is, she's buried deep, much to far for me to reach her.

"Then what in the seven hells are we supposed to do? Leave her like this?" the older man shouted before lowering his voice. "Is there anything more we can do?"

"It would have to be someone very good at healing, but someone that she trusts implicitly. The only think that I can think of is a healer in the city that she goes to sometimes. George introduced her." Myles's eyebrows raised a little more at Jon's statement. A trusted healer that Alanna knew through the Rogue? Now that would be interesting.

"We'll go just as soon as I change clothes," Jon finished.

"Change clothes? Your friend and squire, whom you have been charged to guide and protect, is catatonic, and you think that a change of wardrobe is in order?"

"Think for a minute Myles!" Jonathon said, grabbing the other man's collar to hold him still. "I know that this is an awful situation but think, Alanna is stable, she's not bleeding anymore, and nothing else is going to change soon. I think that the risk of waiting a few more minutes for both of us to change is less than the risk of half the city seeing the Heir to the Throne rampaging through the streets carrying a wounded and bare-breasted woman who looks suspiciously like Squire Alan, but with a few extra parts!"

Myles hesitated a few seconds, than nodded.

"Good, Let me change and then I'll grab a new shirt and a cloak for here. If I hold her right, no one will know." And without waiting for a response, the prince turned on his heel and did exactly as he said.

The young guard wasn't especially attentive to his post, the graveyard shift on an out-of-the-way entrance to the palace grounds. He knew that nothing more exciting that crickets chirping would happen tonight, as did the sergeant who had assigned him. A sergeant that didn't take well to being told he had morning breath.

He was more involved in a daydream of glory and girls then watch duty when the boring night became suddenly much less boring. Tow horse-shapes burst out of the fog, a storm grey in the lead, followed by one black as midnight with a horribly misshapen rider. Or so Micah thought, until he realized the tall ridcer was cradling a body in his arms, an eerily motionless body. The young guard, as yet untried in battle, shuddered before seeing the cloak-wrapped figure breathe. All three of the people wore deep hoods, overshadowing their faces.

"Boy! Open the door!" shouted the firs, the one on the gray. He flicked a gold coin at the young man on the ground, it glistened in the mud, a gold eye on an enormous beast. Numbly, Micah bent down to pick it up. He didn't know what to do, he hadn't been told…

"For Mithros's sake, boy!" cried the man on the gray steed again. "Open the damn door!"

Straightening, he did as the man bade, heaving the great bar to the side, and using all his weight to pull the lever down. But it wasn't because of the rider's words or his money. As Micah had bent down to pick up the coin, whether to accept it or throw it back, he didn't know, he had seen another gold glitter, this one on the black rider's hand. A gold glitter in the shape of the royal Conté seal.

As soon as the door was opened enough to squeeze the horses through, the riders were pushing their way through the door. The second, silent rider bent his head over the unmoving bundle in his arms, shielding the identity of that person from the young guard, but Micah saw a glimpse of pale skin and midnight black hair as he passed through the gate, but only watched wordlessly as the cantered away into the foggy streets of the city.

He definitely had something to report.

Jonathon and Myles exploded into the courtyard of the Dancing Dove, leaping off their mounts before they even stopped, and throwing their reins to the bewildered stableboy. They entered the common room of the inn with only slightly less urgency, Myles throwing open the doors and Jonathon, now dressed in his "Johnny" clothes following with Alanna cradled in his arms, covered with a loose shirt under the cloak.

The reaction to their entrance rippled out across the floor, causing people to fall silent until it reached George, sprawled across his thrown with his feet crossed on the table in front of him.

"What's all the fuss about?" he cried, tilting his chair further back to see around the people. The easy smile on his face fell straight to the floor, throwing him to his feet as soon as he saw Alanna's limp body. "What happened?" He shouted, shouldering his way across the people of his court.

"We can tell you on the way," responded Jon, nodding his head at the listening crowd standing around them. "First we need to get her to that woman-healer you introduced her to, she needs to be with somebody she trusts."

George nodded wordlessly as what little information his Sight gave him about Alanna fed him great red warning lights. He raised his hand, catching the cloak the that the toothless old bartender threw him before leading the two other men and the motionless young woman out the entrance to the summer. Pausing at the door, he turned back to the throne room of his court.

"Carry on the revelry, my people, the drinks are on me tonight!" before dodging out the door, vaulting into the saddle, and heading out into the foggy maze of the city streets, praying that Alanna could be helped.

George strode into the house with as much haste as Jonathon and Myles had entered the Dancing Dove, glancing around the kitchen for the healer in question before calling up the stairs as the other two entered the kitchen.

"Mother!" he bellowed at the top of his voice. "There's been an emergency!"

"It's always an emergency with you," said Eleni Cooper called from another part of the house, "and you never manage to visit me when it isn't one of your emergencies." She emerged at the stairs, a robe tied around her waist, a book in her hand. "I almost think that you don't love me."

George shook his head, he didn't have time for banter right now. "It's Alanna, mother, she's hurt, but she won't wake up, some sort of half-death Jonathon says."

Eleni's face lost the easy mocking cast, taking in her son's uncharacteristic seriousness, the unconscious young woman she'd grown quite fond of, and the fact that the Crown Prince of Tortall and a high ranking courtier were in her kitchen in one wise, all-seeing glance. "I'll get my herbs, George, take the girl to my workroom, you," here she pointed at Myles, "get some water boiling, and you" now she pointed at the Prince, still standing with Alanna in his arms, "you come with me, I need a young back to do some of the lifting."

Jonathon paused a moment , then nodded, passing Alanna into George's waiting arms. "You didn't say that she was your mother," he whispered to the Rogue.

George's furrowed expression lightened a bit. "You didn't ask."

Thanks to:

CTHKSI- yeah, I've always liked Alex too, and I couldn't understand why he sided with Duke Roger, this is me trying to figure out why.

Dalamar Nightson- thanks, I just wanted a plausible reason for his actions

Chicken puffs and Moonlit Wanderer- wow, people are swearing at me and I'm happy about it. Thanks, I'll try not to make it confusing, and suggestions on how this should change her story are welcome.

Queen's Own- thank you so much for supporting me through this, It's been over a year since I started but you've reviewed almost every single chapter, sorry it took so long to update.

Kat-tak- thanks for the poem, I don't know if there's any more poetry in this story or not, but I am very flattered that you wrote it for this humble tale.

Toodles,

Heiress