I've been gone for too long… I've been working on a half-dozen short stories and submitting them to magazines, so I've been a bit busy. If anyone knows of any fiction/fantasy magazines, please give me the name and/or web address in your review.

Thanks to Fireblade K'Chona, Wizard116, and Sarah. Thanks to Mischakitsune for betaing once again.

The Author being stupid: I was actually going to try and pair Sendan up with Masaan until I realized that Masaan was his uncle and that that might not get very good responses from the readers… I could still do it, since they aren't related by blood and whatnot… Tell me what you think on that.

And then I wrote like half the chapter and then I realized that I was writing like Julian could see everything. There was something in every damn sentence, so I had to go back and rewrite the whole thing.

Now take my hand and hold it tight.

I will not fail you here tonight

For failing you I fail myself,

And place my soul upon a shelf.

In Hell's library without light,

I will not fail you here tonight.

-The Book of Counted Sorrows

Chapter 17: I Think You Need To See A Healer

Darkness surrounded him, seeping through his very being. He was the Darkness, and yet he was Light. Luminescence burned through the Darkness until he saw only the light, and he had an innate revelation, and then the Light vanished.

He stood on a grassy knoll in the middle of a forest and watched a gently flowing brook babble its way over river-smoothed rocks and whisper around bends in the earth. He didn't know why he was there, but the scenery was very nice, and it was anything anyone could have wished for.

He knelt by the stream and scooped up a handful of water, bringing it to his lips, and he drank, feeling the cold water refresh something inside of him.

He drank his fill and went back to the small hill and lay back, folding his hands behind his head, content to simply stare at the sky and forget that his name was ever Rowen shena Tale'sedrin.

"Oh Gods."

Julian internally stared at the pain emanating from the wreck of his best friend. It was undoubtedly Rowen, but he felt almost like chopped meat. The Healers had removed the arrows, and Healed the more life-threatening wounds, but couldn't Heal the rest for fear of accidentally breaking the soul's connection with the body.

After setting him up in a room, they'd finally let a frantic Julian in to see the warrior, and the Bard was horrified. Rowen felt even worse than he had that day on the Dhorisha Plains. Rowen was covered in small cuts and bruises then, but now he was… well, dead would be Julian's first word of choice. Empty would be another. The Changechild's presence was nowhere in the room, and had he not known that Rowen was in the room, he would have been wondering why a room so deep in the castle smelled like horse. There was no noise at all, and Julian would have thought he was dead but for the incredibly slow rise and fall of his chest; a single breath could take an entire minute.

Where was his soul? Julian doubted that it was on the Moonpaths- messages to and from Valdemar proved that none of the Shamans could See Rowen, and the Star-Eyed had said nothing on the matter.

Talia too, had had no advice to offer, even though she'd been in the same position once, wandering in the darkness as Rowen was undoubtedly doing now.

Sendan regarded him doubtfully. "How are you supposed to fix this?"

"I don't know." Julian collapsed into a chair next to the two pushed together beds that Rowen was lying on. "I just don't know."

The page padded over quietly. Julian could feel his gaze, which then vanished and returned, and Julian knew that the boy was looking at both him and Rowen. Suddenly something occurred to the Bard. "Why aren't you scared of him? A lot of the courtiers and servants in Valdemar were, and a lot still are, but not you, and not many of the people here. Why?"

Sendan laughed. "Don't you know anything? With the gryphons and all of the other nonhumans stationed here, who's going to be scared of another boggle? He looks half-human, so that helps a lot. But most of the people here are used to seeing nonhumans, so Rowen wasn't a big shock."

"Oh." Now Julian felt stupid. Of course the people here would be used to seeing the gryphons and ratha, so why be scared of Rowen?

Now Sendan was looking at Rowen and Julian oddly again.

"What is it?" Julian asked curiously.

"Did you know that you both resonate the same way?"

"Resonate?"

"Yeah. If I look at the two of you together, it's like-" The page sounded like he was struggling for words. "Like you both give off a mage-aura of the same color, and they pulse at the same time, too, and it's got the same texture."

"Okay… Sendan, have you been near the Infirmary lately?"

"No."

"You should be. I think you need to see a Healer if you're seeing things."

"I'm not seeing things!" Sendan protested. "It really is there! I can't touch it, but it's definitely there!"

"I still think that you need to-"

"What does he need to do?" Masaan asked as he bustled into the room.

"See a Healer. He's seeing things."

"Sendan, are you-"

"No! Well, yes, but I am seeing this, and I know it's real!"

"Seeing what?" Masaan asked in exasperation.

"Seeing the aura around Julian that's the exact same as the one that's around the Shin'a'in!"

The Healer stared at him for a second, then shifted his gaze to the Bard. "Julian?"

"I have no idea what he's talking about," Julian said faintly.

"An aura?"

"Like a haze."

"A haze- Sendan, have you ever been tested for any Gifts?"

"No…"

"Well, you're about to be," Masaan said firmly.

"I thought that testing for Gifts was a high level spell for mages," Julian commented.

"Maybe in your country, but in the Empire we make the best use of what we have, and when a youngster turns ten, they're tested for any Gifts. Most of the Healers in the Empire know how to test for Gifts, and I'm one of them."

Julian cast a quick glance at Rowen as he Felt Masaan's shields come down, and he 'followed' the Healer's mental path into Sendan's head, then gasped at the 'view.' There were little channels running everywhere, some glowing faintly, and Julian knew instinctively that this was Sendan's mind. 'Up ahead' he could 'see' a bigger channel, glowing a bright, happy grayish-purple, and it was fairly wide, compared to another light green channel that felt almost like-

'Empathy! Sendan's an Empath, but not like me… he's got even less of the Gift than I do, but he's got another Gift of-'

:Julian?:

:What do you see?:

'How did you know I was here?'

:I sensed you following me.:

Oh. 'He's an Empath, but what's the other Gift?'

:I don't know. It's nothing I recognize- is it like anything from Valdemar?Firestarting, maybe?:

'In a page? UnChosen with Gifts tend to go into professions related to the Gift. If he was a Firestarter, he'd be in the Guard already. Could it be Mindspeech?'

:No. I would recognize my own Talent. It's not Healing, and it's not any form of Mindspeech, or Fetching like Envoy Shensa has. It's something different.:

'A Wild Talent?'

:Quite possibly.:

Masaan pulled them both out of Sendan's mind, easing them both back into their physical bodies gently.

"That's it?" Sendan asked.

Masaan answered, then asked a question of his down. "Yes. Sendan, have you been seeing anything else odd lately?"

"Other than the auras of these two?"

"Yes."

"Well, a few of the kyree have had this bond, and once, years ago, when the Lady Elsepeth and the Tayledras Darkwind visited, I saw the same thing around them. Are Julian and Rowen Gifted?"

"Not in the way that you think."

"What?" Julian asked impatiently. "What do you think?"

"Julian," Masaan said quietly, "you've been able to hear Rowen over vast distances, feel his pain over many miles, and bring him back from the dark arms of death, which no Healer can do, and you still don't know?"

"Know what?" the Bard almost shouted in frustration.

Sendan answered before Julian could throttle the Healer.

"He means you're Lifebonded."