She found the wound from which the Barrani youth had been visibly bleeding; it was a deep stab into the Barrani’s right side and had pierced a lung. Blood pooled in the right lung, beneath what passed for air here.
“Don’t think about that,” Terrano managed to get out. “That’s part of the trick.”
Hard not to think about it when she was examining his entire physical body. Terrano could carry on arguing while he was on death’s door, he was so stubborn—and it wouldn’t do him any good. She didn’t ask him how he knew what she was thinking. Maybe she would, later. Or maybe she’d been muttering as she worked, because sometimes shediddo that. It had really, really annoyed fellow students in her classes.
The wound wasn’t her biggest worry; it was the lingering taint of Shadow. But that Shadow hadn’t transformed orwarped Terrano’s physical body in the way it had the Barrani in the distant West March. She’d expected she’d have to cut away large chunks of his flesh and force her power to rebuild it properly. That didn’t happen here.
The Shadow continued to rise, as if Terrano were breathing from the wound, not his mouth. She couldn’t deny what she saw. If she felt no Shadow in Terrano, it was here.
It is, Chosen. You must leave.
She shook her head. “Not without the idiot.”
“Gee, thanks.”
The Shadow was mist, visible in the light of the Marks. “Can you see the Shadow?”
Terrano grunted. She assumed it meant yes. “You?”
“It’s not—it’s moving. It’s coming from you—from the wound.” She frowned and poured her power into that wound. She was almost afraid to heal it; if she did, would that Shadow remain trapped within Terrano?
“Just stop the bleeding,” Terrano snapped. “I can handle the rest.”
“How?”
“Trust me.”
“Did this come from the wound?”
Silence.
“Terrano?”
“Yes?” His eyes looked like normal Barrani eyes to her, but they’d shifted to the side, as if Terrano refused to meet her gaze while answering the question.
Oh.
“You could have joined us,” she said through clenched teeth.
Terrano said nothing.
“But you’re carrying something you don’t want to let loose.”
“Maybe you could waste less of your time talking and spend some of it healing?” Mandoran had arrived.
Kaylin liked Mandoran but had never felt so grateful to see him in all the time she’d known him. “I don’t think we can safely bring him back.”
“No kidding,” the Barrani replied. “I think the Norranir are having some effect—I’m not sure how it works, but Bellusdeo said it definitely did. The drums, the beat of them, seem to slow the progress of Shadow.”
“Can you tell me what hit him?”
Terrano began to cough out blood.
“Sorry—you can’t keep that in your lungs.” She began to knit the wound itself closed but paused to examine the frayed edges. “Mandoran—tell Bellusdeo and Teela—”
“Teela knows they’re somehow using Shadow as a form of attack. So does Bellusdeo. If I were you, I’d move toward the Norranir before you attempt to pull Terrano to safety.”
“I can’t pull him out if I can’t excise the Shadow—but it hasn’t harmed or changed his flesh.”