The healer's wing had always been a place of quiet discipline, a sanctuary where pain was treated with patience and whispered prayers rather than panic, but on that evening the calm that usually cloaked the halls shattered so violently that Georgia barely recognized the room she stood in.
She had been grinding herbs beside the long wooden table when it happened.
At first the sensation felt like a faint ripple moving through her veins, something distant and fragile that brushed against her mind like the fading echo of a dream, yet the moment she recognized the presence behind it, the mortar slipped from her fingers and shattered against the stone floor.
"Valen…"
The whisper escaped her lips before she even realized she had spoken.
A surge of energy burst through her chest so suddenly that the candles scattered across the healer's tables flickered wildly, their flames stretching tall and thin as if an invisible wind had swept through the chamber.
