The innkeeper flushed a little, but shook his head. “As long as you can save her, it does not matter to me what you see. I can apologize to her later if she objects to it, right?” He smiled grimly.
I nodded, “I will need silence now, so you can stay in the room if you can comply with that. Otherwise, I’ll have to ask you to wait outside.”
He moved to a chair across the room, his hands clamped over his mouth. I turned back to his wife. Issable, I reminded myself.
Gently, I unbuttoned the top of her nightdress just enough so I was able to fit my hand to her sternum. I submerged one of the towels into the water now, wringing it out slightly before running it along the woman’s neck and chest. She shivered, and I apologized silently. The water was not as warm as it could have been, but it should work.
I dropped the towel off the side of the bed and put my right hand back on her forehead, the other now resting above her heart. I calmed my breathing, listening to her again. After a moment, my own lungs matched the weak breaths taken by hers. Feeling her heart gently fluttering against my palm, my own began to beat in time. We were ready to begin.
Concentrating, I forced a different kind of magic from my fingertips, the foreign feeling of it tickling up my arm. Gently probing with the energy from my left hand, my right kept her fever in check. The intense heat could help in healing her, but there was no way I was letting it get any worse. My mind jerked as several images flashed in my vision. It had begun. I dimly noticed the pendant growing warmer at my chest, but I renewed my absorption, pushing the magic into her lungs to seek out the infection.
Instantly, I felt the brush of it: her sickness. I shivered at the vibration of tiny amounts of life being taken from her. A few more images flashed by, but I did my best not to see them. I took a deep breath, and began to heal.
A skilled healer can create the power needed for healing, but at my level, it sapped my own energy every time I sent a pulse of magic into her. Whenever her life threatened to back away and leave her to death, I called her name silently. It was getting more difficult to keep the images out, now: memories of growing, of dancing and living filled my head, so much that I momentarily felt like I was Issable the human woman before forcing myself to focus on the task at hand.