gruesome. I steadied myself, trying to ignore the smell of blood. I dipped one end of the towel into the bucket Rio had brought and scooted forward.
Carefully, I began to wash away the blood. I tried to work quickly, but my hand was shaking. This was half from the cold water and half from knowing that Levent was awake and aware of my every move. By the way his muscles twitched under my touch, though, I could tell he was just as nervous about this as I was.
Once I washed the blood away, there was only one thing left to do. I placed my left hand below the dart, and gripped it with the other. Magic began to pool in my left hand, ready to spill into the wound as soon as it was free.
“This is going to hurt,” I said before I yanked the dart from the wound in one quick movement. Levent groaned into the pillow, his body instinctively flailing away from the pain.
Quickly, I put down the dart and pushed magic through my fingertips into the wound. The difficult part of this healing was not finding the energy, but controlling it. It was so tempting to just release all the magic and let it flow through the kin’s body, but that would have gone against what I had promised earlier. If I let the magic go, I would see visions beyond what I could imagine.
Slowly, I released the magic in my left hand into the wound, controlling the flow with my right. Some blood spilled over onto my hands, and I had to ignore the hot liquid pooling around my fingers. Whenever my concentration crept too far, images from the scars crashed into me, making me want to scream. I had to pull it back and ignore them. I continued to force the magic to circle the wound. Soon the blood coagulated and the healing process accelerated.
Now that the flesh had been nearly restored, though, I was surprised to find the feelings and images from the scars increasing. Despite my best efforts, I could not keep them out completely.
My heart hammered in my chest, the heat coming from the emerald pendant making me feel even more feverish and panicked. As the last bit of the accumulated magic passed through my fingertips into the wound, sealing it over, I shuddered.
I was overwhelmed with a terrible sense of fear that I could not hold back, and ripped my hands from Levent’s back. I stared at the scar for a long moment then, wondering why my head was tingling so much.
I did not feel myself hit the floor.