Chapter 8: Silverroot

"Say that again," I said.

"Silverroot." The Healer set the flask on my father's desk.

"It's a sedative root from the high marsh."

"A good Healer uses a pinch of it for a wolf in agony."

"A pinch, once, and never to a woman in labor."

"This was far more than a pinch."

I looked at the blue wax.

"I drank that every night for the last two months of the pregnancy."

"Who brought it to you?"

"The Seer's apprentices. A boy carried it up at nine o'clock with the Seer's seal on the cork."

"Aldous Fenn said it was a blessing for the moon's sleep. He said it would help the baby settle."

The Healer did not move.

"It does three things," she said.

"It quiets the wolf, a little more each night, until she stops answering. It slows the healing."

"And it thins the blood."

I heard myself breathe in.

"That's why I couldn't shift."

"Pain alone would have worn off by now."

"And that's why I..."

I could not say the next word.

"Yes," the Healer said. "Bleeding that bad can come from a breech birth by itself."

"I can't swear to what caused yours."

"But with that in you for two months, I'd have been surprised if you hadn't."

She said it very gently, and it made me angrier than shouting would have.

I stood up too fast and caught the edge of the desk.

"Someone made sure I couldn't heal," I said.

"Someone made sure I couldn't have another one."

"I don't know that. I want to be careful about that."

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