Chapter 6: The Garden

"It's a last flare," Isabeau said.

They stood at the window with the whole white garden spread out below them.

The petals shone faintly in the morning light.

"A what?" said Veyron.

"A candle burns brightest just before it goes out."

She said it slowly, because she needed to believe it.

"I was touched, and the Flame is dying in me."

"It's spending everything it has left. That's why the light is so strong. That's why the garden."

He was silent a moment.

"That's what they taught you."

"That's what I was taught."

"And you believe a candle can grow a garden."

"I believe I don't have long." She lifted her chin. "So I'm going to use it."

She washed, she dressed, and she went down to the barracks.

The Citadel's lower hall had been turned into a hospital, a long stone room with pallets in rows.

Four hundred demons lay in them.

They were burned, speared, crushed and cut, and half of them had been lying there since the fall of the lower town.

The healers were all human, and they had all walked out with the Temple.

The demons had tended each other with rags and rough courage.

When Isabeau came in, the room went still.

A hundred horned heads turned toward the door.

"I'm Isabeau," she said. "I'd like to start with the worst of you."

Nobody moved.

Then Torvin pushed through from the back, scowling, and bent to lift a giant of a soldier whose legs were a mess of burnt flesh.

"This one," he said gruffly. "He'll lose them. Do what you do, hostage."

She knelt and laid her hands on him.

The Flame came up through her like a spring.

She worked for six hours without stopping.

She healed legs and ribs and eyes.

Then a boy whose arm had been taken off at the elbow.

When she let go, the new hand opened and closed in front of his face.

She had never done that before.

Her light had always mended wounds, never grown back what was gone.

Isabeau sat back on her heels, stunned, with the boy staring at his fingers.

Behind her came a sound.

She turned around.

Every demon who could stand was on his feet.

Those who couldn't were up on their elbows.

And one by one, in that vast stone room, they went down on one knee and bowed their horned heads.

Not to a king.

To her.

She put her hand over her mouth and cried.

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