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and splintered beyond repair, and pieces never found. Slippery curls of tendon that could not be reattached and
muscles that would be forever weak if they worked at all. Whether circulation had been restored to the wings
through the damaged vessels, only time would tell. Even now, his painstaking work might still have gone for naught.
Cygnus felt his glow of satisfaction turn to ash within him, and turned away with an oath. "What difference does it
make in the end?" he said bitterly. "She will never fly again."
Elster, who had been completing a similar miracle of restoration on the other wing, sighed. "That's right," she said
mildly. "We might as well have saved our time and just hacked the useless things off in the first place! The Queen is
crippled already what difference will it make to her if she is deformed besides?"
Cygnus felt his face grow hot with shame. "I never thought of that' he confessed.
Elster raised an eyebrow "Ah, but that is why I am the Master and you are not. There are two things that the true
physician must never be without. Skill and compassion. Always compassion,"
Cygnus nodded, accepting the wisdom of Elster's words. "But Master," he continued meekly, ''what will happen when
she wakes and discovers the truth?"
Elster ran a distracted hand through her black and white streaked hair, and gestured bleakly at the bandage on Raven's
arm. "You think she does not know already?"
Cygnus nodded. "I guessed as much, All the time I was working on that wing, I was thinking: What if it were me? And
I knew then, that in the Queen's position, denied the skies forever, I would have no desire to live. And it seemed to me
that to save her life, I had to fix that wing so that it could be used again, or it was all in vain."
The Master put an arm around his shoulders. "I know," she said gently. "I watched you, as I worked laboring on
those tiny fragments with such determination on your face and I bled inside for the grief that you must face. But all
physicians, soon or late, come to this pass, where the best they can do will not suffice. My boy, only Yinze himself
could make her fly again. It would have been kinder by far to have simply let her die where she lay, as she most surely
wished. But she may not." Her voice grew hard, "Now that Flamewing is dead, that frail, crippled little girl is the
Queen and she will be needed, if " With a gasp, she caught herself up quickly. "If our folk are to have a ruler.
Unfortunately, someone must make her see that and the task will fall to us."
Cygnus opened his mouth, but after the murder of Flamewing and the mutilation of her daughter, he could find nothing
to say. Though he had been acting under Blacktalon's orders, Flamewing's blood was on his own hands. It was
entirely due to his actions that Raven must live as she was: motherless, crippled and Queen.
Suddenly the sight of Raven's mutilated body vanished behind a blur of tears. Cygnus buried his face in shaking
hands, "I'm sorry," he whispered. "Oh Gods, I'm sorry!"
"So you should be sorry but that isn't good enough,". Elster told him astringently. "Yinze only knows what
possessed you, Cygnus. You, a healer my most talented pupil to become involved in such evil! Why, with such
skill at your disposal, did you turn to destroying, instead of healing?"
Like floodgates bursting, it all came pouring out of Cygnus his doubts, his despair, his feelings of inadequacy when
the evil winter struck down his people. "You say I have skill," he cried bitterly, "but had I been any use at all, I could
have saved them! I failed them, Elster I failed my people when they needed me! And if my way the way that you
taught me was no good, then what was left? I was so desperate to accomplish something, and Blacktalon seemed to
hold out the only hope!"
Cygnus looked into Elster's eyes, and saw tears glinting faintly in the drear dawn light. "Oh, you poor fool," she
whispered. "Poor blind young fool. Why did you not talk to me, and share your doubts? My dear boy, there is not a
healer in the whole of history that has not entertained such dark thoughts at one time or another!" She shook her
head. "There are ills and evils in this world that we cannot heal, for all our wishing but that is no reason to adopt
them!"
It was as though a void had opened beneath the young physician's feet as though nothing in his world would be
solid or secure again. "I didn't know," Cygnus whispered. "Master, I didn't dare share my doubts with you. You were
so reluctant to accept me at first ... I didn't know you'd understand ..."
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