The Blood of the Land by Angela Korra'ti Page B

shoulders of those like her. “Goodness and mercy shall follow me,” she said instead, praying all the while that she spoke the truth. “Hold still, man. There’s a bullet in you. I’m taking it out.”
    The man trembled violently beneath her palm. Yet his eyes darted to her hand upon him, glowing with fractious Power straining for release, and then up to her face. His was chalk-pale, and if Dorcas hadn’t felt living warmth in his flesh, she would have thought him a ghost. “Angel,” he whispered. “Angel of the Lord?”
    That was no question she could answer, and so Dorcas didn’t try. Instead, keeping her palm in place, she wrenched her other hand free of his desperate hold and reached within her skirts to pull out the knife she’d stolen when she and Caleb had fled. To Caleb, she barked, “Help me hold him down!”
    Caleb did as she bade, and though it was foolish to waste the match, he stomped it into the barn floor to free both his hands for the task before him. He dropped down on the man’s other side and pinned him with ease; tired though he was from a night of running, he was still bigger than the white man, and with muscle to spare. Dorcas shot him a grateful glance, and then plunged her knife into the man’s shoulder.
    He screamed, though he barely had the strength for it, and the noise he made was little more than a rattle in his throat. Dorcas could spare no sympathy; it took all her will to focus on digging the round from his shoulder, to make sure her magic could have its way with no metal or powder to taint the mending flesh. Yet as she pried the bullet free, his blood welled over her fingers. With it, in an inexorable rush, came his Power.
    It too was wounded, Dorcas realized in shock. It poured off him in great ragged streams, a skein of energy rent by invisible knives, so deeply that she almost expected to see bloodied furrows in his physical form. The bullet wound was no more than an afterthought compared to whatever had damaged his Power so, and her own ability haloed out from that spot as soon as it was healed, seeking to close the fraying energy. Her every muscle contracted and her blood grew hot with the demand upon her, greater than any healing she had ever accomplished—
    Then without warning Caleb was pulling her back from him, enfolding her in a protective embrace. “Stop it,” he urged, sharp with alarm. “Stop it, woman, it’s hurting you!”
    Breathing hard, Dorcas slumped against him, aware that her frame still glowed with the healing. In that light she saw the white man scramble back from them both, his eyes round and dark with panic. “W-what are you?” he breathed.
    â€œShe ain’t nothing you need to pay mind to!”
    â€œCaleb, no.” She loathed the thought of sitting up again, for the healthy, living strength of her beloved’s frame was a relief after the drain of a healing. But Dorcas forced herself upright once more regardless. “He knows I ain’t like anybody else. And neither is he.” Eyes on the man, she added, “Are you?”
    To her dismay the man began to laugh, in choked gasps that sounded a breath away from madness. The shine of her magic was starting to fade, but moonlight slanted down through holes in the ruined roof, giving her just enough light to see to inch towards him. He huddled now with his back against the broken shell of a water barrel, and he stared down at his disarrayed clothing in disgust. “I used to be Elias Sutherland,” he said, and his voice was broken, rough with unshed tears. “I used to be a Warder.”
    That last word sounded important to Dorcas, though it made little sense to her. To Caleb, it made no sense at all. “Is that supposed to mean something to us?” he demanded.
    â€œHush up, Caleb!” Dorcas hissed, shooting him a glare before turning her uneasy attention back to the white man. The Warder,