The physician arrived at the palace gate before Wirasena had even finished carrying their daughter through it, roused from sleep by a guard's frantic pounding and dressed only in a hastily wrapped robe, and he worked over her with quick, practiced hands while Wirasena hovered close enough to be in the way and too frightened to care.
"Her breathing's steadying," the physician said after several endless minutes, relief plain in his voice even as his hands kept moving, checking her pulse, her eyes, the color returning slowly to her lips. "Whatever happened to her, it exhausted her rather than injured her, as best I can tell. She needs rest, warmth, and someone she trusts close by when she wakes."
