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Seven years before — two months after Brightlord Wistiow's death, with Hearthstone still without a citylord — thirteen-year-old Kal is passing through the square when a five-year-old girl named Miasal falls from a great height. He strips off his shirt and is on her before her father arrives. The lower leg is a compound fracture; the bone has torn an artery, and the wound is spurting red. Harl, her father, has to be held back by the other townsmen who know that Kal — passing by chance — is her best hope. Alim runs to fetch Lirin.

Kal tourniquets with his shirt; it slips. He pinches the artery closed with his fingers, calls for fire, takes a borrowed shirt for compress and a heated knife from Valama, and cauterizes — the sharp smell of scorched flesh and a cool wind through it. His hands stop shaking. He works, his training takes over; he ties off the artery and the bleeding stops. He sits back smiling. And then notices that her head wound — which he had not seen — has also stopped bleeding. Her chest is not moving. Harl falls keening across her body. Kal stumbles backward.

An hour later he sits on the surgery steps in blood-darkened clothes, crying in small persistent shakes. Lirin comes up and kneels beside him. He has inspected the work; he is proud. Kal did not freeze; he went to her and helped well. The body lost blood too quickly — there was no more to do. Kal whispers that he does not want to be a surgeon, that he is terrible at it. Lirin sighs and sits down next to him. He has known men who practiced for hours and still froze before a wounded person; Kal did not. Then, softer: "You have to learn when to care, son. And when to let go. You'll see. I had similar problems when I was younger. You'll grow calluses." In the distance, Harl continues to wail.