"Something else happened in that room that Carina didn't heal."
Tris didn't move. "I don't want to talk about it."
"You have to."
"I said I don't want to talk about it!"
"I don't think Arontala expected to kill you through Alaine. Oh, he could have gotten lucky- and he certainly came close. But he can sense your power. You've turned him back before, without training. No," Taru said, "he didn't really expect to kill you. And at a distance, he couldn't possess you. So it had to be something else. Something to break your will, make you question your purpose, lose heart."
Tris kept his back turned, so that Taru could not see the tears that filled his eyes.
"You saw something in that room, didn't you?"
Tris nodded wordlessly, unable to trust his voice.
"A mage of Arontala's power could project a vision through a vessel like Alaine," Taru went on quietly. "A dark sending can take the heart of a strong man," she said. "Once, I saw a great general throw himself off a cliff because a dark mage convinced him that his wife, his children, had been slaughtered."
"Jonmarc, Carina, Carroway-I saw them die," Tris whispered. "I saw Kiara taken-" his voice failed him and he bowed his head.
Taru moved to stand behind him, and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Wormroot poisons the body," Taru said quietly. "But a dark sending poisons the soul. Tell me-were the images you saw clear, as if they were happening in front of you?"
Tris nodded, swallowing hard as the images came again to him, real and overwhelming.
"Real scryings of the future are not so clear," Taru said. "A real scrying sees a future that is always in motion. To see what's happening at the same instant is one thing, but to see into the future with certainty-that is for the Lady alone. A clear future vision is not even given to seers, whose gift is the magic of foresight. Even they get fragments, not sharp images. That's part of their gift of divination, to know what those pieces mean.
"Arontala meant the sending to break your will," Taru said gently. "It's a soul poison, pulling from your own fears. As long as you hold it inside, it will do its work."
"I can't tell Carina. I can't-"
"Carina is a powerful healer, but she's young in her gift," Taru said. "And she has scars of her own that, until they are healed, limit her power. She isn't the only healer at the citadel." Taru drew up a chair to sit behind him. "She is also not yet a mind healer. I am."
