2.12

The next morning comprises of the princess wailing.

"Princess Claiborne!" I insist. Since the Crown Prince is the primary heir to the throne, calling another heir 'highness' would be inappropriate unless I wanted to deliberately insult Aidan. I'd rather not be on the receiving end of his… palm.

Avoiding titles of obeisance also happens to make the princess more apt to listen to me for instructions like 'Stay away from the fire!' Perhaps it's improper, but I wouldn't know much of that. Drake and Carling are both older than me, so I never saw how servants handled their infancy.

Considering Father, I daresay anyone who failed to protect them was tossed to the gryphons. And that my half-siblings if not our father disposed of any who attempted to reign them in.

Not knowing propriety seems to be a good thing here, at any rate. King Aldrik approves—I think he means it when he smiles—and Prince Aidan tonguelashes me when I don't do this. And Princess Claiborne obeys me.

More or less. Some days are better than others.

Keep a calm tone. I rub her back as I rock her. "Talk nice, princess." She hiccups and starts wailing anew against the nap that threatens to take her whether she wants it or not.

I sigh. "Princess," I warn half-heartedly, noticing Fatmah in the doorway. Claiborne's nurse, here to relieve me of the princess while I go to my lessons. I hand off the tired screaming baby to Fatmah and head out.

Prince Aidan meets me at the schoolroom's doorway, offering a slight bow and arm. "May I escort Miss Evonalé to her seat?"

So he's in a mocking mood, today. I curtsy. "No, thank you, Your Highness," I reply and scurry past him to sit down before he can grab my arm, anyway. I hide a smile at his irritated scowl. He hates when I use formality, making it just payment for his teasing.

Mister Woad enters as Prince Aidan returns to his seat. The tutor breathes as hard as if he's run through the stairwells.

Odd; he doesn't run. Running isn't acceptable behavior for someone of his station. Mister Woad is nobility by birth, son of the emperor who ruled Salles before Prince Aidan's grandfather conquered it. That makes Mister Woad brother to the late queen mother, and therefore His Highness's great-uncle. Despite his birth, Mister Woad had aided invading would-be king Jarvis with information that he could not have gotten otherwise. Some keep watch to this day, expecting some curse to grip him for his betrayal of his father.

"Are you all right, Mister Woad?"

He coughs a little. "A minor chest complaint," he explains with an unusual slight wheeze. "It'll pass." Mister Woad waits for Prince Aidan to be seated, then says, "Today, we'll begin with math."

Even his breathing trouble doesn't hide his voice's waver. Most believe girls needn't know math. As a rule, Mister Woad agrees, I think, but King Aldrik's insistence that I be taught as well as a son keeps him from acting on that preference.

I barely listen to the lesson, my mind wandering over… things. Carling's tried to kill me a few times. I wonder how she'll attempt it now.

I've been told that I'll overthrow my Father's line, but what does anyone know? I can't be the only line from the prophesied ancestress. I'm baseborn.

Gaylen knew things, though… I may not like what he prophesied about me, but he still was the Prophet of the Queen for Queen Yuoleen. He even foresaw his own death, which I have always thought downright cruel. Father had his uncle set the Shadow on him. First, he slept a little longer than usual; then, his breath wheezed—

Wheezing. Carling likes magic-controlled illnesses. My eyes snap into focus on Mister Woad. "Have you been sleeping more than you used to?" I demand.

Mister Woad frowns and cleans his spectacles, displeased with my interruption. "The old often do, miss. Now, back to the lesson—"

"No!" I rush to the door. "Iyacona—"

I stop. Iyacona is the elf-nurse in Father's household. I whirl about, biting my lip. I walk slowly back towards him, forcing myself to remain calmly factual, that he will listen to me. "Do go see Ygrain, sir. You're ill." I look again at Mister Woad's eyes, now recognizing the greyish tint—the shadows—in the eyes. I'm right. "It's the Shadow."

Both of them stare at me… as if they've never before heard of the Shadow! What have I brought on this kingdom? Carling should be trying to kill me!

"The Shadow…" whispers Mister Woad, brow furrowed. "You've seen it, before?"

So they have heard tell of it; they've just never encountered the illness. I nod firmly, as my eyes dart around, expecting a gryphon to leap from the shadows at me—to attack me, to rip me to shreds with its claws. If Carling controls the Shadow, she should be strong enough to steal some of Father's gryphons.

"We've never had any cases of it here, before," Prince Aidan says uncertainly. "Are you sure you're sure?"

"Yes." There is no mistaking the eyes. A cold knot settles in my stomach.

And from that single case, the outbreak begins.

2.11

I sneak another peek at the sheet of paper tucked in the pages of my textbook so it looks like I'm reading the book to follow along with Silva while I examine the sketch Lallie made for me. It shows the style of the dress Miss Trelanna is making and how it will suit my rough body type. We worked together on it, and Miss Trelanna happily let me offer my own input.

It's still fancier than I like, but Lallie had whispered that she'd see what she could do to sabotage it. The sleeves will be left clear for me to embroider, myself. Miss Trelanna rather liked my cloak.

Notes cover the drawing, and it's interesting to see how a particular seam will fit. I never learned to work with sketches. I wonder how closely the sketch and dress will parallel.

Silva glimpses the sheet and gently pulls it from the book. "Miss Trelanna does good work. You'll see it soon enough."

That reminds me of how much the tailor spoke of Silva while measuring me, and what Prince Aidan said of the tailor and the faery sewing school.

"Is Miss Trelanna a relative of yours?"

"My aunt, yes." Silva smiles. "My mother's sister; Father met her at the faery school."

…Lord Elwyn studied sewing?

"Geddis worked for her, helping with errands and such, before she became old enough to work in the castle kitchens, and Lallie works for her now."

"Old enough?"

"Ten."

What?! How can this be? "I wasn't yet ten when I first worked in the kitchens." Not quite yet, anyway.

"No, you weren't."

Perhaps Cook introduced the rule after I caused such a nightmare for her, and I just forgot glimpsing Geddis around before I was banned from the kitchen. Head injuries can do that.

But if the rule is newer, why won't Silva say as much?

I'm confused. But Silva doesn't look like she's going to answer any more questions.

2.10

I don't wait for the prince before returning to the castle with the guard. I thank him and head to the small stable for the young ones. Rowan's not quite a yearling yet, but I like brushing her down.

Rowan snorts to see me. I filch a handful of oats from the treat bag. She eats them carefully out of my hand. "There's a good girl."

She snorts and looks up, nostrils flaring as she sniffs the air. Then she ignores my godmother and returns to the treat. "Good girl," I croon.

Rowan tosses her mane and lets me brush her down. I hear someone enter but don't turn around.

"Well?" Silva asks tartly.

I start, Rowan huffs, and I nearly topple us both over. "Silva?"

"What spell did I use on those two drunks?"

My mouth turns dry. I focus on Rowan's shiny brown coat to keep me calm. "I don't know."

"Guess." The prophetess's firm tone means she will harbor no alternative. "Begin with the possibilities that you know I didn't use. And tell me why you know I didn't use them."

"Magical persuasion," I instantly reply. The first spell most new mages think of to handle sticky situations, it's also one of the most foolish. "That would lower your ability to persuade people without using magic."

Many a rash mage has made himself require magic to convince anyone of anything. At least this particular spell doesn't drive the caster mad; more thoughtless alternatives cannot make the same claim.

Silva nods once, sharply. "Continue."

I think quickly. "Forcing the drunkards to hear you would have lowered your ability to be heard by people in general. Mental clarity for them would have negatively affected your own mental clarity…"

I feel like I'm rambling.

"Clearing their drunkenness would have made you more apt to become drunk, and they were still lurching when they left… And inserting the thought to leave into their minds would lower your own, um…"

"Charisma," supplies Silva.

I nod, pretending I know what that means. At least she's understanding me, I think. "Was it a memory impression?"

"A memory impression?"

"Did you press the memory of the meeting into their minds? It would just make you harder to remember."

An odd look twitches over Silva's face before she resumes her clear, amused smile. "Clever thought, but no." She waits a minute before asking, "Is that all?"

I nod, overwarm from the heat embarrassment brings. I've spent most of a year learning about magic, and I can't even figure out what spell Silva used to send those two sots away of their own accord.

Rowan sticks her nose on my neck. I jerk back and realize I must've felt too warm to her. "Oh! Sorry, girl!" She nuzzles me again. Maybe she's just making sure I'm okay.

Silva supplies, "You came close, but it was a bit more intricate than the options you were considering: momentary clarity of a drunken mind."

I frown. "But wouldn't that…?"

"Give my mind intermittent fogged moments when I'm drunk? Yes. But that would require me to get drunk. Which would require me to drink too much alcohol, and I don't drink it at all."

Oh. That's clever. By specifying such a precise spell, Silva gave herself a negative side effect that need never appear. Even if she someday decides to have some liquor, she'll just have to be even more careful than most people to make sure she doesn't drink overmuch. From what I've heard, drunkenness can lead even people without Silva's self-granted handicap to do some incredibly stupid things.

But… I turn to look at Silva. "Wasn't that a dangerous spell to make? What if you'd been distracted before weaving the drunken in; that would have been a regular momentary mental clarity spell, which would've messed up yours."

Silva smiles more widely, her eyes glinting pleasantly. "That is a risk," she admits, "and one inherent in any use of specific magic. Some mages prefer avoiding the danger altogether by limiting what they cast to their specific skills.

"A felf might limit his use of magic to using plant life to fuel the magic in, say, a spell to test the soil's fertility. A water mage might choose to use magic for nothing more than conjuring and controlling water."

"Most people avoid the mess altogether by refusing to practice magic, even if they know how to use it. Such sages are perfectly capable of casting spells and can teach others to do so; they merely choose to not use magic themselves for reasons of their own."

I nod slowly. That makes sense. People like safety.

"Back on-topic, some specific spells you can weave in a particular order to minimize the risk, though 'drunken mental' really isn't as fun as it sounds." Her expression suggests that she's encountered it, either through experience or observation. "It's a good idea to always use concentration aids whenever you work magic, to avoid a dangerous miscast due to distraction."

"You don't," I point out.

Her smile turns wry. "A bad habit on my part." She scratches her cheek. "Maybe laziness, too. Faeries as a whole have concentrated so much to be able to access their magic that it takes very little work for one to pull on his magic, today. I take after my father some in that."

I start at her mention of her father. For a moment, I try to respond as if I heard nothing, but then I realize that such a response will betray my knowledge of what Prince Aidan had so adamantly said I never heard. "Your father?"

"My faery blood comes from his side of the family." Silva's tone isn't dismissive, but it is direct and concise—a tone that says that I really don't need to know more.

"Where is he?"

Her look turns sharp, examining me for a long set of seconds. "…Somewhere." She looks away. "Somewhere else," she says quietly. "He'll be back in a few years."

What? I blink. "Why did he leave?" I realize how that question sounds and how Aidan reacted. "Is he coming back?" I ask to cover my first impulsive question that I don't want to know the answer to. He left when I came.

Silva meets my gaze then, and goosebumps form on my arms. Her eyes get a quality that's dreamy yet focused—prophets' eyes. I remember the last time I saw eyes like that.

'She is you, Evonalé!' Gaylen had wheezed, fighting for breath through the Shadow that took his life only days later. 'The one I spoke of… who will free us… is you.'

"Someday," Silva says with her direct conciseness, and she then glances at Rowan behind me. "You'd better take care of Rowan before she gets offended." She leaves.

2.09

Prince Aidan doesn't try to make sure the guards stay with him as he drops out of the carriage to finish crossing the bridge into Saf the quicker way, on foot. I stay close to him as we enter the city's northern gate. Two guards trail along behind us.

I pull my cloak's hood again to make sure it hides my face in shadow; I don't want Father to find me because I'm careless. Few people are out, but many of those who are squint and moan as if light and noise pain them.

"Hangover Day," His Highness quips with a smile. "Many have hangovers, and many who don't at least pretend to out of respect for the holiday." His smile widens. "Actually, for the ones without hangovers, the constant ruckus of the past week give many people migraines. Though those who did indulge in the holiday are paying for it now. Those who haven't killed themselves, I should say."

From his tone, I know he's not kidding about the suicide. "Killed themselves?"

"Too much rakshi, whiskey, mead." He shrugs. "It can poison. Kill you."

We pass through a small courtyard with a guardroom just beyond the gate, then continue straight down the wide cobbled street, bypassing narrower alleyways. Clean stone buildings line this street—North Main, I notice on a sign—and Prince Aidan guides me quickly down the walkway.

One building's sign has a pair of shears: Trelanna's Trimmings.

That name doesn't sound good. When Prince Aidan tries to lead me in, I stop at the door and glance again at the sign.

Prince Aidan laughs. "It's how she keeps her business down," he says. "It's still swelled so it could easily be more than she can take, if she isn't careful. She studied in the faery school of sewing, before they realized she was merely a sage and kicked her out."

Sages know how magic works; mages actually use it. With what using magic can do to a person's sanity, sages are much more common than mages.

He grins and gives my arm a quick yank, causing me to stumble into the tailoring shop. "She'll probably be interested in adding a few of your techniques to what she knows." The guards follow us in.

"Lallie!" I'm startled to see the former scullery maid manning the counter. I know she said she had a new job in town as a shop girl, but I didn't expect to see her here. Saf is big.

She looks up abruptly, and her expression of schooled politeness shifts into pleased surprise. "Nallé!" she says warmly, but her cherrywood eyes dim a little upon seeing the prince. "Your Highness," she greets with quite a bit less warmth.

"What's that?" A woman sticks her gray-and-blonde head out from behind a mannequin. "Ah, Your Highness!" She pulls out her bulk—fat, rather than frame, and tastefully outfitted in a red-laced grey two-piece designed to fit rather than pretend she's smaller than she actually is—from behind the shelves.

The woman offers a small curtsy. "You've not outgrown your frock coats yet, have you?" she asks, worry coloring her tone.

"No, Miss Trelanna." Prince Aidan speaks with more respect than he is wont. "Nallé needs a dress for two months out, when she presents Claiborne…" He smiles slightly at Miss Trelanna's nodding. "I suppose Silva's told you of Nallé?"

The nodding continues without pause, Miss Trelanna's flabby chin jiggling. "Yes, yes. Nallé. Ward of King Aldrik, felvish name, all that." She waves dismissively as I jerk from her comment on my name. "Needs attire for her duties in front of the Court, does she?" Miss Trelanna hasn't stopped nodding, so her chin hasn't stopped jiggling, either. "I can do that."

"Thank you, Miss Trelanna."

"Can Lallie do it?" There's an awkward pause after my rushed question. "I'd rather Lallie do it."

"Miss Trelanna does all the clothing ordered from the royal treasury. Order your own dress if you want the girl to do it."

"Her name's Lallie; she—"

Lallie catches my eye and shakes her head with a smirk. 'Another time', she mouths.

Prince Aidan edges towards the door, and Miss Trelanna snorts in good humor. "And now you want to leave the girl here while you go study the hunting dogs, no doubt."

"I do breed them," Prince Aidan replies. He does?

"Mm, yes. I remember that you started that… two birthdays ago, was it? Right when you were old enough." She waves a pudgy finger in her prince's face. "Mind that you don't lose your father's funds, now."

"No." Prince Aidan's agreement oddly lacks his common good humor that has dominated the rest of his conversation with the tailor.

Prince Aidan nods at one of the guards. "Stay with Nallé."

He leaves me to Miss Trelanna's measuring.

2.08

On this last day of the Feast of the Fathers, the grumbling and gossip among the various castle servants has lessened. It's unusually quiet, today. But perchance it only seems that way; the past five days of drunken festivities have been loud.

I've glimpsed Silva bustling around this week, but rarely. Even Lallie's helping Cook in the kitchens.

Only on the second day did Silva pause before me and add to the basic pleasantries, "What spell did I use on the two drunkards for them to respond to my words?"

Since she said nothing aloud when she cast that spell, I saw nor see no way of knowing what it was. "How can I know?"

Silva smiled wryly, then. "That is your assignment this week. You know I wouldn't handicap myself. Determine what spells I could have used and their effects on me. Deduce from that what spell I used."

Five days of pondering that question when I can, and I'm no closer to the answer than I was from the start.

The current quiet soothes me, though, after the boisterous ruckus of the past week. Claiborne sleeps this afternoon, and I've finished the last batch of mending. I watch the leisurely lurching of the few distant people wandering around the tents.

I take a book from a table, one of Silva's that I'm borrowing. Maybe somewhere in this text on magic will give me the answer to my assignment.

"Your Highness," I say to irritate him when he attempts to sneak up. Annoyance is one of the few things that I've noticed can distract him from his ideas.

"You're still getting a new dress."

"I don't wear dresses," I object as I attempt to continue reading, smoothing my dark grey pinafore with one hand before fingering my blouse's lighter grey cuff.

He huffs. "You can't wear pinafores forever!" he protests. "You're eleven years old—"

"Ten," I softly correct.

"Fine, almost eleven. Geddis is eleven and a maid," he adds before I can protest, "and she wears dresses."

"She's part faery," I gamble, wagering that Geddis is Silva's full sister and not half.

"Geddis is no prophetess," Prince Aidan scoffs. "Silva's the only one who takes after their fath—" He stiffens with a jolt, startling me into looking at him, and he glances around quickly. We're the only ones here.

He moves closer to me. "You didn't hear that," he says quietly, his brown eyes intent as he meets my gaze. "Understand?"

I chill but don't completely freeze. I've never heard tell of Silva's father, not even in gossip. That it's a mistake to mention him makes me think she's someone's bastard. But whose?

I do understand what he means by the question: I'm to ignore the topic. "There was something to hear?" I obediently reply, face blank.

Prince Aidan relaxes a little, but not enough to lose his furrowed brow. He twists to look around, sighs, and goes to the window.

He's silent a minute, then speaks with a calm quiet. "I was still a toddler at the time, but I remember when Lord Elwyn lost his estate. The Council majority found the loss fitting and fought with my father over giving the family place in the castle. A minority would have given Attare Elwyn the money to pay the newly-developed tax that targeted him for a horrific penalty."

He turns towards me and gives a puzzled half-smile. "But… he… refused. Refused to accept the aid that would let his family keep its status."

His smile widens. "Ah, but the estate means little to Lord Elwyn, when he can claim support from the king for what he is. The tax struck him for that, because others were jealous of his great fortune, that he served my father as Prophet and held a title of his own. The tax passed through my father's purview only because the majority required it as part of another law that we needed at the time."

Prince Aidan shrugs, still smiling. "Silva may be required to work harder than suits her blood station now, but she'll get more than its worth upon the return of Elwyn Elf-Friend."

The title makes me jerk, and Silva's book plummets to the floor. Prince Aidan gives me a quick smile that says he had meant to startle me with that statement.

What I don't think he meant was to confuse. I know the title Elf-Friend can only be given by a coalition of the rulers of at least three elfin kingdoms, to someone who has helped them greatly, and such a title does not pass to heirs. What could the former Attare Elwyn have done to earn him that title?

And why won't such a coalition come aid my—

…My mother's people, I mean. Not mine. I'm no masochist, to seek tortuous death in an idiotic attempt to fulfill a prophecy that might've only been a possibility, not a true prophecy.

Anyway, Carling will surely kill me first.

His Highness takes Silva's book from my hands and puts it aside. "Come on," he insists. "You still need a dress. You're tutoring nobility, now. You need to look the part."

"What I have is fine," I insist. If he persists in his foolish coddling, it will at least be over my objections. That, at least, might prevent the precedent from developing too far.

"Fine for working in, yes. They are not fine for feast days and festivals." His tone has gained the sharp tone that means he won't stand for argument. "Come."

I grab an embroidered cloak of mine and obey.

2.07

"Hey-ho, to our mead we go…"

I edge closer to the grass avenue's far side, avoiding the huge tent of a vivid purple hue that evidently serves as a… place that serves mead, according to those inside.

Prince Aidan gives me a mischievous grin. "Don't worry; they won't get drunk 'til tomorrow."

I don't like not knowing words. Oh, I've heard drunk bandied about on occasion, but with less explanation than hangover, which I only know is unpleasant and comes after having too much spirits.

"This first day, let the mead come slow…"

Even more disconcerting are the dwarves about, prepping things, wandering idly, or hurrying around. Many look too… comfortable to be visitors.

"It's mostly the native dwarves now, but the visitors will be coming throughout the day and night." He smiles at my startled look. "Certain old wards in the castle from Emperor Vance make it… dwarf unfriendly."

"Emperor Vance?"

"Perverse ruler my grandfather conquered—with help, thus my little betrothal issue. Emperor Vance created the Wailing Marshes. Sort of. Any traitor to the emperor would have his closest female kin captured and… abandoned in the marshes with her children's remains as her only food. Or so the tales say."

Other than that sprite who grabbed Silva last year, I've heard tell of the marshes, whispers of magic and haints. I'm glad Lord Elwyn and Princess Kitra found me so quickly, last winter.

Prince Aidan's voice is bland. "Some claim he kept those without children in his harem until they had one, but Mister Woad says his father was too picky in his women for that.

Wait—Mister Woad was Emperor Vance's son?!

"…Enough of that grim topic. Come on!" He tucks my arm under his and drags me towards the strange large tent.

Under the tent, sturdy tables and chairs fill much of the area, and a short stout woman serves drinks. No hair comes out her ears, so I doubt she's a dwarf.

His Highness drags me toward a long tall piece of wooden furniture that doesn't quite seem to be a table. People sit before it on stools, and behind it…

"Silva?"

She glances over at my squeak but continues serving a customer, a dwarf like most in here. "Can use the quen," explains her work here.

Finished with whatever she was pouring, she comes to us. "Here for your taste of Father's Feast?" Silva asks His Highness. She smiles widely as she rubs a glass clean. I remember her reaction to the ambrosia just last week and wince.

"Evonalé, too?"

She eyes me critically at Prince Aidan's question. "A few sips, perhaps. The smaller you are, the more alcohol affects you. May be why elves are particularly susceptible."

I jerk back from the bar, but Silva ignores me.

She swiftly goes to serve some customers and returns with two small glasses of mead, glasses of the same type that I see a nearby human drinker using with his beverage—whiskey, I read on the bottle when Silva fills his glass. I think the steward Proctor likes that. His wife Morgana complains loudly to Cook whenever he gets a bottle. Aidan's glass looks as full as the human's yet untouched one, but mine has a quarter the amount.

"Take it in small sips, and keep it in your mouth for a few seconds if you want the best flavor," Silva advises. "Roll it on your tongue."

"I'm… allowed?" I'm a servant, not some nobleman's daughter out with the prince for a bit.

Silva gives me a pointed look to answer my question; would she have given it to me if I weren't? Then she returns from bustling over to help another customer.

I pick up my little glass carefully and eye the dark golden liquid.

Prince Aidan lifts his to his lips, but puts it back down before he sips it. "What kind is this?"

"Top of the house, as suits Your Highness," Silva states with a wry humor, considering her own rank above the Crown Prince until he comes to his throne. Prophets of the King can wield much power.

The nearby human downs his whiskey in one swallow and gestures with his hand, pointing at his glass and nodding at Silva. She refills it while continuing to Prince Aidan, "It's white tea and blackberry, for both of you."

"Giving a maid our top—"

"Robin," Silva says sharply, stabbing the large woman serving tables with a marble-stern look that I've never before seen her use. "Do not insult."

Robin pales with a quick step back. She returns to serving other tables.

The human man with the whiskey laughs. "Who owns this tavern?"

Silva turns her stone-hard look to him. "Robin. Scorn her and meet my wrath, if you so please. But I would not advise it."

"And what of scorning you, dear lovely?"

But Silva is on the other end, serving others who had gestured for her. I don't think she heard the question.

"I wouldn't recommend flirting with her," Prince Aidan replies for the absent Silva. He sips his mead.

I follow suit and am as surprised by the sweet tang as by the following bite on my tongue. A delicate nuance of flavor that I also don't know combines with the sweetness.

"She's engaged."

I choke at Prince Aidan's words. "What?!" Embarrassed heat flares through me when I realize I said that aloud. I start to sweat.

"Hush!" Silva snaps as she takes up the human man's empty small glass instead of filling it. "And you've have enough." Her gaze narrows on him as he starts protesting. "The drunken part of the fest starts tomorrow. Drink then as you like, but I won't have you lose your head before these two scions."

I jerk at her words. "I'm not…" My voice is too weak. I swallow. "I'm not a scion," I protest with much less strength than what I want.

Silva purses her lips. "Of course not." She turns unfocused eyes on two men who stagger in. "No drunks in here, today." Her pleasant voice isn't loud, but it pierces the tent. "But do return tomorrow."

Without acknowledging her words, the men stumble back out, lurching into each other with crazy-sounding laughs.

Robin approaches Silva, still looking after the men. An awed smile lights her face. "Did you—?"

"Yes," she responds tersely, while preparing a drink for another customer. "I am a mage."

"But you didn't focus anything!"

Silva taps her temple and smiles tightly, physically turning the shorter, heftier woman around and giving her a little shove towards the table. "Concentrate, Robin. Concentrate."

Spells can be worked solely by concentration? "That's not what it said in—"

"If it's in a book, it's true, is it?" Silva keenly states as an error of reasoning. Her false smile softens. "No one knows everything, Evonalé, and we always 'know' information that we'll later learn is mistaken if not outright false. It is so with everyone."

I stare at my mead to avoid her look. That explains some things, like why Mister Woad gets some aspects of other kinds right despite the textbooks being so wrong.

A larger sip of mead soothes me, my muscles loosening slightly though I'd never realized they've been tense, have evidently been tense for as long as I can remember.

Perhaps two more sips remain in my glass. I intend to enjoy them.

2.06

"You've never been in Saf?"

Prince Aidan's tone suggests an order's about to follow my "No," I've not been to the capital. Marigold sprawls languidly in her usual lounge chair, evidently exhausted from the excruciatingly strenuous embroidery introduction I've given her for the fifth time since Father and Carling left Salles two days ago.

Since I'm putting my embroidery tools away in my bag, I hear rather than see Prince Aidan approach until his boots are in front of my face. "Never?" he presses. "In the past year?" I glance up to see him frown. "Where do you get your knitting things, then?"

"Others bring them back for me." I have little wish to go into the city a short ways from here. A shudder makes me drop my scissors. I've heard too many stories about the dangers of city streets.

Once Father's gryphons brought back the remains of a young man after they'd been through with him, a traitor or some such person. I'd been whipped for letting the… pieces… splatter my dress. I've not worn linen since.

I have little wish to know any more of how cruel others can be. Life here, in Salles' castle, provides all the danger of exposure that I could wish. Royalty, nobility, servants I understand. I even understand my half-sister, who'd rather kill me than let Father find me.

Prince Aidan has said nothing as I've finished reorganizing my bag. I hop down from my chair and grab the bag.

"You must have some savings," he says finally. "You don't own much."

How much I save of my cess a week is none of his business. Anyone can sew. To receive a bed, bath, meals, schooling, and a stipend in exchange for work anyone could do—mending things and minding a baby—is generous. When you add my filly, Rowan, it's obscenely so.

A heavy sigh from Prince Aidan grabs my attention. "Fine." He brushes imagined dust from his thin beer brown tunic. "Let's go to town."

I'm expected to watch Princess Claiborne in a few stone. "Your Highness—"

"Now," he orders with a grin, but a glint to his brown eyes say he means it no less. "It's the first day of the Feast of the Fathers!"

I've not heard of this. I swallow. "I'm supposed to watch the princess soon."

"Your shift can wait. Fathers' Feast won't." Prince Aidan leads me out. "The Feast of the Mothers and Feast of the Fathers alternate every two and a half years," he says. "Fathers' Feast comes in autumn, near the harvest, and Mothers' is in the spring, near the planting."

"The first and last days of this Feast are the only ones girls should see," he continues. "At least, that's what Silva says, though she doesn't include herself in that. I've heard one good Fathers' Feast rakshi can make a strong man reel!" Prince Aidan frowns. "Father won't let me try my first rakshi 'til after I'm of age… and then I'll have to wait two more years for the Feast."

In my confusion, I ignore the rest of his prattle and look forward through the open gate towards where I know the city of Saf lies. The inflamed swell of the land hides it, but instead of the usual reassuring browns and greens, vibrant splashes of other colors interrupt the scene atop the hill.

I blink. The colors—banners and what must be tents, I see now, in the process of being erected—are still standing and increasing. Florid colors, clashing in a gaudy mess only culturally preferred by "Dwarves?"

Prince Aidan laughs. "Of course! Who did you think…" He frowns at me. "That's right. You haven't seen the city. I guess you don't have reason to know."

To know what?

His frown transforms into a grin with an ease I know bodes discomfort for me. "Come on; you can use a new dress."

Don't freeze! I order myself as I follow his command. Prince Aidan's fourteen to my ten; he wouldn't think that of me, not yet.

Nonetheless, his desire to buy me a dress sets a precedent I don't like. It would be improper enough by itself, but together with his inordinate concern for me it might mature into something I won't like, if it continues.

I won't let it.

2.05

Ygrain brews the linashor into tea to give to Silva. She adds a bit of basil and limeroot. I don't ask why, and she doesn't offer a reason. "Go alert His Majesty of his prophetess's condition."

I stare at her for a long moment before what she said sinks in. Silva's a prophetess? So that's what Lallie meant about Silva being close to a full faery. That isn't good. Prophets are notoriously unstable. Even Gaylen would get… odd… sometimes.

And that's why she reminds me of Gaylen.

Finding King Aldrik, though, is difficult when a fair number of the nobles and upper servantry refuse to speak to me. I find Marigold resting in a common room and wonder how she avoids getting fat. She wrinkles her nose at the sight of me. "Go away."

"I have a message for His Majesty," I say first, before anyone ignores my request for "Do you know where he is?"

"Do I look like a prophetess?" Marigold snaps.

I bite my tongue against admitting no, she looks like a dunce who enjoys sitting around heeding palace gossip all day. "Have you seen him?"

"Hold your tongue and mind your own business," Head Matron Morgana condescends to say to me. "Your message can await His Majesty's leisure."

"It's urgent."

Her smile pretends to humor me. "I'm sure."

"It's from Ygrain."

Morgana's expression betrays her incredulity. "Ygrain's perfectly capable of sending a Runner when there's an urgent message."

"There wasn't one available!" I snap and flinch. That won't help. I take a deep breath. "It's about Silva."

"Finally come with child, has she?" Morgana murmurs in too loud a voice for any listener to not accidentally hear it.

"No, Morgana." I slip past an entering noble girl and hurry back to the kitchens before the head matron can have me stopped. Cook works today, and so does Geddis. I find them alone in a dessert kitchen. "Have you seen His Majesty? I need to tell him about Silva."

I wince at the blank looks given me by Cook and Geddis. They already dislike me. The news I'm about to give them won't help. "She's in the scullery—er, was. Ygrain might've moved her. But she drank some ambrosia."

Cook draws a sharp breath. Geddis squeaks and drops the tray she holds, spoiling a batch of cookies.

After a few deep breaths, Cook returns her attention to her baking. "His Majesty is hosting performers in the ballroom this afternoon, I believe. Let him know I'll call AMaC."

AMaC? I nod anyway and scurry off. The ballroom has the group that Cook described—yie!

I duck against the outside of the doorway when I see Father. Holy Creator, help! Are Carling and Drake here, too? I look for them and press against the stone wall.

One Runner my age, William, comes and slows as he nears me, before entering the ballroom. "Evonalé? You have a message?"

I swallow before whispering, "I need to speak with His Majesty."

William nods. "I'll alert him." He continues before I realize he used my full name. How does he know it?

Will Father hear him use it?

I gasp at the thought and scurry away from the ballroom, needing to put as much distance between me and Father as possible. I yelp when somebody grabs my shoulder. "Nallé," King Aldrik says, kindly not acknowledging my fear. "You needed me?"

"Silva's drunk ambrosia," I blurt. "Ygrain's giving her some linashor tea, but—" The words die in my throat at the mild surprise in His Majesty's mien when linashor entered my sentence. I flush. "Linashor only works on active magic. I don't know what works on passive magical poisons."

"A powerful earth mage," King Aldrik says drily, "assuming you can find one who hasn't already been assassinated. Yes?"

That 'yes' is for William, who bows to "Your Majesty," and inclines his head towards "Evonalé."

King Aldrik stops William there with a raised hand before he can say more. "What did you call Nallé?"

William frowns. "Evonalé, sire. Isn't that her name?"

"Where did you hear that?"

"Esseress Marigold of Sourwood said Nallé was shortened from Evonalé just this morning, when Princess Carling of Grehafen mentioned that her bastard cousin Evonalé had fled a year ago and she hoped the girl was all right."

King Aldrik grips my arm firmly before I can flee at those words. "Marigold told Carling." I shiver at the ice in His Majesty's voice. "How would she know that?"

I cringe when he asks me that. "I didn't tell her," I squeak. I'm not that stupid.

"William, fetch Aidan, and ask Kitra to occupy Carling. Where's Silva?"

He's addressing me, again. "I don't know if Ygrain moved her, but she was in the scullery."

King Aldrik drags me along by the arm with a long-strided lope. I have to trot to keep up with him. I wouldn't have the breath to protest or ask questions If I wanted to. We reach the scullery faster than I would've thought possible.

"Your tea worked," Ygrain says directly to me when we enter. "She'll be all right. Lallie doesn't think she drank much of it." Lallie smiles weakly, rubbing her temple.

"What about her?" I blurt. I flush when they look at me. "Lallie." Lallie flinches before she relaxes and shrugs. "You drank more of it than she did!" And my headache's been gone for awhile, I realize suddenly.

"I'm not mostly faery," she retorts and dodges the hand Ygrain aims for her forehead. "I'll be fine. Creator as my witness. It's just a headache."

"But you didn't taste—" the honey. The words freeze on my tongue at the exasperated look Lallie gives me. "…A—anything unusual?" I amend.

"I dunno. I was thirsty. Not paying much attention to the quality of the water, then."

King Aldrik and Ygrain both give us bland looks, but they accept the odd conversation between we young folk with aplomb. Ygrain finishes packing her things back up. His Majesty studies Lallie. "Even so, you should probably be evaluated, to be safe. AMaC will have to come anyway for Silva. I'll ask them to send someone who's rated for pure humans, too."

AMaC? I remember: "Cook said she'd call them."

His Majesty nods. "Excellent."

"…What is AMaC?" I squeak.

"The Association for the Magically Creative," he says as he leaves. Ygrain follows him. Both ignore my bewildered expression.

Lallie sighs. "The faery loony bin." She stretches, bones popping faintly. "With how many crazies they have, AMaC alone employs probably a good third of the faery workforce. Some think as much as half." She crouches by Silva and picks her up in a calf's carry with a grunt.

I stare at the sight of a woman carrying another half again her size. "I can fetch a manservant."

She smiles tightly beneath the strain and shakes her head sharply. "Move," she gasps, and I get out of the doorway. "Come?"

She walks down the hall more quickly than I would've expected her to be able to from her red face. A few servants stare as we past, but more snigger. I overhear some quips about Lallie only being fit for scullery work, but more about Nonsire's dwarf sire that her harlot of a mother was so ashamed to admit to bedding that she put the baby on an orphanage steps and fled. Some are worse. My own face is red before we make it to Silva's suite in the servants' wing. The suite larger and better than mine, but…

"Shouldn't a King's Prophetess have better provisions?"

Lallie sets Silva on her bed and drops to the floor, panting for breath. "I… hate… doing that," she gasps, when she's regained a bit of air.

I wince. With how others responded to her demonstration of something odd in her ancestry, I don't blame her. "You don't look dwarven." She hasn't a trace of the female ear-hair, and she isn't nearly stocky enough.

"I'm not." Lallie shakes her head. "Oh, I dunno who my parents were, but I'm definitely not dwarven. Silva thinks I might have a bit of shifter in me."

My breath freezes in my lungs at that. Shifter? "Shifters are sterile," I say in a small voice. Using magic to transform yourself into something else would doubtless be a lot more popular if it didn't cause sterility and more than a few health issues.

She shrugs. "That's what I thought, too. Lord Elwyn says the faeries have a few cases on record when the Creator granted fertility to a shifter, but the children never inherit the shifting. They're just a bit… strange."

"Like able to carry someone half again their weight through kitchens, up stairs, and down several halls into a room?"

"Sil's a bit heavier than that, Pickle." She puts her head between her knees. "I hate doing that."

"Why didn't you fetch help?"

"Because nobody else can put up with her in their head when she goes loopy. Her filter's terrible."

I stare.

Lallie grins wearily. "How's your arm?"

"You healed me," I whisper. Lallie healed my magic-induced scars. Not Ygrain.

She shakes her head. "Nonsense. I's juz a shop girl. How…" She rolls her head to face the doorway. "Hello, faed. I'd stand to curtsy, but I'd likely topple and spit all over your fine coat."

The man's aristocratic features wrinkle together as he frowns at Lallie. He glints in the bit of sunlight coming from Silva's window—from his black hair, to his white headband and shirt—even his pale tan skin, and vivid green trousers and coat and eyes. I think the only thing about him that doesn't glint are his scuffed black boots. "You are the friend who also drank the ambrosia?"

Lallie waves her hand. "Eh, I's fine."

The man ignores her protests and my presence as he places the back of two fingers to Lallie's temple. "I'm Faed Nirmoh. Your name, Miss?

"Lallie Nonsire, my lord," she replies briskly, languid disorientation abruptly gone as she recoils from the man's touch. He doesn't press the issue.

I curtsy because he's a faed—a male faery. Faed Nirmoh notices me, then. "No need to curtsy to me, princess."

Heat flares through me. "I'm not a princess."

His eyes flicker to something behind me, as if someone's there. "I see."

Fael Honovi. I bite my lip. "I don't know why she attends me," which is true. I'll never inherit. By-blows don't inherit—Mother excepted, but Queen Yuoleen ensured Mother would be accepted.

He shrugs and turns to Silva. "Fael Honovi does as she pleases." Faed Nirmoh touches Silva's temple with the back of two fingers. He frowns. "How did she get here?"

"Fael Honovi?"

He shakes his head. "Silva Feyim."

I blink at Silva's still body. "Um…"

"I carried her," Lallie interrupts, arms crossed as she studies Faed Nirmoh. I'm not sure if she's not liking what she sees or if she's just leery of faeries in general.

Faed Nirmoh's expression reveals his reconsideration of what Lallie is. "Air mage?"

Lallie's thin smile doesn't answer that one way or the other. I cringe and wonder why she's so eager to get on a faery's bad side.

Faed Nirmoh, though, returns the smile and nods sharply. "I see. Well. Miss Lallie, Miss Nallé, if you would. A damp cloth, please. Your friend's filters need some work." That's kinder than Lallie had put it, though I'm still not quite sure what 'filters' are. I go to fetch the cloth.

Geddis launches herself at me when I enter the main throughway headed towards the laundry. "How is she??!!"

I cringe at her screech. "The—the AMaC person's with her now, I think. He wanted me to get a damp cloth."

Geddis stumbles over herself to get me one. "Will she be okay?"

Her puffy face and red eyes prove the question's sincerity. I swallow and speak quietly. "Ygrain thinks so. Some tea she tried helped—" meaning somebody had been guiding the ambrosia's effects "—and Lallie drank more than Silva, and she's fine already." I hope.

I hurry back to Silva's room, a bit surprised that Geddis doesn't follow me. Faed Nirmoh takes the cloth from me and puts it on Silva's forehead. He avoids looking at Lallie, which makes me wonder what's passed between them while I've been out.

"How old is she?"

I wait for Lallie to supply her friend's age, but she ignores the question and leaves the room. I swallow and guess, "Eighteen?"

He nods acceptance of my answer. "You may go."

I hesitate. "Don't you need a chaperone?"

His expression's closed as his grass green eyes study me. "Send her sister in."

Geddis still waits at the end of the hall. She eagerly scurries to her sister's room when I ask her to chaperone her sister with the faery. She trips on the edge of one chipped stone in the walkway.

I freeze mid-wince when I turn back to return to my room. Carling watches me with her own pale green gaze, expression thoughtful as she absentmindedly tugs on a sleeve that comes just shy of fitting properly. "Hello, Evonalé."

Surely she hears me swallow. "…Carling," I squeak.

My half-sister sniffs, not wrinkling her nose in disgust, but quickly as if to clear her nose. She gives me a companionable smile. "Cold season coming in."

That confirms that she set the ambrosia for Silva. She only speaks to me civilly when she wants something. "What were you thinking?" I ask. She's ambitious, not stupid. She won't hurt me with the faery up the hall.

The smile drops from her face. "The king will do much for his cook's daughter."

"She's his…" I let that trail off, flinching when I realize what it sounds like, but it's better for Carling to think Silva the king's lover than his prophetess. Particularly when I suspect the reason she checked was to figure out what she could get away with against me.

She nods acceptance. "I'm still going to kill you."

My mouth goes dry. "Before Drake forces a kid on me, I hope."

Carling grins, actually showing her teeth. "That's the plan."

"If you can't have the Bynd, he can't?" She would have to have a child with someone directly in line to inherit the Bynd to be able to access it. Unfortunately for her, the only eligible male is Father.

"Something like that," she agrees. Her eyes flicker to the hall behind me. "Pity you didn't drink it, yourself. You could have stumbled out a window."

I ignore that threat, since there's nothing else I can do with it other than admit that I did drink it and am perfectly fine despite it. "Are you going to tell Father?" that I'm here.

She tugs her sleeves again with a frown, and my stomach twinges in sympathy for the poor fool who messed up her overdress's wide sleeves. "Tell my father what, Nallé?" she asks mildly, and leaves with the sedate glide deemed proper for ladies.

I release the breath I hadn't even realized I was holding. That's a relief.

Yes, Carling still hates me for what I can inherit, and yes, she's still going to try to kill me, but she won't tell Father or Drake. Silva will be fine, and Carling will have a care to avoid revealing my location to Father.

Both of those give me great comfort.

2.04

My heart lurches in my chest at Ygrain's expression when I tell her Silva's drunk ambrosia. Professionalism promptly chases away the shock, but that panic remains too long for me to believe her calm when she regains control of herself.

"Has His Majesty been informed?" she asks briskly, moving quickly to add different things to her healer's pouch, but I can tell at a glance that she doesn't have anything that'll help against magical poison.

I bite my lip and pull my pouch of linashor from under my skirt. Ygrain freezes when I offer her a pinch. She looks at it, at me, then back at it. "What is that?" she asks, but her tone says she knows full well what it is.

"It's supposed to negate active magic." The 'supposed to' is a lie. I know it works. I think it'll only affect ambrosia poisoning if somebody's guiding the ambrosia, though—and not many mages care to mess with that kind of magic. Sending magical illnesses and poisons to specific targets has a tendency to backfire unless you're more careful than reckless, and mages interested by that kind of magic tend to be more reckless than careful. Father mainly maintains the spells his uncle set up before Father killed him, though I know the concept of using magic illnesses and poisons as weapons fascinates Carling. "That's what my godmother says, anyway."

Ygrain studies me. "You have a faery godmother."

I've already told Cook and a kitchen full of maids, so it's not like I'm hurting anything to nod. "Fael Honovi."

She considers that, then nods. "She has a reputation for meddling with elfin royalty, I believe." Specifically felfin.

"That's one way to put it." Mother once said that Queen Yuoleen's elder brother had not been the kindest man alive, but he'd died with suspicious abruptness after ordering one of his chambermaids beaten for coming with child out of wedlock, despite her lack of consent in the conception.

Ygrain takes the pinch of linashor I offer her in the palm of her hand, and carefully puts it in a clean little vial. "Think this will work?"

Silva easily succombed to the sprite last winter. I shudder. "Yes," I hope, but I force a smile on my face when Ygrain looks at me.

Because I just realized that those pitchers that held the water were decorated with felven designs. If the linashor does work on Silva, Father or Carling put the ambrosia in the water.

2.03

When Prince Aidan asks me to fetch Silva, I scurry to do so, glad to have an excuse to avoid having to teach Marigold how to thread a needle for the tenth time this week. I find Silva in the scullery with Lallie, and the chamber maid Reese is treating Silva to an earful.

"If I'd a cess for every waif that uncle o' yo' took in t' that school o' his, I be a queen. Mercy he c'n keep that school runnin', all them charity folk he got—makes it all the more 'spensive for we pay-folk. I've a mind to disown me brother as a charity—"

"Reese!"

I sidestep out of the head matron's way as she comes to collect the wayward maid.

"The blue room, Reese—lay it out." Morgana glances at us audience to Reese's monologue and snaps, "Silva! Leaving your mother short of help in the kitchen, indeed! Lallie—" raises her cup of water, and thus escapes all but a glower.

"I've a new job in town," Lallie tells Morgana nicely, but something tells me that she knows full well that this information will only make Morgana more upset. "Cook said we could visit together before I move out of the castle."

Morgana scowls. I'm deemed worthy of naught but a sneer, but I curtsy anyway at the lady's attention. "Matron Morgana."

My acknowledgement only makes her sniff and flounce after Reese. The following silence doesn't last long before Lallie breaks it with a Reese mimickry: "I's can break more rules 'n the king tongue than yous can."

Silva hiccups on her cup of water and falls into a laughing fit. I don't see what was so funny.

With Silva still occupied by how funny she finds Lallie, I swallow and ask, "Why does the king use mountaineer as the tongue of the realm? Don't you do more trade by sea?"

Lallie shrugs. "No azzen me. I's juz a shop girl."

That sends Silva into another bout of laughter. Hiccups and incoherent something enter it, too. Lallie sips her water. When Silva keeps laughing, Lallie toes her with a booted foot. "You still together, Sil?"

I frown. Accusing a friend of insanity isn't nice. But before I can protest, Silva breaks into, "Ferrel-silly goes willy-nilly while sis goes dilly-dallying in brainland…"

What?! I gape at Silva's nonsense, but Lallie just frowns as she sips her water. She pauses and looks at her cup. She puts it down and takes up the water jug the two friends have been sharing.

Lallie sniffs it, then hands it to me. "This smell funny to you?"

…It's water. "Funny how?"

Lallie shrugs, still frowning at the giddy Silva. "Your nose be better than mine."

I grab Silva's cup and sip it, the fresh coolness soothing my tongue and throat it goes down. "It's good spring water," I tell her. "The honey's a nice touch."

"Honey." Lallie's completely still.

"…Don't you taste it?"

Smashing of the pottery cups answer me. I grab for the jug to save it from Lallie's abuse and miss. "It's good water!"

"Bespelled," Lallie mutters, with another frown at Silva. "Fetch Ygrain? There's a good gal."

I swallow. "His Highness wanted Silva…"

Lallie sighs. "Nothing for it, now. His Whimsicalness will have to wait."

I flinch at her flippant reference to Crown Prince Aidan. "But—"

Lallie looks at me. "Nallé, pickle, do it look like Sil's in a condition to humor our adolescent prince's whims?"

I swallow. "No." Tears enter Silva's laughter. And hiccups.

Lallie hikes her skirts and twists them so she can tuck them in the belt the matron and Cook always scold her for wearing, since she isn't a plains barbarian. "Ygrain? Now? Ambrosia's bad for anyone with faery blood."

Or with faery godmothers, for that matter, and I have the budding lightheadedness to prove it. I close my mouth firmly before I say as much. Bastards and commonfolk don't have faery godmothers.

Lallie steps around Silva and places a cool hand on my forehead. My disorientation lessens. She crouches by her prone friend with a nonchalance at her bared legs that I suspect she learned from Princess Kitra, who visits now and again. Lallie settles herself on the floor by Silva, holding her friend's head on her lap with one hand and using the other to support herself with the stone floor. "Quick, please. Silva ain't far from counting as a full."

I blink at Silva. "A full?" faery? Cook's daughter?

"Evonalé," Lallie repeats with a calmness that doesn't sound feigned. "Now."

I back out of the storeroom and hurry towards the healers' ward. I pause. If Lallie's right about Silva being part faery and reacting to ambrosia, she'll need a mage, not a sage, no matter how good of one Ygrain is.

And Ygrain is good, to have noticed the magic-induced scars and injuries my body bore from Carling's idea of fun. But even then, she must have used a mage to unravel the spells that blocked me from healing properly.

I doubt Ygrain keeps a mage on staff, and I know she isn't one, herself. People willing to risk insanity and actually use magic tend to have something… odd in their gazes.

The honey tingles on my tongue from the water. I can understand why Silva might've thought little of it—with the visiting nobles, many are contributing native delicacies for the feasts—but Lallie reacted as if she hadn't been able to taste it. Even an earth mage, naturally tolerant of poisons, can still taste them. Unless…

I stop, suddenly cold with goosebumps forming on my arms.

"Power that is," I say softly. If Lallie's powerful enough that her magic purges unnatural substances from her body by reflex…

I shake myself and continue. King Aldrik isn't stupid, nor his son. They'd notice if gossip hinted at an earth mage in the castle—and hire her as such, no doubt. Lallie wasn't paying attention, or maybe she can't taste. That would explain her poor appetite. I'm too used to Grehafen, where father intentionally uses mages as his personal drudges to demonstrate how powerful a mage he is and discourage any would-be heroes from wanting to try to dethrone him.

I rub my face. And pray to the Power that Ygrain has a mage readily available.

2.02

A week later, I glance again at my slate to make sure I read my assignment properly, so I don't waste any paper or ink. Silva insists on written explanation of why mages should avoid using magic to heal or hurt others.

The first is common sense: healing someone else harms or kills the caster, unless the caster happens to be an earth mage who's attempting to return the patient to his natural state.

Using magic to hurt others actually strengthens the mage, but at risk of getting addicted to the rush of magic. Some good mages, forced to war to protect their loved ones, have committed suicide or handed themselves to enemies for execution rather than let the addiction control them.

Now, to write all that down with sufficient specific examples. I sigh and prepare my quill—

"Evonalé!"

I wince at Prince Aidan's interruption. Fatmah will need me to watch the princess in a few minutes, and I need to finish this before then. I've spent much of the last several months learning about human magic and how its four affinities affect human mages. Silva has hinted that I might start spellcasting tests, soon, to learn what kind of mage I am.

Humans have four affinities: water, fire, air, and earth. Earth mages tend to have a bit of dwarf in the ancestery; air mages, faery; and water mages, elf. Or so's the theory. Silva says her father's never found anything to verify it, but he's never found anything that directly contradicts it, either. With my human blood, I likely have an elemental affinity along with the plant-based elf one that I already use.

Prince Aidan pokes in the doorway, his face glowing with exertion behind his grin. I've not seen much of him lately, with several earls visiting with their children. His Highness has needed to occupy them.

He grabs my hand, prying my quill from my grip as he yanks me out the door. "Come along; quickly, now! Before they get here."

"I'm—"

"Come!"

I twist my arm loose from his grip and follow, slowing his rapid pace on the stairs despite his impatience. He scowls and drags me swiftly into one of the hallways that I avoid on my own. I'm not nobility.

"Lallie!" When the prince calls her, Lallie peeks her head out from a closet. Prince Aidan asks me, "You like blue, right?" At my nod, he pushes me towards Lallie. "Four minutes."

Lallie sighs but acquiesces, shutting the door to leave him in the hall. "Not paid enough to put up with this," she mutters.

She goes to the closet and pulls out a nice blueberry blue dress—not noble pomp, but nicer than what I've had so far—and hands it to me. "You better change. He'll order you directly if you don't."

She's right. The prince's odd whims aren't many, but he likes enforcing them. I change swiftly.

"Who will watch princess Claiborne?"

"Fatmah will find someone, don't you worry." Lallie quickly braids my hair somewhat, just enough to guide it from my face, without revealing my ears. "Probably me, putting me late getting home to make Pey dinner, besides," she mutters, but I don't think she meant for me to hear her complaint.

"Thank you."

She tugs the braid straight. "You'll be a pretty little lady, Nallé."

I stiffen and chill, though I manage to avoid actual ice. I don't want to be pretty. Pretty wards of rich men have struggles enough, but to be the prince's choice of a playmate? Adults play, too, though the meaning of the word changes with puberty.

No. His Majesty would not allow—not allow that. I am safe while he reigns, so long as Father or Drake don't find me. I will sooner flee than be a man's mistress and continue my father's baseborn line.

And where, exactly, would I be able to flee?

Prince Aidan returns as promptly as promised, and I feel out of place in my new dress, the simple sort of fancy that Silva and other maids tend to wear on feast days. I usually just make sure my pinafore's clean. At least the bright blue's a tad faded. A hand-me-down from someone's sister, maybe. Probably.

"All right. This way."

His grip is firm enough that I'm not sure if I could wrench free if needed. I hate that—that and how much attention he pays me. We stop.

Prince Aidan inclines his head towards a doorway. "If you please?"

Please…? "Enter?" A noble daughter of about the prince's age lounges in a padded chair staring at I don't know what. Nothing, evidently.

"No, I want you to stand here like a dolt all day for the nobles to stare at." His tone is distinctly irritated. He eyes me, then calls, "Lallie! Do you—"

Lallie swiftly comes our way with a bundle in her arms. She bobs a bit with a straight face. "I live to serve the whims of Your Magnificence."

I blink at her sarcasm. He rolls his eyes and shoves me through the doorway. "Marigold, this is Evonalé."

Marigold studies me with a languid look that seeks a reason I'd be worth introducing to her and fails to find it. "She's just a servant."

I study her small cattish features and golden blond curls. Have I met her, before?

Prince Aidan stiffens, expression cross. "Evonalé, please instruct this young brat how to embroider."

That almost rouses Marigold. "I am no whelp!" she declares with an indignant haughtiness. The glass beadwork on her sleeves catches the firelight. Oh, the essere's daughter whose mother scolded her for aggrivating Silva my first day here.

The prince's studiously blank expression I recognize as mimicked from his father. "Nor is Evonalé."

He doesn't know that. People assume I'm that telfin king's bastard, but nobody's ever asked me.

Prince Aidan turns back a bit and nods at Lallie, then nods towards Marigold. Lallie follows his direction and untangles her bundle. "You will—"

"I'm occupied." Marigold returns to her lazy empty stare.

He glowers. "You will learn embroidery from Evonalé."

"A lady need not trouble her hands with work—"

Smack!

We stare at Prince Aidan. I've known him to get frustrated, but…?

I can't make myself move. Lallie somehow manages to slip out without attracting Aidan's notice.

"Can you not hear yourself?!" he demands. "You want to marry up, above your station, and you downright refuse to learn anything that could help you get a good husband. And refusing a direct order from your prince?" His glare doesn't seem to affect Marigold, who looks still aghast at being struck. "If you want to marry into another kingdom, you had better learn to hold your tongue!"

His scowl turns concerned. "Now, you'll do as I say, and learn embroidery from Evonalé, or I'll—I'll tell all the other princes you're a whore!"

We both gasp. "You wouldn't!"

Prince Aidan still glowers. "What has your tutor taught you?"

Marigold stares at him, bewildered. "Tutor? I'm a woman."

"Girl!" he corrects sharply. He grabs me and yanks me forward. His grip is stronger than he likely realizes; this will bruise.

"Evonalé reads two Crystal languages, quotes Aleyi's history, does her squares, and can do what else is 'proper' for a girl!" Prince Aidan pauses. "Well, if you ignore cooking. And dusting."

He releases me abruptly; my ankle twists as I stumble. I bite my lip and blink back the few tears. I don't want to know what my prince's reaction would be if he saw them, if he just slapped a girl of presumably better blood than mine.

Presumably. I flush at the reminder.

"If you protest one more time—"

"A lady need not—"

Is she stupid?!

"Creator bind you!" he snarls.

I cringe at his curse. "Your Highness—" Yie! What have I done?

He whirles to glare at me as I burn from shame. I falter and mumble my apology.

"Aidan!" The king's voice arrives before the man himself does. He's probably been working with his horse, considering the linen of his tan tunic and coffee brown trousers. He still wears a garnet-studded gold circlet as a crown. His Majesty turns to me. "Instruct Marigold in embroidery." He glances at Marigold. "Who will accept the lessons."

Marigold opens her mouth as if to protest again, but she proves that she owns a morsel of sense by shutting it. I find the embroidery supplies Lallie left and edge over to a chair near Marigold with them.

The king's stern gaze returns to his son. "Come."

Prince Aidan sullenly follows his father out.

2.01

Year 243 of the Bynding

The Kingdom of Salles

Autumn,
during harvest

The Creator of Aleyi saw that four large groups had formed from how magic affected its users and gave each group a Crystal that bound their magic together, causing magic's use to affect them as a group, rather than each individual receiving the full effect of using magic.

Each Crystal-kind has since found its own way to limit its Crystal's effect on its kind. The elves' is our bane.

—Endellion

Leaves rustle in the wind; farmers harvest their crops. I'll have been here a year this winter.

I used the few cesses I got from Kitra to convince Runner William to whittle a set of knitting needles for me. I save others' tips, and Lallie and a few others paid me in money or yarn to teach them to knit or embroider. The embroidery is especially popular, since not many common folk do it in Salles. Most of the maids titter over my skill when they think I can't hear them.

Except for Silva, who ignores it. Lallie acts as if my skill with knitting and embroidery should be expected and teases any woman who dares think she can rival me. To hear her describe it, I could knit a bedroll around her, never mind that she's better than me at planning out a lovely design before she even starts a project.

I hold up one embroidered piece of mine that others find particularly appealing and stare at it in the midday sunlight.

It's a picture of my grandmother's throne room. I've never actually seen it, but Mother used to describe it to me, what it looked like before her father took Marsdenfel as a vassalage. I shouldn't have made it, really. Any well-versed scholar might recognize it for what it's supposed to be. Marsdenfel's marble royal halls are the stuff of legend.

I glance towards the fire. It burns brightly on this autumn day, keeping the worst of the cold away from me and the baby in my lap. Princess Claiborne came a bit early, and she's still oversmall. I'm mainly a nanny to watch her and fetch the wet nurse when needed.

There's a knock at the door, and Prince Aidan and his tutor enter for today's lesson. Mister Woad lets the prince carry his own books, to Prince Aidan's glee. "Claiborne's asleep, I trust?"

I carefully get up and lay her in her nearby crib. "Yes." I detour to the fire on my way to the small small table the tutor usurps for lessons. The embroidered cloth readily ignites and burns. I will not risk my life for praise.

"What was that?" The prince watches me with puzzled amusement as I approach the chair he readies for me.

"A wall hanging," I admit, but add, "It had a flaw."

"Couldn't you have fixed it?" He looks disappointed.

"Not without destroying the cloth." I would've had to rip every single thread from that cloth—yes, much easier to burn it. Much easier to burn… Was that what Father had thought of Mother?

The thought paralyzes me. I don't do my mother credit, His Highness has said. Am I then Father's daughter?

"Evonalé!" Prince Aidan snaps his fingers before my face. He grins when I start. "You're daydreaming, again."

I return his smile weakly. Sweat beads on my forehead, for now I am warm, too warm from the burning that comes from shame. I quickly go and open the window.

When I sit back down, the prince eyes me with a puzzled frown. "What was that for?"

"It burns in here." The book falls open to where we left off when I pick it up.

Prince Aidan laughs. He finds me dreadfully amusing. "I wish it did that for me as often as it does you."

I've wondered if I should use my meager wages to buy ginger to hide in every castle nook. But from what I know of Fael Honovi, she would probably retaliate by attacking me, her godchild, at the first chance I gave her. She loathes ginger.

No, it's much better to let people assume I've some strange blood than to get on a faery's bad side—particularly that faery's. Idle curiosity can't hurt me that much. Salles is very nice in that respect; gossip is considered the natives' business, and not something to share with those from other kingdoms. People assume I'm telfin, anyway, since I speak mountaineer without accent. I avoid speaking elvish, so my dialect doesn't betray me as felfin.

Mister Woad enters with his lecture books and pushes his spectacles up his nose. "We'll start with history, today. Nallé?"

I grimace. History's harder than learning to handle horses. The lessons regarding the other Crystal races—elves, dwarves, and faeries—sometimes contradict what I already know, and little of what he teaches us regarding mages matches with what I know of them. I spent my first several years tortured by them.

I suppose not all mages are as cruel as… as Father and Carling and Drake. I'm not that foolish. But cruel mages are more real and more dangerous than the books admit.

"Nallé!"

The tutor's sharp tone yanks me back from my mind's wandering. History. "Yes, Mister Woad?"

"What did the elves do with their binding Crystal?"

I flinch and ransack my memory for the answer he gave me. My jaw tenses, but at least my loose hair makes it less noticeable. I learned young how to control my tone of voice. "The Crystal's binding power was rebound to a single kingdom, so anything done to it would reflect on that single… group rather than all elves. It was in King… Liathen's day," I add before he can ask, while I remember to pronounce it improperly as Lee-ah-theen' instead of the felvish Lee-ah'-then.

"Aidan: dwarves and faeries."

"The dwarf lords convened, left their heirs in charge, and took their Crystal to dispose of it somehow, without telling anyone what they were planning to do. It's assumed to have worked, since they didn't return.

"Faeries worked together to nudge their Crystal into a dimension that even the strongest of them could barely reach." His Highness's voice is terse.

Prince Aidan gets a bit cross sometimes during lessons. He doesn't like that I, a girl four years his junior, have many of the same lessons he does. He forgets that I've been borrowing some of his schoolbooks at night to study when the mending is light. It's not the most interesting thing to do, but it's a useful excuse for staying up if I can't plea the sewing, and it keeps me up long enough that I don't wake 'til dawn. I don't sleep much in summer. Plants are too lively.

"And humans' Crystal, Nallé?"

I shrug with forced nonchalance. "It got lost somewhere with all the wars over it." Humans, the most populous of the kinds, never reached a majority consensus for what to do with their Crystal. Or, at least, if the leaders reached consensus it had displeased enough of the population to cause a rebellion. Which happened. Multiple times.

There are other peoples, but these four Crystal-kinds are the standard, the largest and most well-known groups. Even gryphons don't have a Crystal, though they're the largest minority. I think.

Mister Woad nods acceptance of our answers. "Each of the four kinds have some shift in their calendars related to their Crystals. Our shift in calendars marks when the Crystals appeared on Aleyi."

Actually, the human calendar is twelve years late, from when the first great leader of the humans united his kind through it, but I close my mouth before Mister Woad thinks I might know something I shouldn't. Like that flaw in the human New Calendar.

Mister Woad now abruptly turns towards me. "Names of the dwarf lords who left?"

"Urish én…" I stop and flush, burning with embarrassment's heat. That wasn't human. And he hasn't taught that, yet.

Mister Woad watches me with the unnervingly nonchalant manner he gets sometimes, as if he doesn't care what I answer. "Urish of?"

"Of…" I can't translate it. "I don't know."

"The dwarves have nine major clans with numerous subclans. In a strict translation, the dwarves are 'of' their subclan and 'from' their clan, but we usually use 'of' to refer to both. We name dwarves with their subclans, except for leaders' families, for whom we substitute the clan name instead of their subclan."

Yikes. I think I prefer the simplicity of én subclan, é clan.

I swallow and glance at Mister Woad and Prince Aidan as Mister Woad continues the lecture. Neither realizes that én is specifically felvish. Thankfully.