3.10

My stomach growls.

I jerk, awakened by the sound. The jerk topples me from the upside-down bucket I sit on, and I fall into one of the closet shelves. Again. The toppled bucket adds to the clamor.

I hear footsteps come toward this closet. I lurch for the door and drop to the ground, squeaking from the pain that knifes my tailbone. Blinking back tears, I pull myself to the door.

Before I can resume my pathetic pleas for release from this accidental cell, I hear an unfamiliar male voice say, "Silva, fetch the keys, would you? There's someone in here."

Footsteps leave, a few minutes pass, footsteps approach, keys jingle, and I eagerly clamber out the door as it opens. "Thank you," I say, meaning that one. I've missed at least dinner, and some of my cuts throb with threatened infection.

Silva stares at me, speechless. I heat from embarrassment at my probably horrid appearance.

The man wears a plain brown tunic and trousers, with a leather belt, boots, and headband. The headband barely keeps his ear-length black hair from his bright green eyes, and overall, his clothing's nothing fancy. Nonetheless, he seems… shiny. But that sounds silly. He stares at me in obvious confusion. I've seen eyes like that. Have I met him, before?

"How did you…" And then he shakes his head, evidently thinking better of asking how I ended up stuck in the closet. He turns to Silva, nodding a little towards me. "Does that… kind of thing… happen often with her?"

My temperature keeps rising.

Silva turns her still-widened eyes on the man. She chuckles nervously. "Not that… dramatic." Her smile vanishes. "Usually."

"Ah."

The chill of worry quickly overwhelms the heat of embarrassment to bring my body to a more normal temperature. I'm not sure if Silva's afraid or anxious, but I've never before seen her either.

The man then surprises me when he strokes Silva's cheek with his thumb and draws her close. "He'll be all right," he says gently. "Your father has practice dealing with petulant courts."

"But—" Silva sighs, suddenly looking more exhausted than anything else. "I miss him."

He takes her hand and kisses the back of it, then rubs it with his thumb. "I know."

I think that was the official unwelcome. I move slowly only because I'm quieter that way and less likely to trigger another me-centered mishap.

"Nallé?"

Okay, so Silva still wants my company. I turn back towards Silva and her—er, friend. Isn't she engaged? "Yes?"

She looks from the hallway to me. "How'd you end up in the only servant storage closet in the least-traversed part of the castle?"

"I… ran into someone?" I try to ignore the man's rising eyebrows. "It happened so fast, I—"

The man bursts into laughter. Silva smacks his arm. "Nirmoh!"

Nirmoh? I've heard that nam—

My eyes bug out when I realize where I've heard it. "Faed Nirmoh?" I squeak. A faery? The man who I'm speaking with is a faery?!

Silva looks to Faed Nirmoh for how to respond to that. He ignores it, looking instead into the closet. He shuts the door firmly. "You don't know an unlocking spell, do you?"

A faery just spoke to me?! "…No."

"I can't do them." Silva's voice is quiet.

What? "Why not?"

"Unlocking spells are complicated. You have to both… loosen the fasten and yet simultaneously keep the mechanism secure to an equal degree to avoid personal side effects." Faed Nirmoh's smile is kind. "The magical dichotomy can trigger insanity in high-risk cases."

And Silva's beyond a high-risk case—she will go mad, eventually. "Oh." But then… "So faeries have to be careful with it, too?"

Pleased surprise flashes on his face. "Yes." He sends a lovingly appraising glance Silva's way. "Silva said you were quick-minded."

"At least there's something quick about me," I mutter. I may run quickly, but that does little good when you invariably stumble or fall at some point while running.

Faed Nirmoh laughs, and even Silva chuckles. I manage to smile a little.

"Would you like to learn to unlock?" he asks, abruptly serious.

I'm not stupid. I know that's dangerous, that every time I cast such a difficult spell, even in practice, I'll risk overreaching my abilities. Casting a spell too powerful for you to control is very bad for your health. "What kind of magic is it?"

"Earth or metal. Dwarves tend to isolate more specifically the item they're unlocking. Some master felfin mages can cause a wooden latch to return to life long enough to obey them… if they have another plant at hand with enough vitality to power the spell."

I'm nowhere near a master mage. And I have a feeling that King Aldrik wouldn't appreciate my burning of doors in the practice.

But it would be foolhardy to refuse the faery's offer. "All right." I would rather avoid getting stuck in another closet.

3.09

Another piece of fabric goes up in flames in my hands. I hiss in frustration, adding it to the bucket of ashes by my side. My hands' discomfort is quickly soothed by the autumn breeze that flows through this castle garden. At least the flames don't burn me.

As a practicing fire mage, now, fire doesn't hurt me easily. It doesn't want to hurt me. I guess that's the one benefit to taking after Father in that way: his normal execution by burning won't work on me. Probably. I think. My charred pinafores attest that my own immunity doesn't get inherited by my clothing, however. Replacing them is eating into my savings.

I pull another scrap from my basket, rethread my needle, and try again to pull the magic from a nearby weed into the image I'm stitching into the fabric. The weed shrivels and dies. The gardeners have laughingly said that I should be moved to work with them; it would make weeding so much easier.

The Runner William sits on a bench a bit away from me, whittling. That is, he was sitting there. I'm startled to notice him standing close to me, watching me work.

"That doesn't hurt you?"

"No." It's uncomfortable, but I don't burn, myself. I wait for him to continue, to finish whatever reason he watches me. He doesn't respond, and I conscientiously return to my embroidery attempts.

I'm on the next piece of fabric when William asks softly, "Are you all right?"

I give him a long sidelong look. Why? "…Yes."

William shuffles his feet. "You just…" He looks away. "You seem… unhappy."

I'm a too-pretty girl with a lethal prophecy looming over her head who only recently learned she's a lot more like her undesired family members than is comfortable. Why would I be 'happy'?

The flames suddenly consume this fabric scrap. I squawk and drop it.

He stomps the fire out for me. I remember that he doesn't know about me, that it's only the royalty and those with faery connections—and maybe the nobility—who know whose child I am. I make myself smile with my "Thanks," though it doesn't last long on my face.

If he doesn't know who and what I am, he'd have no reason to think me a poor prospect, either. Twelve isn't too young for him to notice me as a young lady who catches his interest. Worry spikes me at the way he watches me.

I fumble with my materials, to try again—but I'd rather not continue under William's watchful eye, and this isn't something I can try inside. "I—I'd better go in," I stammer. I can mend. I'm sure someone's found something else in need of fixing since I caught up with the stack this morning.

I pack up my things and head inside. When I'm out of William's line of vision, I run. More space between us is good; let him see some other pretty girl to like instead of me.

Please? I silently ask the Creator of Aleyi, not that I petition Him much. Who am I to ask things of Him?

But this isn't for me; it's for William. He needs someone safe to be fond—

I collide with someone and stumble through a closet door, body ramming into the shelves and ears ringing as things crash to the floor and the door slams shut.

I yelp from the sudden pain in my tailbone when I land hard on my bottom. I stay seated for a minute, catching my breath.

Then I tally the damage: mainly pottery shattered, thankfully, so it's less valuable things. Cuts and scrapes adorn my limbs and face, and my dress will need patching. That's something I can mend, if nothing else is yet in need of it.

I force myself up despite the sharp ache in my tailbone. I grit my teeth and walk to the door.

It's locked. Wonderful.

"Hello?!" I call, banging on the closet door. "The door's locked; could someone let me out, please?"

There's not anyone on the other side that I can hear. I sigh, deciding I might as well clean some of this up while I'm in here. It's not like I'm as blind as a… well, as a human, in the dark.

I take the broom down from the far wall and start sweeping up the mess.

3.08

The Shadow took only a week to pass after I broke free of it. Silva's happy enough to see and scold me. "Focus, Evonalé."

I am focusing, but I don't protest Silva's direction. My eyes closed, I feel the magic and mentally reach for it, trying to grasp the wafts of energy I can sense.

"Evonalé!"

The sharp tone makes me jerk and open my eyes. Silva's scowling. "Your aids."

The motions that aid a mage in concentrating. Silva spent months teaching me various ones, dancing, hand movements, drawings, words, faery runes… The only one that doesn't distract me is an odd foot-tapping technique. I don't know where Silva found it. I don't think I want to know.

Losing concentration while working with magic is extremely dangerous. I hardly want to end up a gryphon, myself.

I restart the process, making sure to follow a foot-tapping pattern to anchor me while we test my ability to access my magic. I mentally reach for the wafts of magic and grasp a suddenly-solid rope.

My surprise almost makes me drop it. But I clasp it more firmly, instead, clinging to the silky phantom rope that throbs in my mental grip. I get lightheaded and realize I've forgotten to breathe.

I concentrate on breathing while holding pulsing magic that makes me feel sleepy. I breathe slowly until I feel the tingling get too uncomfortable, then release it all.

My muscles feel like jelly. Silva catches me when my knees buckle. It's hard to open my eyes to look at her.

The prophetess smiles tightly. "This is unfortunate."

That awakens me more than anything. "What did I do wrong?"

"Nothing." Silva sets me down in a chair, since my legs still won't hold me. She goes to the fire and casts another log on it herself rather than calling for a servant, though the fire really doesn't need it.

She stands facing the flames for a minute, then looks at me with quirked lips. "It's what you did right." She turns away again and adds another unnecessary log. "Or rather, how you did it."

I don't understand. What did I do? How else could I have gripped the magic? "What did I—"

"We'll have to start testing spell types to determine what affinity you inherited from your human blood. But I suspect—" She uses a poker to stir up the flames. "It won't be hard." After a pause, she adds, as if realizing she'd forgotten to say, "Not with your ten-second base grasp."

Ten seconds?! I held it that long?

And that was my first time. It will only grow longer with practice.

I stare blankly at the fire that she insists on making bigger than necessary, that she…

Ice creeps through my veins when I realize what we're going to do next. Something that I might actually be able to do. "No."

Lallie would've noticed my chill and commented on a draft. Silva's oddly blank expression doesn't look the least bit surprised or confused. "It's all right if you're a fire mage, Evonalé." She shrugs. "It's not a pleasant skill, with your heritage, but it can be useful for self-defense, at least."

I'm frozen. All I can do is stare. She knows whose child I am!

"Warm yourself."

King Aldrik knows, too; he's even had me taught like the heiress I would have been—assuming I ever came to exist—had Grandfather not bound Queen Yuoleen. He knows Queen Yuoleen named her illicit daughter, my mother, as her heir. That's why he took me in.

"Warm yourself, Evonalé."

They know what Father would do to them if he knew they shielded me, and they protect me, anyway.

"Warm yourself!"

She knows, and she asks this of me?

"No!" I snarl, blood burning, mentally backpedaling until I grasp the magic again. I use it to mentally yank the fire inwards on itself, preventing it from grabbing more needed air, and it suffocates.

Silva watches the fire die and doesn't attempt to stop it. She looks at me, face still blank. "That was interesting," she says pleasantly.

I glare, hardly daring to let myself realize what I've done. I still burn with my shame and anger. I can control fire?!

I am like Father.

Tears fall. "No!" I protest, but I know it's useless. "I'm not. I'm not—" I can't stop myself from sobbing.

Silva doesn't hug me, she doesn't pat me on the back; nothing. She watches me and lets me cry. "To have your natural skill in magic is a burden, Evonalé. And to be a fire mage…" She shakes her head, sighing. "I regret that is the case, but I'm sure the Creator has a reason for it."

By the Power, if I'd known this years ago, I could have stopped the curse… Could have saved Mother!

"Unlikely." I start and stare at Silva. She smiles wanly. "I'm sorry. That time of month."

That time of… "Oh." Any faery or prophet shifts out of phase on a monthly basis, I well know. But evidently Silva's shift in phase isn't physical; instead, her mind shifts into different probabilities, letting her hear thoughts that, under different circumstances, would have been spoken.

But… "I thought you said Hearers go insane."

"We do." Silva's brow furrows, and her jaw tightens. "Some of us faster than others."

Silva has an unavoidable marriage to insanity. I blink back tears. I don't want her to go mad!

"I avoid people, this time of month. It helps. Notably less pull on my mind."

"That's not fair."

Silva's answering laugh surprises me. "Fair? I hardly expected to hear that complaint from you." She chuckles some more. "Fairness doesn't exist, Evonalé, and thank the Power for that. If He were 'fair', none would spend eternity with Him. We're all too ugly."

"But you shouldn't have to go insane."

"Why not?" Silva's frank reply surprises me. "For all we know, future Hearers might have better lives if I can serve well as Prophetess to King Aldrik without having to hide my condition.

"Or maybe my example might help another Hearer who wants to avoid the insanity for as long as possible." She swallows and continues in a forcibly cheery voice, "And Ferrel's a warning for what spells to avoid."

Ferrel? I want to ask, but from Silva's expression, I don't want to do that to her.

She falsely perks up. "An incredibly drunk man attacked Mother one evening when Father was away. Ferrel messed up and cast 'drunken mental', without the 'clarity'. It… permanently indisposed the attacker, but the bad logistics sent Ferrel over the edge. He never recovered." She forces a quick smile. "We were eleven."

'We were eleven'? I look at her blankly, then gasp. She's a twin!

I then catch myself. "Oh." Magically inclined twins have more power than most on Aleyi, each one's magical skill augmenting the other's skills. But if separated, each twin loses more than half of his ability.

I swallow. "He's…" I don't want to do this to her.

"Dead? Possibly. Nirmoh took him to a chapter of the Association for the Magically Creative, and I've not heard of him since."

"Magically… Oh." I remember where I've heard that before. "AMaC."

She nods once. "We lose our sanity easily." Silva's wet eyes and forced tone belie her still staid expression. She's afraid? "Nirmoh's one of the ones who helps keep the loonies from ripping Aleyi to pieces."

"Nir—"

"Faed Nirmoh," she corrects me quietly.

A faery. Of course. "Your beau?" The name sounds familiar.

A slight smile appears on Silva's face, then, and her eyes brighten. "You'd like him. He's very… quiet."

My head hurts. "Does he know…" I can't bring myself to finish the question. Silva accepts that.

"About my not-so-little problem? Of course. His line of work helps me, since he can share information that's been learned about Hearers through the centuries. For example, it's highly unlikely that I could kill someone, even without magic, and escape with my sanity. A magical duel would be asking for an early induction into AMaC."

I swallow. She's trying to distract me, but it's not working very well. "Does he know about…?"

"Your family? Probably."

I can't look at Silva. "Who else knows?" I whisper.

"Hm."

That doesn't sound good.

"King Aldrik and I, of course, and Fael Honovi. Father." She pauses. "A few others have likely recognized you or figured it out." Lallie, for example, though I'm not sure why Silva doesn't mention her.

"Aidan?" My voice wavers.

"He… hasn't been told," Silva says carefully. "But I'm sure he's guessed some. And I believe Father told Aunt Trelanna.

"Speaking of my aunt, she still praises your embroidery. She's in need of an extra girl, if you're interested in working for her."

They've known about me all along. I still have trouble comprehending that. They know the danger, know I'm likely why the Shadow came to Salles—that I'm why Queen Mataine and Princess Claiborne died—and have kept me despite it all. And help me. "…I like embroidery."

"We'll work on that, then." Silva smiles. "Magical embroidery; it'll likely be difficult for you, with your fire strength, but you did fight that life-curse like an elf…"

She winks. "Have you never found it strange that non-elves don't try to weave spells into their embroidery? They can't, not without hammering their own personal magic into the thread. Telves avoid it, too, because they connect with animals and generally prefer protecting creatures instead of slaughtering them. Felves pull the magic from plants. Kills the plants, but... Well, I think you understand me."

"Other kinds can't make magic embroidery?" I never knew that.

"I think dwarves theoretically could, if a dwarf mage had interest in such things." Silva's eyes crinkle at the edges. "It'll be hard to learn it," she warns. "I can't do it, myself, and you'll likely be inclined to include fire in the working. Charred fabric doesn't sew well."

I shiver. Magic likes using the caster's strongest skills. Water mages are fortunate, able to drench something while working a spell and therefore not hurt anyone. For fire mages, it's notoriously difficult to work magic without burning something.

I'll fight the urge.

Now Silva pats my shoulder. I realize that if she'd tried to touch me before, she likely would have burned her hand on my skin. I flush.

"Magic isn't a great blessing, Evonalé," the prophetess says quietly. "If you want to stop studying it, I'll understand, but that won't change anything. I can't afford to let you stop. Not if you want to live."

I chill, finally understanding why King Aldrik has insisted I learn magic. Carling already knows where I am, and Father or Drake will one day track down who interests Carling so much in Salles and therefore find me. They will.

"No," I agree. "I'll learn."

What good it will do me, I don't know. They've studied magic for far longer than I have.

But they won't expect me to know magic, much less to be a fire mage like them. That unexpected element might save my life next time I meet them, and it might aid me if—when—I have to flee Aidan.

I hate cold, anyway.

3.07

The fire cackles in the workroom fireplace. Geddis dances lightly around, happier than usual thanks to her father's visit and the receding Shadow. "The fire on you!"

After that cackle, Geddis laughs at my startled jerk, which further rips the blouse I'm trying to repair. I'd heard her coming, certainly, but I didn't expect her to mimic the gryphon.

She laughs again at my wide-eyed look. "What kind of spellcasting is that?" she scoffs. "That's no spell. His years as a bulging bird must've sent his mind a little—" Geddis motions 'crazy', still grinning.

She's the crazy one! Sweat beads on my palms as my body temperature rises. "It's a curse!" I snarl at her foolish ridicule.

Geddis starts with her own surprise at my response, her bewilderment revealing that she had expected me to share her good humor. "But I asked Father and Silva, and that's not a spell—"

"It's a key." No, not the spell. The spell—a curse—can only be woven on a nine-day-old infant, but once bound, the child is slave to the binder for life. Anyone with key access from the binder can trigger it.

Grandfather had successfully bound a number of young elves on accident, back before he'd found how to use his stolen control of Yuoleen's kingdom to his advantage. He'd toyed with the spell for years before he realized it for the curse it was. The accident was that Mother was bound, along with every elf of that kingdom whose ninth day after birth fell during one of his practice sessions.

I don't hate Grandfather as much as I once did. He was power-hungry, not cruel. Mister Woad taught of a myth that the Crystal-elves—Queen Yuoleen's kingdom, Marsdenfel—knew where the human Crystal is.

When I consider what I know of Grandfather, that fits his actions. He didn't have the best intentions, but he probably didn't have the worst ones, either. He must have been bitter indeed when he realized how his intended legacy would unravel, as Father killed him to take Mother. I can pity Grandfather.

There is no excuse for Father.

"...A key?" Geddis asks finally, revealing her ignorance.

A prophet for a father and prophetess for a sister, and she doesn't know this? I hear the residual anger in my own voice. "An activator. A trigger."

"Oh." She looks uncomfortable. "What does the curse do?"

I swallow. "Burn. You." I concentrate on pulling out the ruined stitches from the blouse to prepare the garment for restarted repair. "It burns you away to ash at the caster's bidding." My voice sounds funny even to me.

An apologetic look from Geddis meets my glance. "Oh," she says, with an embarrassed smile. "I'll fix that." She shrugs. "My fault it's so torn up, anyway."

The internal heat remains in my veins. I don't trust myself not to lose my temper. She's terrible at sewing, but I can always fix it after I settle.

I hand her the blouse and head outside. The cold temperature and languid plants will cool me, calm me. I need to cool down.

3.06

I feel someone lift me, carrying me slowly from the hall and… outside? The sharp wind is refreshingly cold. The fresh scent of the soon-to-come rain clears my head. My eyes snap open as Prince Aidan sets me gently on a bench.

What was he doing, carrying me? How long have I been asleep? From what I can judge of the sun, it's been hours.

"Are you better, housemaiden?"

I begin to answer; yawn instead. I swallow and politely reply, "Some, Your Highness."

For once, my use of his title doesn't annoy him. He looks too relieved to care. "Are all gryphons that…" Aidan searches for a word. "Revolting?"

"As far as I know," I reply. I remember the hand that appeared on the corpse, and I shiver. What was that? It was as if…

As if at death, the man reverted to his natural body. As if Father had created the grotesque normal form and forced his gryphon to hold that body. As if a gryphon might look no different from anyone else—might be no different from anyone else—until one day, he has the misfortune of meeting a mage who has mastered the particular spell that binds him. He—or even a long-forgotten ancestor—miscast a spell with enough power that whoever can control that miscast spell can control anyone bound to it, too.

Prince Aidan nods, still watching me with a frown. He looks away, then stiffens back into a proper noble demeanor. "I'm glad you're awake. Perhaps you could help me with something."

He pulls out the scroll the trader had been previously showing he and his father and unfurls it a little bit. He hesitates, turning a little red in the cheeks. "I wasn't exactly paying attention when Elwyn was translating this. Could you help me read it?"

"Me?" I laugh. "How could I…" I remember my incident with the gryphon. And he had heard me say 'yie' the other day, like the strange man.

Wait—"Elwyn?!" That was why the trader had looked familiar.

Prince Aidan nods. "That was Elwyn Elv'shutor." He looks down. "He came to visit. He doesn't often get to see his family, and never for long."

Why is he avoiding my gaze as he says this, as if it's my fault? How could it relate to me? Lord—er, former Lord—Elwyn has had these trips since before they knew me! I remember Prince Aidan's request. "How can I help you read the scroll?"

Prince Aidan shrugs. "You have a faery godmother. You obviously know something of the other kinds."

The link surprises me. I have never considered using that. Fael Honovi is unorthodox. I can say she's taken me for visits to foreign places, or taught me elf history, or any number of the things I truthfully learned from—

"May I see?" He shows me the scroll. I manage to limit my reaction to a cheek twitch. That script… Mother… burning—and ashes in my hair. I blink back tears.

"Handmaiden?" the prince asks gently.

I pretend to have something in my eye. "It's nothing," I say quickly. "Just some pollen."

Pollen? In winter? To distract him from further questioning, I shake my head. "I know enough to tell you this is felvish." And written by Mother. "But I can't read it."

Mother was too busy teaching me other things that would keep me alive to risk teaching me one more thing that would cost my life if Father learned of it. He allowed elvish to be spoken but never written. I've never before regretted that I couldn't read my mother's primary tongue. I clench my hands into fists so I don't snatch the scroll from His Highness's hands.

Prince Aidan looks disappointed. "Can you read any of the other kinds' languages?"

"A few faery glyphs. I can mostly recognize the scripts." And speak a little dwarven and fluent felvish, but I'm not about to tell the prince that.

"Oh."

Foolish of me to fabricate that pollen, to give him reason to scrutinize me as closely as he does.

After a moment's silence, he continues. "I've seen your embroidery work. You have excellent taste. You have the gift of beauty, housemaiden."

I flush. Have I given myself away? Bearers of the gift of beauty are rarely comely themselves, unless they're elfin. Some sort of odd effect from vain mages of other kinds would use magic to keep themselves from gaining weight.

I self-consciously put more hair over my ears.

Prince Aidan doesn't comment on it, for once. He draws a breath. "I miss Mother."

I miss Mother, too.

"And I wish my sister could have lived. She would've enjoyed my Subyear ball, in a few years."

Salles, in good humor, celebrates the eighteenth birthday as 'Subyear,' making fun of those kingdoms who have that age as the age of majority. Salles offers submajority at thirteen, with adult status granted at sixteen if the child has been responsible with his submajority. If the courts prove he hasn't, parents can legally keep a child as a minor 'til his scoreyear.

To accommodate the prince, I consider the now impossible concept of his sister attending his Subyear ball. "Five… would… would have been young for that, Highness."

"You were younger than that when you first learned to read." I don't reply, and he quickly continues. "But you're right—that is a bit young. Perhaps seven?" He turns to me.

"I would have thought twelve more appropriate, Your Highness."

The prince shakes his head, still unusually unperturbed by my obeisance as he continues with the hypothesizing made morbid by its impossibility. "That would be too late. Seven. My Scoreyear ball. You'll have to be there to honor the memory of both women." He briskly wipes his hands on his tunic and leaves.

Too late for what? I wonder. Then I don't care what he meant when I realize: by the time Aidan is twenty, I will have reached sixteen.

3.05

"Housemaiden!"

I jerk awake, tangling myself in my bushes, but feeling better for my short nap. I hastily free myself as my nurse hands me a piece of bread with butter. My clothing sticks to me from the cool damp air.

"Quickly!"

I take the meal and eat it quickly as she explains. King Aldrik demands my presence in the grand hall. Apprehension grips me. What can he want?

I hurry to my room—take care on the stairs—and hastily change into my court dress. I think Prince Aidan snuck Miss Trelanna extra instructions for this one; it's an unusually vivid green for a maid, and I distinctly recall requesting a more appropriate brownish. But the square neck and slight tailoring make it simple, at least. I neglected to add embroidery so it would stay that way.

As I head towards the grand hall, Geddis scurries past me with a bucket of hot suds. "Your tea, too!" she says quickly. She's fully human and needs no quarantine, unlike her sister. "His Majesty insists."

Oh. I thank her and fetch a teapot and set some water to boil. As I await the whistle, I wonder who's fallen prey to the Shadow, now.

It doesn't matter. I take the teapot as instructed. Geddis follows me with teacups, since I'm still not to be trusted with trays.

As we enter the grand hall, I see a man of King Aldrik's age on the center floor, his weatherworn clothing of richer quality than would be expected from its wear. Something strikes me as familiar about him, but I'm not sure if it's his style of clothing or the man himself. I walk carefully on the ramp that leads downwards, towards the man and the king. Aidan's there, too.

Movement catches my notice as the man unrolls the scroll he's showing the king and prince. I choke on a scream. The teapot shatters on the floor. Everyone looks at me by the time I've yanked off my shoe.

Not one of Father's minions! Not here! Not in here!

"Gryphon!" I shriek, flinging my shoe at the ledge just past the trader.

The ledge looks empty to sight, but my shoe hits the magically cloaked thing with a thud. I've already sent my other shoe after it, and when it hits the gryphon the creature reveals its grotesque self. It coughs, lifting itself from the ledge and lunging at me.

"Foolish child!" it cackles as it garners its magic to activate the main spell its master lets it use. "The fire on you!"

"The fire doesn't have me!" I retort—that's why Mother died—but this particular gryphon can siphon, too. I feel myself weakening as its magic grips mine and yanks.

I pull life from the plants that line the grand hall's walls; they wilt and die. There aren't enough of them for me to overpower the gryphon's spell; I stagger. "Fael Honovi!" I cry out. Don't let it call Father! He'll—

And a large stone falls from the ceiling and crushes the gryphon. One set of claws stretches towards me from underneath the stone, twitching and shimmering as it shifts into a human hand.

I'd wonder about that, if it weren't so hard to breathe. Life still drains from me, and the plants are gone. I fall to my knees, gasping.

Someone drops beside me. "Yie! A siphoning!"

'Yie'? I force my eyes to focus on the someone, the trader, who uses the elvish exclamation. His hand on my forehead is cool, and he meets my gaze directly.

"Release her," he whispers, and I feel outside magic attack, bind the spell that has webbed my life. Strength enters me, now, faster than it's drawn away. The siphoning weakens, fades…

The man, the trader, moves aside, but not before I notice the motif embroidered over his heart. "Elv'shutor…" I hear myself mutter. Elf-friend.

King Aldrik takes the man's place. He brushes my hair from my damp forehead. "Nallé?" he asks quietly. "Was that enough?"

I fall unconscious before I can answer my king.

3.04

I hear quiet footsteps enter, the boots ringing peculiarly like only Prince Aidan's do thanks to something he does to his soles. I clutch my stiff brown sheets to my neck to cover my chemise. Me in my underclothes is not a memory I'd like the prince to have.

"Why did you run, housemaid?" He stands in the doorway connecting my bedchambers to the dead princess's suite. "What do you think you hide beneath that hair?"

"Go away!" I glare at him. I'm only twelve, after all. I needn't fear any indecency from him. Not yet, anyway. Not for four more years.

Elves aren't women until sixteen. My heart skips a beat at the reminder. I don't want to turn sixteen!

My fear must show on my face, for the prince looks worried and takes a step forward. "Are you—"

"Get out!" I grab something—my brush, I think—from the small table beside my bed. I wave it in what I hope is a threatening way. Why is he in my room? "Leave!"

Prince Aidan looks surprised at my ferocity. I'm surprised, myself. I would never dare do this to Drake. I know he isn't Drake, but…

Confusion follows his surprise, then his face crimsons. "I didn't mean—" He clears his throat. "That is, I'm not here to… I have no intention of…"

"I don't care!" I sound more like the child I am, now—which is good. Remind the prince of my youth.

"Whatever is the matter, housemaiden? You aren't to fever yet, are you?"

For my reply, I let my hairbrush fly at his forehead.

He ducks and catches it. "For being ill, you have a good aim!"

I get out of bed, wrapping my sheets around me as I do so. My chemise may cover as much as my pinafore, but I won't risk sending his thoughts that way. "I'm not ill, anymore!"

And I'm not. The tea tasted worse than it smelled, but it worked, breaking the Shadow's active magic so it could no longer ravage my body, and snapping the magic Carling guided to have the Shadow attack me.

It should lessen in Salles overall, now that it lacks a specific target to draw it here. I hope. Surely Carling didn't lose control of it completely. She's many things, but I've never seen her incompetent.

Prince Aidan scowls at me, pointing at me with my own brush. "You're deathly pale. Thin, too—well, thinner than usual. Are you sure you don't want something to eat?"

I cross my arms, moving to the window. I brace myself against the snapping wind, promising a winter storm come a few weeks early. "I'm not hungry." Not for food, though in a way, I do hunger, craving plant life. A lack of plants can kill a full felf; I'm not sure why I'm so drained by it, myself. I'm more human than elfin.

"Father's been worried about you."

I do not acknowledge him, leaning into the wind, now; breathing deeply to catch the fresh scent of impending rain and the magic-felt tang of hibernating plants…

He comes beside me, squinting, again. Why is he so interested in what I see? "…Would you like to take a walk outside?"

"I would." I keep my arms crossed, not hiding my childish displeasure. Let him think me a child.

He leaves my chamber for me to don a pinafore and shrug on a robe. He then returns and takes my arm, gently guiding me out into the hall, using caution on the stairs, unlike his usual teasing. My nurse sees us, looks alarmed, but does nothing. She will not cross the prince.

In the courtyard, I pull myself away, walking slowly to the bushes I like sitting in. I reach an arm out—a trembling arm—and grip a branch, pulling myself into the bushes' hard embrace. I lean my head against one woody stem, feeling the comfort of the plants' slow soothing hum of their essence, wanting to fall asleep right here…

"I thought you wanted to take a walk," a puzzled voice intrudes on my haven.

Prince Aidan. I've forgotten him already! Yie! Where are my wits?

I peer out of my enclave. "I'd rather remain here, if you don't mind, Your Highness."

Why does he look at me like that? It makes my heart stutter. I know I'll be a subadult in a few months, but I'm still a child.

After a few seconds, which take forever to pass, he leaves me.

3.03

I smell tea. It smells bitter and medicinal and like someone's been in the linashor I've passed to Ygraine. I turn my head away from whoever's offering it.

"Stop the self-pity and drink it!" Lallie's voice snaps.

I turn and focus on her in my surprise. Her cherrywood eyes are more dark than bright as she glares. I'm not sure if her cap-sleeved dress and laced-up boots are burgundy or her usual black, in this light. "…Lallie?"

Lallie sits perched on stool by my bed, hands folded in her lap and ankles crossed. "No, I'm Silva, come to intentionally expose myself to that cursed parasite that would gladly latch on and kill me. Drink the tea, you foolish girl, before the Shadow kills you."

"It needs to." I can be honest with her.

"Do it?" Lallie's still, too still as she watches me. She should be cheerful and teasing and prodding me out of bed to drink the tea.

I close my eyes. "I'm sorry," I whisper. Her dress is burgundy.

"Not your fault my Peyton killed himself to save me!" she snaps back. She stops abruptly and takes a long deep breath. "Sorry." Silence lasts for a few moments. "He dinnit do the best job."

"Are you…?" I look at the tea beside her on the small table by my bed.

"Still infected? No." Her smile's bitter. "No. I'm perfectly fine. Recovered, healthy, young, with a good figure." She swallows. "Many a woman would consider herself blessed to be in my position. I'm even a widow, so I can do all sorts of improper things without anyone nagging me about chaperones."

I cringe. I'd met her husband once. He was a nice cobbler with a bit of something other than human in him. He'd smiled and joined in when Lallie called me 'pickle'.

Lallie's tone darkens. "Now drink that forsaken tea, Evonalé Yunan, before I dump it down your throat."

She can't be serious. "I'm who it's trying to kill," I confess.

"So let it try, and fail, and give that witch sister of yours a tsunami of magical whiplash."

Lallie's scowl is harsh; she loved her husband dearly. "I'm sorry."

"Stop. Saying. Sorry." Her voice is far too violent for her to be so still. Goosebumps form on my arms as my body chills. "Drink the tea, Your Highness."

What?! "I'm not a princess!"

"Name someone else who can inherit Marsdenfel."

Mother's dead. "I don't know" of anyone else who's descended from Queen Yuoleen.

"Well?" Lallie lifts the tea from the table and offers it to me. "That leaves you next in line when your father dies, Princess."

"I'm baseborn."

"So was your mother. So's Elwyn Elv'Shutor. So am I, probably. I can't speak for their spouses, but my Peyton wouldn't have minded were my father a scoundrel and my mother a whore."

"You're common." I don't intend that meanly, but Lallie's eyes narrow at me as if I did.

"You of all people know that's unlikely."

Noble girls tend to leave the evidences of their indescretions on orphanages' doorsteps, but evidently that's not what Lallie's referring to. What information do I possibly have about her that others don't?

As I stare blankly at her glare, I remember what I know about her that she hides from others. "You're…" an earth mage. I shake my head. "But how is that proof that you're not common?"

"I'm immune to poison, even ones designed to target mages. Not resistant—immune. That alone means I'm likely montai. And they chose rulers by how much magic they could control."

Montai? "…Those are the people that used to be here, between the Nidar River and Marsdenfel?" And Emperor Vance's water mage family had slaughtered them and built the palace on the bit of montai lands that hadn't become a haunted marsh from the fighting.

If Lallie's a montai, many of the haints in the Marshes were her ancestors. I wince.

I remember another rumor about montai, that the Creator destroyed it because so many of its people chose to become shifter abominations. "Oh. You're part shifter, too."

"You have your family trying to kill you. Imagine that multiplied across everyone who's worried about shifters and earth magic and heritages that belong dead."

"No wonder you keep a low profile."

She smiles tightly, then hands me the tea. "Drink, Evonalé. And if you think I'm joking about the threat to force it down your throat, I can outmuscle a human man. An elfin girl don't hold a candle to that."

I stare at the mug. "You really think it'll work out better for me to live?"

Lallie shrugs. "I'm no prophetess." Her expression is a shadow of her former cheerful nonchalance. "But I'm not letting you demean everyone who's died by dying with them."

…I'm not sure that makes sense, but a dizzy spell hits as I try to figure that out.

"Drink, Evonalé Yunan. Now."

I do.

3.02

I hear my name in others' whispers. I struggle to wake, but my eyelids don't want to open.

Finally, I get them to do my bidding. Why am I in my bed? Why am I not outside, reveling and reviving in the life of the plants around me?

"I thought she looked pallid," I hear Prince Aidan say. "She said she felt fine. I never expected her to collapse."

Collapse? Did I really— "No! It's too early!" I struggle against my rough bedclothes. I should have years yet before—

The prince's hand on my forehead stops me. I can hardly breathe for terror. I feel his fingers move more of my hair over my already-covered ears. My blood freezes. What does he know?

Prince Aidan abruptly withdraws his hand as if stung, blinking dumbly at me.

"Your Highness?" A spindly young peasant woman I recognize as a nurse from the sick wards comes forward. "Are you all right?"

He feels his hand with his other, as if making certain the cold hand's nerves are working properly. He gives me another look, this one horrified. He wipes his hand on his linen trousers. "She's freezing already!"

"Already?" The young woman busily checks my skin. "Elves help us—you're right!"

Freezing already? I stare at the ceiling. Prince Aidan's interruption came too late, then.

The Shadow's found me.

3.01

Year 245 of the Bynding

The Kingdom of Salles

Late Autumn,

after Harvest

Some say the Shadow is an illness, no different than others that might attack a populace. Some say it is a curse directly from the Creator Himself.

In truth it is no plague; it is no curse. A group of faeries created this gruesome parasitic cousin to linashor and omurk. They created it to kill by destroying a victim's magic.

And kill it did: them.

—Endellion

The other servants think I'm part faery! I must be faery, they say, why else would I be granted linashor when its guardians refuse others' requests for it?

I bite my tongue. In these two years, the Shadow has decimated entire villages in Salles, striking the once-wealthy kingdom hard as trade has dropped, except for the dwarf allies. No dwarf has caught the plague.

The too-little babe Princess Claiborne was among the first to go. She and Mister Woad both refused to drink tea of any kind. But when King Aldrik likewise fell prey to the Shadow, he accepted the linashor tea I offered him. He survived his illness. And thus the rumors started.

It has been two years since the Shadow began—a fitting amount of time, considering it can take a year for the magical parasite to progress in a bearer. The magical illness presumably does the bidding of whoever controls it, but a powerful hand must constantly guide it for that to work. If legend can be trusted, it killed its own creators.

Father's use of the Shadow has always been pointed, limited to a carefully-selected few to keep the duration, the progression, the passing of it all under his direct control. The Shadow as it's hit Salles…

I wonder how Carling lost control. She's usually better about recognizing and heeding her limits.

With my charge and my tutor gone, I often find myself wandering the sick wards with my meager offerings of what little linashor I've been able to harvest at equinox and solstice.

Ygraine tried to quarantine me like she did Silva—faeries are particularly susceptible to the Shadow; because they created it, Mother had guessed—but I think King Aldrik overrode the healer, because she's stopped trying. The parasite isn't hard to cure if you have the means to fight it.

Many mornings, as the sun rises, I face the northwest and curse the man who found the Shadow and dragged it from its long-forgotten crypt I curse him and his get. By that, I curse myself.

And I'm the target, I know. I'm the one the magical parasite seeks. I can feel it, sometimes, drawing at my strength if I'm away from plants. It's Silva's lessons that have made me notice; I can feel magic now, feel the elf in me that pulls on plants. It seems to strengthen as I age, but I suspect that's an illusion from my growing awareness of it.

May the Power bind Carling! If she wanted to kill me with the Shadow, couldn't she have at least done it properly? Father or Drake have surely noticed this.

She commanded the parasite to seek me before she released it; she neglected to give it boundaries. It snatches everyone it can as it seeks to kill me, and I… I can fight it.

Should I?

Perhaps it would be better not to, I think as I sit on a windowsill for some fresh air. If I let it catch me, its goal, it should stop killing anyone else. Perhaps, for Queen Yuoleen's kingdom to be freed, I, the last in a line born of her guilt, must die.

"Take me, then!" I whisper into the wind, aware of the magic that seeks me. It wants me, not the others it's catching and murdering instead. "If I must go—"

"Go where?" Prince Aidan interrupts my thoughts, surprising me for once. "Are you sure you're feeling all right, housemaiden?"

A maiden of King Aldrik's house—not quite a servant, but not quite a ward, either. Even His Highness seems confused about what exactly that makes me.

I pull more hair over my ears. "I'm fine, Your Highness." He governs Saf, now; he has from his ascension to manhood at his sixteenth birthday. I myself work with the women in the sick wards, but only because the other children refuse to put up with my clumsiness or my ornery faery godmother. I have a few months before I'll rate as even a subadult, at thirteen. The divergence is comforting.

The prince still looks a little pale from his own bout with the plague, but otherwise he seems fine. "Why do you always do that?"

"Do what?" I'd rather pursue this line of questioning than admit I asked the plague to kill me.

"Wear your hair like that. Wouldn't you be more comfortable with it out of the way? I know that friend of Silva's could braid it so it still hid your ears, if you're that worried about them."

Lallie. I haven't seen her for a good year, now. I hope she lives. "I prefer it loose," even if it implies that I'm loose of morals, as well. Father forced me to tie back my hair so others could see my ears and know my place in his household, but that brings back memories I prefer avoiding.

"Why not?"

He knows this. "Mother always told me—"

"But why?" He laughs. "Why so mysterious, so quiet, so…"

"So what?" I ask sharply, sounding angry, but honestly more afraid than anything else. Don't say 'So elfin.' I'm not an elf!

Prince Aidan shrugs and drops the topic. He comes closer to me and squints out the window… Trying to see what I'm looking at, perhaps. "…It would be pretty if you put it up, you know."

I study him sidelong. Such comments remind me of Mother, of her abuse.

I force myself to turn away. Most kingdoms' nobility scorn royal heirs who marry outside their class, insisting that only legitimate nobility can properly raise legitimate nobility. A prince could bed all the girls in his castle, and most noblemen wouldn't notice or care, but Creator forbid he honestly marry her!

Aidan has often demonstrated his contempt of even such socially acceptable philandering. He cannot want me, not for marriage. I don't—no one told him of my blood tie to Queen Yuoleen, surely?

But then, every so often an unconventional monarch, often male, breaks the rules and weds a commoner, to the detriment of his kingdom and status. And Prince Aidan is unconventional, that's certain.

And betrothed, I remind myself. I almost smile, but it doesn't make it to my face. Since he can't marry me, his fondness will likely lead the way I don't wish to go. People change their minds about their beliefs. Aidan might change his—or his protest of womanizing now might be a cover for his ready-made plans. Elves help me!

"Yie!" I cry, covering my face and physically fleeing from the thought. What am I thinking? Elves help me? I am elfin!

Aidan starts, twirling after me. "Housemaiden! Wait!"

I ignore him, my still-clumsy feet carrying me down the hall. I don't hit anything, though. I've learned to use my hearing to help that.

Outside! Life! I'm suffocating in this stone!