Dedicated to Marc Morrell in the hopes
the IRL Empire might release him one day. (;

Vivid replays of reality keep chasing sleep away. I lie in a narrow bed, moonlight streaming in from a single-paned window above. The cold prickles my skin, and beneath the blankets, I pull tight the shawl Aster gave me as part of my new outfit.

Downstairs, the castle physician Illesiarr sleeps in the infirmary's main room. There's a fireplace down there, and part of me considers abandoning the bed for the hearth. Still, the physician has been kind enough to give me my own room, and it seems foolish to disdain his gift.

Shivering, I wonder at what point I'll be comfortably warm again. It is warmer in Morineaux than it had been at Marcí's—almost more late fall than winter—but night in this stone behemoth is still colder than the High Valley caves. The first time I ever went topside, I was shocked that the temperature could fluctuate so much during the day; deep underground, our thermometers held at an almost constant sixty degrees. Right now, I'd be surprised if it was much more than thirty. But I've survived the freezing Valley slopes in winter. I can acclimate to this.

I roll over, mind still racing too much to sleep. I had assumed when I teleported in the dungeon that it was something someone was doing to me. To know now that it was something from inside me, something that responded to my desires but acted against my will...

Something that, for some reason, took me to see Sean Rahkifellar.

I can't get the scene out of my head, and even though I wasn't there long enough to commit every detail to memory, I find myself filling in the holes and overanalyzing. Did he seem like he was okay? Wasn't his face a little thin? It was hard to see with everything happening all at once. But even if his face was, maybe that doesn't mean anything. As distractible as he is, he hardly ever eats right, so he's always looked somewhat gaunt. And the journey with the Traders didn't help either of us in that regard. Maybe it doesn't mean anything.

He hasn't died of exposure or been trapped among the snowdrifts, like I'd feared. And he had his backpack, so he hasn't been robbed. There were farmhouses around, so if he doesn't run his smart mouth off too much, he can probably find a place to stay. He's okay.

And my magic let me know that.

I sneak my hand out from the blankets. On my wrist, the colored and silver lights of my bracelet swirl, and its child and bird voices sing in harmony. I spent my entire childhood wishing magic was real. Now it's all around me, in this castle, on my wrist. Inside me. Before, its intensity scared me. The raw fear of the few spells I've cast is a palpable memory. I am no match for magic.

But the fæn spell... it was something different. The lack of control was still there, the call for domination too, but when I gave in, the spell was like a wash of warm water.

This magic I didn't ask for can get me killed. It can do things I don't understand, can act without my will. But it's also beautiful and wondrous and strange. Whether I understand it or not, it's a part of me, and I refuse to let anything—especially myself—stop me from reaching my full potential.

Eleaviara Riveirre is done being afraid.

Riveaux, I remind myself. Aster gave me a new, Morineause last name. In some ways, it feels strange not to be allowed to be myself anymore; in other ways, it's a release. A beginning.

I am Morineause. I am magic. I am made new.

Eleaviara Riveaux is done being afraid.

A moan rises from the flagstones below. Startled, I sit and pull my shawl tighter. It comes softly again, but whatever it is, it's not some ghoul. It sounds more like someone in pain.

Tossing back my covers, I slide on my shoes and light a candle. At the end of the hall, Elénna's door is shut tight. I turn away and slip downstairs. Near the fire, the white-haired, wizened physician lies asleep in a cot. The noise doesn't seem to have disturbed him either; I'm not sure it would have woken me if I hadn't already been up.

The moan sounds once more, and I follow it through the door on my right. The room is dark, and holding out my candle, I peer through the half-light.

I freeze.

Beds line the walls, fifteen on either side. The candlelight flickers over men's restless faces, dimly illuminating bandaged wounds and marred bodies.

Every bed is filled.

No wonder the physician has yet to wake. Skies know how long he has been treating these men with just Elénna to help.

The man moans again, and I hurry to his bed. His eyes flicker, neither quite awake nor asleep. When I set my hand against his forehead, my lips press together. "You're burning up, aren't you?"

I tug back blankets to examine him and almost drop the candle. Get a hold of yourself, Leavi. I draw in a deep breath.

His forearm is missing.

It's not a birth defect; the wound is bandaged and packed. Someone did this to him. My mind flashes back to the man chasing me with his axe, and I try to shut the images out, try not to realize what I know instinctively. This is the outcome of men surrounding Aster's castle. This is the consequence of violence. This is the reality of war.

I push down the horror creeping through me. Now is not the time. Don't see the person; see the subject. Don't see the wound; see the tissues.

Setting the candle on a bedside table, I ply back his bandages and begin analyzing the injury. It is closed, but not stitched. Rather, burns and scabs from cauterization mark what is now the end of his arm. Worryingly, the skin around the scabs appears yellow. Between that and the fever, it's almost certainly infected.

I set his arm down gently and return to the main room for more bandages, warm water, and a rag. As I walk back toward the man, though, a glass-paneled cabinet catches my eye, and I pause to peer inside. Jars and vials fill its shelfs, all with little labels. The writing is hard to make out in the uncertain light, and most of what I can read, I don't recognize. Surely there's something useful here, though...

There. This jar I can read the label on, but even if I couldn't, I would know what it was. I slip the honey out of the cabinet. A vial of white crystals sits next to it, and I pull its lid off, verifying it's salt. Satisfied, I take my finds back to the man.

I tend to him, bathing his arm in warm salt water to help sterilize the infection. He moans again, and I shush him, working as gently as possible. "You'll be alright. We caught it early." Thirty patients in this room by itself to a single doctor and his assistant, and we're lucky we caught it at all. "Seems it's a good thing I couldn't fall asleep tonight."

Knowing the fever is probably doing a better job killing the infection than I am, I don't bother trying to bring it down. Instead, I use the honey to coat the end of his arm, insulating it from the outside world and giving those damaged cells a moist environment to heal in. He's still calling out, caught in that hazy nightmare of fever, and I murmur reassurances to him the way my mother did when I was sick as a child.

I do my best to wrap up his arm, but here I have no formal knowledge and mostly just try not to make it too tight. I'm almost done when hurried footsteps catch my attention. I glance back, and Elénna nods at me. "You're up late. Here, let me take a look at him." Her tone is kind, but her words can't be mistaken for anything less than a command. I shift to the side. Kneeling by the man's bed, she examines his bandage, checks on his wound. Inspects my work.

I fight the urge to fiddle with my necklace. The metal is probably unsanitary. "I didn't realize anyone was awake."

She nods, carefully rewrapping the wound. "I take second shift for Illesiarr." She glances over. "I thought you were working for the prince. I didn't realize you were a physician's apprentice."

"I'm not."

She grins, returning to her work. "Not working for the prince or not apprenticing?"

"Not apprenticing, I mean. Why? Are you?"

Elénna shakes her head."Not anymore. My seventeenth was last summer." She opens the drawer of the table I set my candle on. Inside sit more tinctures and vials. She pulls one out, measures a dose, and administers it to the man. As the patient calms and settles deeper into his pillow, Elénna tucks his arm beneath the covers. Rising, she says, "I'm a proper physician now."

I smile and nod, not sure how she wants me to respond. She might not have undone any of my work but my bandaging, but I'm pretty sure she doesn't want me—not a physician, not one's apprentice—around her patients. "Well, I'll leave you to it."

She nods, moving to check on another man. "Goodnight, Maed Riveaux."

It's strange to hear a girl just a year older than me refer to me so politely. In Erreliah, peers called me by just my last name; we rarely said mastera and doktor, except in introduction, and never miss or missus. But I do my best to return the courtesy. "Goodnight, Maed..." And then I realize I don't know her last name, and my ears go hot.

She looks over her shoulder. "Just Elénna. I was a ward," she explains, shrugging.

"I see," I say, probably not seeing as much as she expects. "Well, goodnight, Maed Elénna."