The king and queen scowled down on her from their thrones and Singura knew she was beaten. Her parents often disagreed, and could be played against each other, but when they spoke as one, there was no arguing: Int Sideat itself spoke through them.

“So, it’s agreed,” her father said. “You will lead the delegation to Int Mara. Karsus will act as Protector.”

Singura bowed. “Understood,” she said. “I won’t fail you. I won’t enjoy it, but I won’t fail you.”

Her mother smiled. “We know.”

Yes, they knew. And they were sending her anyway. It felt like they were teaching her a lesson, for her own good.

But she was twenty-two. They didn’t have to treat her like a child anymore.

Then she laughed at herself. Would they send a child across the Night of Ice?

“I’ll go prepare my gear,” Singura said.

She emerged from the throne room to find Karsus waiting for her. Of course, she thought bitterly, they’d told him first.

He matched her stride. “Is there anything you need from me, princess?”

“I’m pretty sure you have everything prepared.” Her words sounded bitter even to her ears.

“Yes. But I’m not the leader of this expedition. You are. Therefore, I’d need to know what logistical support you require, and what equipment you’re bringing. Are we taking gifts? That would mean extra weight that we’ll need to plan around.” His dark black beard made it difficult to read his expression, and he wore his equally dark hair tied back in a knot.

Singura stopped in her tracks. “I’ll need to think about that.”

“When are you planning to leave?”

“I was thinking as soon as possible. After the mid-cycle meal?”

Karsus made a face, leaving no doubt he wanted to say something.

“What?” she asked.

“I would prefer to set out after the long sleep. We will be rested and we can get a good distance in. That way, we might avoid spending an additional sleep period within the Night of Ice.”

“Ah. That sounds wise,” Singura said. The anger she’d been feeling at what her parents had foisted on her was simmering down enough to think clearly again. “Could you help me with the planning?”

“I can help, but you need to decide what we’re going to do.”

“We’re going to cure that conceited little vixen, even though I would much prefer that she died horribly,” Singura replied.

“That’s not what I meant. A royal visit to another of the Spell Cities is a major event, for us and for them. No royal has been to Int Mara since the wedding. We need to think about what we’ll take them, and who needs to write messages.”

“I’m a Healer, I don’t know how to be a diplomat.”

“You are a grown princess. It might be about time you learned,” Karsus said.

Had it been anyone else, she would have stormed off to plot a royal revenge for the insult to her person. But Karsus had earned the right to speak his mind. Several members of her family would have joined the ancestors if his wise council hadn’t prevailed out in the Night.

“All right. Let’s get this over with.”

*     *     *
Tiny shards of ice, too small to see, but big enough to sting if they hit a patch of unprotected skin, filled the air. Singura ignored them; the Night of Ice was always cold and windy. And despite the best efforts of the armies of royal nannies and caretakers, every child in the palace had made it out onto the Ice at least once.

Only now did it occur to her that her childish adventure, responding to a dare from her brothers, might have been allowed by the adults. It was just too convenient that everyone happened to be looking the other way on the day the garden gates had been unguarded.

That experience served her well. She knew that being outside the Spell that embraced Int Sideat wouldn’t kill her, that people had survived without spells for countless generations, finding what shelter they could and scratching a living from the broken landscape.

But that knowledge didn’t keep her from looking back at the city in which she’d lived her entire life.

Int Sideat rose out of the dark plain of jagged and broken ice like a faceted beacon in the eternal night, illuminated from within. The palace rose, a central spire in the center, the globe of the city below with the gardens, the life-giving gardens, warmed by magic, radiating out like the petals of a flower.

It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen; the city cast its warm glow for miles across the ice, illuminating the caravan and its shaggy beasts of burden.

She would not have wanted to leave it for all the magic in the world, but even less to save the life of the woman who’d stolen the man she’d loved since childhood.

Singura turned west. She had a long ride ahead, and delaying it wouldn’t make the pain at the end of it any easier to bear.

*     *     *
Karsus pulled his tigercat up in front of her. The mottled white beasts were ideally suited to the task of carrying people and supplies across the Night of Ice. They could see for miles in the cold light of the stars and their thick fur kept the icy wind at bay.

“Trouble,” Karsus said.

“Where?” Singura asked.

“Behind the caravan. Banshees. An entire tribe by the looks of it.”

“So what do we do? Can we outrun them?”

The edge of the Night of Ice was in sight. Just west of them, perhaps half a day away over the broken ice, she could see the ruddy glow of the Illuminated Wasteland. Banshees never left the Night.

Karsus stroked his beard. “We could try. But they might catch up. I think it’s better to face them.”

“Face banshees?”

He shrugged. “I’ve done it more times than I care to count. They lie in wait beside the paths through the ice. The banshee attack is a sign that we’re underway, the ceremonial baptism of every journey.”

“What can I do?”

“Stay out of our way, and if any of them get near you, scream.” He rode off with a loud laugh and she glared at him. No one would hear a scream in the midst of a banshee strike.

The wind suddenly picked up, its sound evolving from a soft moan in the background into a high-pitched howl.

Singura braced herself against the stirrups … but the noise wasn’t accompanied by the volume of air that should have come with the colossal sound, and the stinging ice was just the same as it had always been.

The banshees were upon them.

Karsus wheeled his mount around and galloped back the way he’d come, four Underlings in his wake. About a hundred paces behind the caravan, the guards fanned out in a wide semicircle and pulled their staffs from the scabbards on their backs. In the distance, Singura recognized Vina’s red hair, tied back with endless rings, bright even in the darkness: a true child of fire.

And the banshees were upon them.

They came like wisps of mist out of the dark night. Perhaps they were particles of ice animated by the spirits of the wind. Maybe they were the ghosts of mages that had perished when their private war shattered the very nature of reality. Maybe they were something else, something that the humans who shared their world could never comprehend.

An Underling on the left of the formation was the first to engage, his staff discharging into the darkness, a green lance of fire.

“Save your energy!” Karsus shouted, barely audible in the howl. “Wait until you can feel them in your bones!”

But his troops were young, too young to have such patience in the face of a terrifying enemy. Within moments, every one of them had chosen a target and blasted out into the night in a rainbow of destruction. Someone must have hit something because Singura heard a thin wail, different from the war cries, softer, which faded into the distance like a dirge.

The staffs all smoked with use, except for the Protector’s. Karsus waited in the center of the semicircle, glaring intently into the night.

He knew exactly where to look. Even at a distance, she could see his eyes trained on one specific part of the night sky, a place where a milkier section of cloud appeared to be inching closer. Singura wanted to shout out, to warn them, but she kept silent. She felt that the clouds would hear and the banshees would come for her. Unlike Karsus, her own magic would do little to hold them at bay.

Then, when it seemed like the cloud would engulf him, Karsus allowed the magic to stream from his staff. The light burned into the cloud, and again Singura heard the keening cry of banshee pain, except this time it was multiplied three or four times.

The mist exploded into life. No longer moving slowly, tendrils shot out of the night to strike at the caravan’s five defenders. It looked like the wind was enraged, pushing ice into the faces of the people standing in its way.

Now, it was impossible to mistake the formation for a cloud. The mist separated into a dozen clearly defined figures, each vaguely man-shaped, but thrice the height of even the tallest Longwalker. Torrents of icy cloud flew from their arms, tearing at the tiny figures in front of them.

The guardians held their ground, slamming colored light into the figures. For a moment, it seemed like the banshee charge would break at the first hurdle.

But then the fury of the storm redoubled and the Protector and his Underlings disappeared behind a shroud of fog. The only sign that they were still alive was given by their power lighting the banshee clouds from within and the occasional banshee death scream.

The battle seemed to go on forever. Singura watched with held breath—if the guardians failed, the caravan was doomed. None of the drivers or lower diplomats had any attack magic. They’d all die, swallowed up by the Night of Ice like so many others before.

Then the fight subsided. The mist dwindled until there was only one figure, accosted by the combined light of the magicians. Finally, it, too, keened out its last and disappeared.

Singura could now see the guardians. Dark cloaks had replaced the flying mist as the figures trudged slowly back.

There were only four of them approaching. Singura ran to meet Karsus, who was carrying a limp figure.

The Protector lay the unmoving boy, the youngest of the assigned guardians, at her feet. “Is there anything you can do?” he asked.

Wordlessly, she placed her hand on his forehead. “There’s a spark. Yes. I can hold it, but I need you to tell me what the banshees did to him.”

“They sucked the warmth out of his soul. That’s what banshees do. They spend their entire existence suffering, yearning for the heat trapped in our bodies. If the Spell around Int Sideat ever fails, we’ll know the cold touch of their lips.”

“Warmth. All right.”

Singura concentrated on the spark of life in the fallen boy. She fed her magic into it, warming the tiny trace of life—she felt it as a sputtering flame around the heart—so that it expanded, grew to take the chest, the neck, the head. Into the legs.

She was stretched too thin. The boy wasn’t yet fully cured. If she left him like this, he would take days to recover fully. But she had no more to give; she’d never felt anyone quite this drained, not even men on the edge of death. In those cases, she could weave the body back together, then strengthen the spirit, but here, the body hadn’t been touched. It was like Karsus said: the spirit had been frozen, locked away from the body’s strength.

“That’s all I can do,” she said, opening her eyes.

The boy looked up at her. His skin felt ice-cold on her hand.

But he smiled. “Thank you,” he whispered. Then his eyes closed.

“Is he …” Karsus asked.

“He’s sleeping,” Singura replied. “He’ll be exhausted for some days.”

The dark-bearded man, a man who’d always been someone she’d respected and even feared a little, nodded once and wiped his eye. “I’ve never seen healing like that,” he said. “I was certain Inugu would die. Now I understand why your parents selected you for this mission.”

The praise was more than she expected, more than she felt she deserved. “I saw what you had to fight out there. My own part is minor. I just ensured we’ll have an experienced warrior who is already a hero when we need one.”

“I see more than one hero here,” Karsus replied. He turned away to speak to the rest of his troops. When he finished, each of the Underlings walked up to Singura and placed their hand on her shoulder.

Vina and Karsus lifted the boy onto a Tigercat and lashed him down, creating a makeshift bed from the animal’s back.

Singura also rose and realized just how much the Healing had drained her. She stumbled once, but caught herself and, with an effort, climbed onto her own mount. She wanted nothing more than to sleep for days.

But that wasn’t possible. Spending more time than necessary on the open Ice was suicide.

Onward, then.

*     *     *
At least there’s light, Singura thought as she wiped the sweat from her brow. The wasteland was where the magical war had done the most damage.

The blasted landscape, red in the glow of the sun above, seemed to be built of ridges and crevasses that led straight to the molten rock in the center of the world. One false step and she would be beyond the magic or Healing.

Her tigercat wouldn’t make that misstep, however, unless she allowed it to become exhausted. Its coat was soaked in sweat, just like Singura herself, but the animal had been created precisely to be able to survive a wide range of conditions. Mage armies had ridden tigercats into hells more inhospitable than this one.

But this one was bad enough for her. She nearly collapsed with relief when Karsus called a rest halt.

Vina strode along the caravan. As a child of fire, this had been her playground when she was young, but her home had been the inhabited desert far to the south of the blasted wasteland. Nothing lived on the battlefield, and they only crossed it because going around would add weeks to the journey.

Singura smiled when she saw that the guardian was dripping in sweat and had stripped down to little but a thin shirt. None of them wore the black cloaks of their office any longer.

“I can’t wait to get back into a Spell,” Vina said as she handed up a skin full of their carefully rationed water, “even if it’s the one around those tyrants in Int Mara.”

Singura drank deeply and gratefully. “I thought you’d be happy out here. The magic of this land flows through you.”

Vina snorted. “If it does, it certainly isn’t helping me stay cool,” she replied. “It’s hot as a demon’s … well, you know what I mean,” the red-haired woman finished lamely.

“I know exactly what you mean,” Singura replied with a laugh. “You don’t need to be so careful around me. I don’t bite.”

Now it was Vina’s turn to laugh. “Oh, I’m not afraid of you. But if Karsus hears me swearing around a member of the royal family, he’ll toss me in the nearest hole and watch me cook.” She continued down the caravan, taking water to the exhausted riders.

The break was much too short. Mere minutes later, they were on the move again, the feeling of the water coursing blessedly down her throat a fading memory. Soon, even the memory was gone and reality reverted to the monotonous up-and-down motion of her mount as it trudged over the wasteland.

They stopped again, and Singura thought it was too soon. She craned her head around the guardians in front of her to see Karsus, on foot, inspecting his mount’s left rear leg. She could hear him cursing, even in the distance ... and he didn’t seem to be too concerned about what she might hear. He used words that no one in the palace would have dared say in the presence of royalty.

Singura slipped from her tigercat and walked up to him.

“What’s wrong?” she said.

“It’s Ferri. He’s gone lame.”

“Can’t he rest a little?”

“I don’t think he’ll recover in the next hour or so. It will take days … and he’ll die out here before that leg gets better.”

“Can’t he walk?”

“No.”

Karsus stared at the ground for a moment before turning back to her. “May I ask a boon?”

“Anything.”

“I’d like to take a few moments, alone, to say goodbye to him. We’ve been together for many years, and I can’t just leave him without parting words.”

“No,” Singura replied. “I cannot grant that boon.”

Karsus’ head snapped up, but he only said, “Very well. We move on.”

She put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m going to Heal him.”

Now the Protector showed emotion. Horror, in this case. “You can’t do that.”

“Of course I can.”

“You’ll disgrace the throne of Int Sideat, contaminate the bloodline with animal spirit.”

“I’m seventeenth in line for the throne, Karsus. I don’t think my bloodline will make much difference.”

He gritted his teeth. “No one will want to marry you.”

She smiled sadly. “The only man I ever wanted is lost to me. I’ve been resigned to being alone for a long time. Now be quiet.”

She put her hand on the tigercat’s nose, which, had Karsus not been there to reassure it, would have been a quick way to lose a few fingers.

The spirit she found within was alien, but not that alien, and in no way did it feel unclean … just innocent, in a way that not even the youngest of humans ever felt. She quickly pinpointed the problem area, a tear in the ligament connecting a hip to a leg. She soon fixed that and realized the animal was now fine. She didn’t even feel tired.

“There. He should be good for more years than you, now.”

Karsus nodded once, and then turned away to hide the tears in his eyes.

*     *     *
In much the same way that Int Sideat shone like a beacon of light and warmth over the Night of Ice, Int Mara could be seen for leagues across the wasteland. Concentric cylinders of bright white stone stacked taller than seemed possible, bigger ones at the bottom, taller ones at the top, created a delicate pyramid that reached high into the dusty yellow sky. Water cascaded down from each of the levels. While Int Sideat looked warm from a distance, Int Mara looked cool.

“It makes me thirsty just to look at it,” Singura said.

Vina just sighed. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. There’s still a half-day’s journey to get there. Maybe more.”

“It looks close enough to touch. Is it really so far?”

“You’ll see.”

Singura gazed at the city for a few more moments, then lowered her head back to the path ahead of her tigercat. The beasts were sure-footed, but four eyes still saw better than two.

Besides, she didn’t want to think of the spire, to consider what lay ahead of her. The woman she’d spent the last five years of her life hating with every fiber of her being, the one whose conquest of a heart Singura had been certain of had sent her to take refuge in study, driving herself hard—perhaps too hard—until she bested her masters to become the best Healer anyone had ever heard of, awaited.

That was the woman she’d been sent to heal, the princess of Int Mara whose life depended on the learning she’d driven Singura to get. It was at once a colossal jest, unfair to the core, yet somehow also fitting in an ironic way.

They got going again and Vina turned out to be exactly right. They crested ridges and trudged over depressions in the blasted landscape, skirting bottomless pits and treading gingerly over broken rock, but Int Mara never seemed to get any closer. The sweat still poured and the sun still baked them.

Until, coming out of a shallow bowl of sand, Singura looked up to see the city towering over her.

Relief warred with dread for a confusing moment as she stood just outside the Spell’s bubble. Just within, she could see a grassy meadow where butterflies flitted around flowers.

Relief won. “We made it,” she said to Karsus, who was waiting for her to enter first, as protocol demanded.

He nodded. “And we didn’t lose a single person or even an animal on the way. Thanks to you. I … I’ve only been part of very few expeditions that arrived intact.”

“It’s a difficult journey. My respect for anyone who does this often is even greater than before.”

Karsus smiled. “You see? You’re already starting to talk like a diplomat.”

She responded with some undiplomatic words and spurred her mount forward, sighing in pleasure as she left the wasteland and felt the cool, humid breeze of the Spell’s interior embrace her skin. She dismounted, stretched her legs, and headed over to the nearest pool. Just as in Int Sideat, the fountains stood at the boundaries to welcome weary travelers.

A red-faced page, huffing and panting, arrived moments later. “Princess Singura,” he huffed. “We weren’t expecting you so soon. My queen will be down shortly.”

“Tell her that, with her permission, we’ll await her inside. Our steeds are tired and my people are hungry.”

“Of course. She suspected you’d say that, so she instructed me to lead you to the small banquet hall.”

Singura smiled when she saw the size of the small banquet hall. She didn’t even want to imagine what the large banquet hall might be like if this was the small one. Nevertheless, the size wasn’t what shocked her the most, but the fact that the furniture was all made of reflective surfaces that caught the light. It was dazzling in the glow of the sun.

Such a contrast to the way things were back home where the milky stone furniture glowed from within with a soft light that allowed one to see while never forgetting that night ruled eternal outside the walls. Here, things were designed to highlight the red sun.

The queen arrived before they could finish admiring their surroundings. She swept through the grand door ensconced within a flock of courtiers which spread out so that she stood face to face with Singura. Silence reigned as everyone waited for the ruler to speak first, as was the protocol.

Singura studied the queen. An aquiline nose and grey eyes would have made her regal even if she’d been a serving woman, and her deeply lined skin seemed to be bronze-colored in the ruddy glow.

“I formally welcome this delegation from Int Sideat to our city,” the queen began formally. Then her features softened. “You have our eternal thanks for coming so quickly.” Finally, her features broke into a smile that turned wrinkles into deep chasms. “I especially thank you for coming in person, Princess. Your reputation as a Healer precedes you and, more importantly, my son has told me much about you. Perhaps more than is proper, but enough to let me know the caliber of the jewel who now walks among us.”

The queen actually bowed her head in her direction and, for a moment, Singura nearly panicked while trying to think of the protocol for such a huge gesture during a welcoming ceremony. Finally, not being able to think of a precedent, she simply bowed deeply and held it for the formal maximum of three seconds before looking back up to see a quick smile of approval on the monarch’s features. Apparently, she’d just passed some kind of test.

“You must be tired from the journey. My chamberlain has prepared rooms for all of you.”

It was the queen’s way of saying how much they appreciated this. Normally, rooms would have been made ready in the palace for Singura and Karsus, while the rest would have been led away to barracks in the city. Even so, Singura hesitated, the healer getting the better of the diplomat. “Shouldn’t I see the patient?” she said.

“The Princessa will be fine for a few more hours. Our own healers assure me that she is still a few days away from any crisis, and that she is in no pain. You can sleep and see her tomorrow.”

But again, the queen’s expression made it seem as if Singura had passed a test.

Before she could say anything else, the queen nodded and the chamberlain was bowing in front of her. “Princess,” he said. “If you’ll follow me …”

The corridors were as cool and breezy as those of her city were warm and comforting: the Spell was working perfectly. When the wizards of old had stopped throwing energy at each other they’d done a fantastic job of making the cities livable. A job that no one alive in her age would ever be able to match.

Admiring the mage-built palace around her, Singura thought about the old magic, so diminished in the people of her day, until she reached her suite of rooms. After that, she thought about nothing more; the bed called to her irresistibly and she collapsed, fully clothed, onto it. She was asleep in moments.

*     *     *
Singura woke to find the man she loved beside her. She went through her duties as Princessa of Int Mara, stopping to share the midday meal with her husband, the love of her life, Princeps Nurel, before taking a relaxed afternoon walk with her ladies-in-waiting, looking out over the vast blasted plains of the west. Later, she went into the royal burial garden, searching for a little quiet, away from the bustle of court and the chattering of her handmaids.

She wandered alone, smelling the rich scent of the flowers in the woods and glades that made up the burial ground. She was drawn irresistibly to a small glade near the outer wall of the city, where a single monument stood alone, far from the dead of the city’s royal family.

Singura stood before the tomb, a collection of willowy glass spires that yearned for the sky. Within its base, woven of magic, were the words “In memory of Princessa Dilandra, Taken Much Too Soon.”

That hated name, illuminated in rainbow colors inside the beautiful monument, caused her to suck in her breath. She no longer felt soothed by the burial ground. The shaded glades promised not cool peace but rather seemed the abode of vengeful spirits.

She wanted to return to her husband, to the safety of her court, but she couldn’t turn away from the mesmerizing vision before her: palpable proof of the death of her rival.

No. Not proof. Premonition. She understood now.

Singura woke, drenched in sweat, the scream on her lips struggling to escape. She knew enough about how magic worked to know that what she’d seen was a true vision, a vision of the happiness she could have if she failed at her task.

Her own power might be that of a Healer, but sometimes the magic could manifest in other forms. This was one of those times.

She tried to get back to sleep, to think of other things. She failed.

*     *     *
An honor guard led her to the door, an aperture fit for the chamber of the woman who’d married the man who would be king after the current queen. It was metallic and enormous, with a subtle golden sheen, crossed by steel-colored bands. A guard pushed it open and bowed.

The room beyond was equally impressive, with the roof lost up above innumerable sheets of diaphanous cloth that shimmered gently in the breeze, illuminated from behind by lights unseen, visible only through the filter of colored cloth. The furniture seemed to have been spun of the stuff of clouds.

Singura had no eyes for the opulence. Her only concern was the tiny figure of a woman lost in the colossal bed. She approached slowly, unwilling to believe her eyes. Was this the imposing red-haired woman everyone had spoken of so admiringly? The witch who’d stolen her true love’s heart?

Propped against the pillows watching her approach with eyes that seemed too big to belong in her head was an emaciated figure who looked like she was starving. Singura felt herself being watched intensely as she came to the side of the bed.

“They sent you?” the woman said.

Again, Singura was surprised. The voice held all the strength that the body lacked. Deep and resonant, there was no sign of illness there.

“You know who I am?” Singura replied.

“You are Singura of Int Sideat, the greatest Healer to have been born since the time of mages, the most amazing princess remaining on this blasted world and the perfect woman in all regards.” The words weren’t bitter in the least. The woman seemed to be studying Singura, apparently measuring the reality of the girl beside the bed with the colossus she’d just described.

“Who said that?”

“Nurel, of course. He’s the only one in Int Mara who’s seen you in the flesh.”

A lump formed in Singura’s throat. “He said that about me? I’m just a girl from the Ice. Nothing special. And my sisters are all better princesses than I am.”

Dilandra laughed. “Anyone who’s ever met my husband knows exactly who you are. Your false modesty won’t work on us. They should have told me it was you they were sending. I might have clung to hope.”

Singura remained silent for some moments. Hope. The emotion that the woman on this bed had dashed for her. The feeling she’d lost when the messengers arrived announcing the royal wedding between the houses of Mara and Hieriat.

This woman spoke to her of hope.

Worse, the desperation in her features appeared to soften, a certain light returned to her eyes. Was her patient looking at the world with more interest than before, or was Singura imagining it?

The best Healers in Int Mara had pronounced her case hopeless … and she was suddenly convinced that a young woman leaving her home for the first time would be able to help? She supposed it was understandable; a death sentence was not an easy thing to accept.

Singura began to feel the weight of the burden that was on her shoulders: the hopes of an entire city for their new Pincessa, the hopes of the woman herself who seemed in awe of Singura and showed no suspicion of the depth of the hatred that her Healer had for her.

“Isn’t Nurel here?” Singura asked.

“He’s in Int Hieriat, speaking to my father. He wanted to speak to him personally in time to return for … for the end.”

Singura suspected it had more to do with avoiding her. He’d known how Singura felt about him; she’d never concealed her emotions. She thought he’d felt the same. He’d find it difficult to face the woman he’d betrayed.

Dilandra seemed to guess what Singura was thinking, or at least the lines along which her thoughts went. The weakened woman reached out a hand and said: “I think he might be a little frightened of you. I’ve always gotten the feeling that he spoke of you with a reverence bordering on worship.”

Singura couldn’t reply. This woman had no idea, no inkling of the times they’d spent staring out into the Night of Ice, of making promises that had been blown away as if by a winter gale. And she could never know.

She wasn’t certain what Nurel might feel for her, but she never suspected fear or awe.

There was one way to keep the confusion and the emotions at bay. “Let’s see what we’re dealing with here,” Singura said, as she pulled back the sheets to reveal a body that matched the skin-and-skull look of the woman’s head. She placed her hand on Dilandra’s stomach and let her magic take over.

Now that she was a Healer, she understood her poor teachers, the men and women who’d told her once and again that there was no way to explain what she would feel, that she had to sense everything for herself. How right they’d been. Only when she finally understood what she was feeling, sensations that couldn’t be described in words discovered by mankind, could those feelings guide her actions. Once she crossed that threshold, she learned quickly, surpassing her masters in months, opening new channels of healing that she, in turn, couldn’t explain in words.

She let her magic roam through the stricken body and report back when it had pinpointed the issue.

It wasn’t hard to find. Pockets of wrongness, which she felt as a bad taste or empty holes or … it was impossible to explain, but she knew it when she felt it. The wrongness was scattered across Dilandra’s body.

Singura opened her eyes and frowned. “How long have your Healers known about this?”

“Two seasons.”

“Two seasons ago they could have halted the spread easily.”

“They told me that they would have had to remove my womb. I told them I would rather die than become a barren princess.” Dilandra held her gaze. “You know the fate of princesses unable to bear children.”

“You’d rather die than be set aside?”

“Both are death, but only one has dignity.”

“Your Healers just stood aside to let you die?” Singura said. “They knowingly let the cancer spread this far, to where they can’t help you?”

“In Int Mara, no one argues with the royal family, not even if one is only royal by marriage.”

Furious, Singura turned to the people who’d walked into the room with her. She said, “Bring me the Healers who treated her.” Then, without looking to see if her request was being followed, she turned back to Dilandra and placed her hands gently on her womb. She could feel the lumps of the tumors through her thin body like little bony protrusions.

In her rage, she began to blast indiscriminately at the lumps, dissolving them with more magic than necessary. The sickness invading the lungs was the most dangerous, and Singura eliminated two of the biggest, the ones that would have killed her within weeks. Immediately, she felt Dilandra’s breathing become easier, and she managed to find the tether that kept the Princessa’s spirit bound to her body. It was a weak, frayed thing that she could have severed with a negligent thought. It was so tempting, perhaps even a kindness. She could save the woman an enormous amount of suffering. Because any Healer could take out a few lumps … but none would stop them from reforming in other places and kill her even more slowly, over months instead of weeks. Yes, letting her die could be a kindness.

And Singura could take what was rightly hers.

Singura pulled her hand from Dilandra’s womb and pushed away the temptation. Two grey-haired Healers, a man and a woman, deep lines attesting to their enormous age, stood behind her.

“You were going to let her die,” Singura said, accusingly.

“It was what she wanted,” the male healer replied calmly. “We tend to the patient’s spirit as well as her body. It’s useless to save one while destroying the other.”

Singura wanted to slap the smug bastard, to tell him that her age was no excuse to be pontificated to by an imbecile who had had the chance to save a life and had let it pass. “Why wasn’t I called sooner?”

The man raised an eyebrow. He didn’t even have to say what he was thinking: if the two great and experienced healers had failed, then a mere girl would have no chance. Rumors of great power were not to be believed when they spoke of royalty. Mere flattery in most cases. Remembering her rank, however, the man forbore from speaking, and the woman stepped forward. “Our skills are not inconsequential. We considered the case hopeless.”

The chamberlain spoke. “It was the Princeps who insisted you come. He seems to think you’re a miracle worker, that you can do anything.”

“You should have called me sooner.”

The woman with grey hair spoke. “We know the limits of the magic. We only accepted you to humor an anguished husband. In fact, we just heard that you healed … a lesser beast … we must ask you to–”

“You know nothing,” Singura replied coldly. Ignoring any further protestations, she turned back to the frail body on the bed.

She placed a hand on Dilandra’s womb and began to work, letting the magic lead her in directions she’d never explored. It soon became apparent that the healers were correct in one thing: the cancer was interwoven with the Pricessa’s uterus. It had originated there, and to remove it with traditional Healing would have left the patient barren.

But traditional methods weren’t the only ones. They were just the safest.

Singura began to pour magic into Dilandra, not simple energy to burn away malicious growths, but something other, the very magic of life, inverted on itself. What had grown was now reverting to its original, innocuous form.

It wasn’t easy. The process took a lot out of patient and Healer alike. Most of Singura’s energy was focused, by necessity, on keeping Dilandra—who’d lost consciousness with the first probings of true power—alive long enough to finish the job. She absently noted someone wiping the sweat off her brow, but never saw who it was; her entire being was lost in the magic.

Little by little the disease faded. Singura’s exhaustion turned to pain, pain to agony, but if she let go of the magic now Dilandra would die, so she continued. Finally, when she had done everything she could for the womb, she blasted the tumors in her chest and, with a final burst of strength, sent a stream of magic to strengthen Dilandra’s body.

Then Singura collapsed onto the floor. She was aware of the two grey-robed Healers rushing past to check on Dilandra while everyone else crowded around her.

The last thing she heard before she lost consciousness was the male Healer’s horrified voice. “Impossible,” the man whispered. “Monstrous.”

Then darkness overcame her.

*     *     *
The large banquet hall was as grotesque as she’d suspected it would be. Columns of bronze held up a domed and gilded roof. The room probably would have been able to seat four or five hundred people.

Singura sat at a table, alone by her own choice in the colossal, empty chamber. Even the servants who’d brought her food and candle had faded into the shadows.

“Midnight snack?” a man’s voice said.

Singura jumped. She hadn’t heard anyone approach. Then she saw the figure in the shadows and her heart matched the fluttering of the candle.

Could it be?

As her eyes adjusted, she realized it wasn’t Nurel. This man’s hair was darker, his eyes were set wider apart in his face. The mouth was curled in a half-smile that the serious Nurel would never have permitted himself. A brother then. Or a cousin.

She sighed. “Here to ogle the witch? To see the monster everyone is afraid of?” she asked. She was too exhausted to care if the guy was part of the royal family. If he took offense, so be it … nothing she did could tarnish her reputation further. Vina had kept her abreast of the things being said about her while the Princessa slept on her road to complete recovery.

The man sat down and his smile widened. “Witches, monsters, animal healers … any black sheep is fine by me.” He held out his hand. “I’m Ganior.”

Though she tried not to, and immediately after doing so understood the irony, Singura stared.

The man laughed. “Yes, that one. The black sheep.”

“But you’re here …”

“My mother, in her infinite compassion, has allowed me to return to the city of my birth.” He winked. “Just between you and me, she’s probably afraid I’ll embarrass the family if I’m out of her sight for too long.”

Singura’s eyes dropped back to the table. So the famous libertine was back to see if he could expand his collection of forbidden fruit. She sighed. “Well, you’ve seen me. You can run along now.”

“I didn’t come here to stare at you like a strange creature from a cabinet of curiosities. I came to tell you that I understand and that it will be all right.”

She hit the table with her fist. “How can it possibly be all right? It’s bad enough that I’ll be shunned by all Healers for saving that poor tigercat. Now, I’ll also live under the cloud of having magic too strong. Dangerously strong. Strong like before …” She sighed. “And who can blame them? The magicians nearly killed everyone. We barely survived.”

“Living in fear is no way to live.” He held her gaze. “These rules they’re always going on about are old. It’s about time we threw them out. Even our bodies are rebelling; that’s why you’ve got the strongest magic for a hundred generations. And you might not be the first. An exile hears things. The world is about to change.” He looked at the gilded roof of the chamber. “And if you ask me, it’s about time.”

But Singura had only been listening with half her attention. The rest had been focused on the way the man’s brow wrinkled when he made a point, the way his lips moved when he spoke. It was the mirror image of his brother.

But where Nurel was cool as the Night of Ice, this was a man of the fiery plains. He was like Nurel but somehow less perfect. More human.

She had to force herself to look away.

“I bet you say that to all the girls,” she replied.

The look of shock on his face was worth being thought forward. His mouth stopped midsentence, and he completely lost his thread.

Then he laughed. “No wonder my brother was too afraid to marry you.”

It was her turn to be shocked. But perhaps she shouldn’t have been surprised. If there was one man who would speak an uncomfortable truth, it would be Ganior. He was infamous for precisely that kind of thing.

One thing he wasn’t known for was lying or exaggerating. He was an adventurer and a philanderer and a man who hated society as it stood. But even the harshest of the rumors held him as ruthlessly devoted to the truth as he knew it.

“And why would that be?” she asked. Her heart fluttered in a way she thought she’d left behind forever.

“Because anyone who would challenge the entire world to save her rival is a formidable woman. My brother knows he’s not enough of a man for someone like that.”

“And you are?”

“Would you like to find out?”

Singura looked him up and down. “Honestly, I’m not sure. We’ll have to think about it.”

He chuckled. “I’m starting to think my brother was right.”

And Singura laughed, truly laughed with joy, for the first time in a long time.

It felt good.