“No, not now, but in my Archive are documents that tell of mages who could fly. I have ancient journals that suggest even the mages of Aydori are powerless in comparison to the mages of old. Who were,” he leaned forward and dropped his voice slightly, “completely insane as far as I can tell and more trouble than they were worth. But still, flying…” He settled back in his chair. “I can fly. Science has given me the sky. I have balloons to take me above the earth. I can send my voice over a distance; I can split my voice into multiple destinations over short distances. My people have fire-starters and surgeons who can cut into bodies and pull out diseases. Science gives freely to all, not just the few. Mage-craft is done.”
“I wonder…” She bit her lower lip and stared off at nothing. When she refocused on the emperor, he was staring down at her, red lips curved in a mocking smile.
“You wonder if mage-craft is done?”
“I wonder…” She smiled and shook her head, as though overwhelmed by the thought. “I wonder what science and mage-craft could accomplish if they worked together.”
“Science and mage-craft don’t work together.”
Danika dipped her head, reluctantly correcting him. “Haven’t worked together, Majesty.”
Back in her cell, she tossed the pillow by the door, stretched out, and shared the details of the conversation with Kirstin.
“He dismissed me after that, but I could almost smell him thinking.”
“You think he’ll remove your net?”
“Not without taking every precaution, but then we’ll know how it comes off.”
“Lord and Lady, Danika, it’s like you think we have all the time in the world to get out of here.”
She pressed a hand against her belly. Stina was the furthest along at nearly six months. “I know exactly how much time we have.”
“Tomas, that rabbit isn’t dead.” Not dead but clearly terrified, staring up at her from where it dangled from huge black jaws.
Tomas set it on the ground, not opening his mouth and releasing it until it was securely held between his front paws. He changed and spent a moment crouched adjusting his grip although Mirian noted that he didn’t lift the frightened rabbit off the ground. Rather than straighten, he sat, the rabbit between his knees but outside the curve of his crossed legs. “It’s injured. I thought you could practice healing on it.”
“What?” Mirian, who’d returned her attention to their small fire the moment Tomas had lost his fur, turned to stare at him. “You want me to heal a rabbit?”
He shrugged. “You won’t practice on me, and we need to know what you’re capable of before we engage the enemy.”
“So you want me to try and heal our evening meal?” The thought of healing something, then killing and eating it was a little creepy. Actually…She shook her head as though trying to shake the thought free…. it was a lot creepy.
Tomas snickered and Mirian wondered how much of that had shown on her face. “If you heal the rabbit, we won’t eat it. It’ll live long and have baby rabbits. I’ll catch something else for us to eat.”
“That’s not…”
Actually, it wasn’t a bad idea. It was a sensible idea even. She couldn’t practice on Tomas, and it was best they knew what she could do. It was sitting quietly within the cage of his hands. Mirian suspected quietly meant too terrified to move. If it could move…“How badly is it injured?”
“Not badly. A couple of puncture wounds on the back of its neck.”
She laid another stick on the fire and watched it start to burn without her help. “What if I can’t heal it? And it’s not that I want to fail,” she added hurriedly, “because I’m still thinking of it as food.”
“It’s not injured so badly it couldn’t heal on its own. If you can’t heal it, I’ll let it go.”
“All right.” Mirian shuffled around until she sat facing him, her knees touching his, the rabbit corralled between them. When Tomas tensed to lift his hands away, she shook her head. “No, you keep holding it. I can’t be distracted by worrying that it’ll get away from me.”
Its fur was soft, plush. She’d left a rabbit fur hat and muff back in her room in Bercarit, but this fur had more substance. The rabbit flinched as she touched it, in fear not pain, not that it mattered beyond how much it hurt her heart because she had to have contact. Although not the usual contact. Tomas hunted to keep them fed and they mostly ate rabbit.
Don’t think of the rabbit as food.
Logically, she reminded herself, an injury was an injury, whether on her or on a small animal. She could heal herself, so healing another would merely be extending that outward. An examination showed the rabbit’s skin had been pierced in two places by Tomas’ teeth. Blood had dampened the fur around the bites, clumping it into dark triangular points. She couldn’t put the blood back, so all she could do was close the holes.
Close the holes…
Close…
The rabbit writhed, twisting out of Tomas’ grip, and Mirian snatched her hand away staring down at the animal in horror. Every thing that might be considered a hole on its body had closed. Unbroken fur covered its eyes, nose, mouth, ears…anus although she wouldn’t, couldn’t check.
Scrambling onto her knees, she twisted to the side and threw up. Threw up again when she heard the crack as Tomas broke the struggling rabbit’s neck. Her stomach spasmed over and over until only bitter bile dribbled out of her mouth.
She couldn’t stop crying.
She could destroy. Two men were dead by her hand. But she couldn’t heal.
When Tomas wrapped his arms around her, she didn’t fight him. She collapsed against his chest and cried until she had no tears left. Cried for the rabbit and the Mage-pack and Ryder Hagen and Jaspyr Hagen and the two men she’d killed and for Tomas and for her because they were going to rescue the Mage-pack and they didn’t have the faintest idea of how and for the first time since hearing gunshots that morning on the Trouge Road, she missed the bland certainty her life had been.
“Bland would drive you crazy,” murmured a quiet voice against her hair.
Mirian sniffed and rubbed her sleeve over her face. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”
“I know.”
“I got you wet.” She pulled away from his chest and dried that cheek as well. “I’m sorry.”
He loosened his hold, a little, and shrugged. “Skin dries.”
“I’d have made a mess of your fur.”
“And that’s what I was worried about. Here.” One arm released her, stretched out to the right, and came back with a canteen. “Rinse your mouth.”
She sloshed a mouthful of water around and had to poke him so she could get enough clearance to spit. The fire had burned down to embers, the last of the daylight had faded, and she couldn’t see the puddle of vomit, but she could smell it. “What happened to the…to the body?”
“I got rid of it.”
“You didn’t…”
“Eat it?” She might have felt him shudder. “No.”
“All right.” Another mouthful of water. “Good. I’m all right. Thank you. Let me go now.”
He released her reluctantly. “I could hunt…”
“No. I mean, yes, for you.” She crawled to fire pit and began piling the smallest twigs in the pile against the coals. “I couldn’t eat.”
“You need to eat.”
“I said I can’t!” The fire flared and she froze, refusing to back away. If she’d actually been able to advance beyond first level while at university…If she’d attempted to heal another student…