An abandoned boy, a grieving prince, and a reclusive sorcerer find themselves caught in a web of peril and mystery...
Domi, a young thief abandoned on the street at birth, just wants to save his dying foster mother. But first, he must survive the m...
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Arbita was beginning to think she would not be getting married after all. She would kill her betrothed long before their wedding day.
As Valens half-led, half-dragged Domi into the infirmary—the pair scattering mud and snow all over the floor one of her alumnas just swept—Arbita threw up her hands in frustration.
"You know, I held my tongue," she said as she stormed over and took in the sight of her patient. Domi peered about the infirmary without comprehension, his arms slack and his face drooping. The trail of blood streaming from his nose, down his throat, and pooling in the collar of his paenula told the rest of the story. "But I knew something like this would happen if you took him out there with you. I just knew it!"
"He will be fine."
Sometimes she could strangle him. Valens had always been like this, ever since he and Cerasus first became friends when the two were in nursery school together. The man did not care about anyone or anything but himself. What Cerasus saw in him was beyond her. Her brother even had the gall to tell her he betrothed his "two favorite people" to one another and appeared hurt and confused his actions displeased her and Valens.
"He's not fine. He had another stroke! His brain is hemorrhaging!" Domi's prometarium channels were underdeveloped. He was like a toddler when it came to his body's ability to tolerate magic. It would take time for his system to adjust to his prematurely-kindled prometus, let alone grow accustomed to being near promenia. Yet Valens dragged him out into the field like a much more experienced alumna. It was unconscionable.
"You're a lifeholder aedilis." He sounded bored by her concerns and stood with aloof detachment as Arbita guided Domi to sit on one of the cots near Epileus and Gemma. The other two patients were doing better, at least, their bodies succumbing to healing sleep as their fevers relented. "I'm sure you'll be able to restore him to fine health."
"Don't you care?" She patted Domi's shoulder as he swiped at his nose with a clumsy hand, smacked himself in the face, and then stared with uncomprehending eyes at the blood on his knuckles.
"I care." Valens's amber eyes—the only part of him that was at all lovely and only if you ignored the coldness in them—narrowed. "I told him to run. He chose not to obey."
With a disgusted sigh, Arbita turned her back on the frigid fool and summoned promenia. It took longer than usual for the magic particles to respond; the worldholders used up much of the promenia in the area in their Trellis repairs and had not yet replenished it. Magic remained thin here around the waystation after today's work, and she found the little left largely restricted from use, sealed by long-dead Lightbearers.
At first, when she tried to pass the little promenia she managed to summon through Domi, she thought the promenia's scarcity caused the problem. There must not be enough promenia available in the area for her task. But as she squinted at the distortion around the boy, a strange ripple passed through the thin particle layer. The promenia would not cross the last inch to the boy's skin, as though repelled away from his body by a weak wind.
