A Fistful of Fire: Chronicles of Marsdenfel #1

Year 250 of the Bynding (I)

Year 250 of the Bynding

The Kingdom of Salles

Spring, at the Elven New Year

Once you have been affected by magic, any children born to you can inherit that effect. This is true for effects both good and bad.

Curse magic is terrible, needing only vaguely defined victims to harm. If curse magic worked like the rest of magic, that harm, too, would be inheritable.

Fortunately, but for the ninth day after their birth, children are immune to curses.

—Endellion

· · · • • • · · ·

I often find new clothing, now, draped over my stool when I return to my room for the night. Usually it’s something practical, like a chemise or an apron; occasionally it’s a blouse or skirt. Once I found a set of trousers. Aidan said I’d find them easier to run in than a skirt. Somehow, I doubt many others would appreciate the joke.

Sometimes, the gift is a simply elegant gown worthy of a rich noblewoman; another jest I’m sure others wouldn’t like. He never speaks of these, but I know they’re from him. I can smell his mild cologne in the fabric. They’re always modestly cut, of human style, but I don’t wear them or let myself think too much about what he means by them.

I’ll be dead soon enough. As spring turns to summer, Prince Aidan will bring his wife home from Grehafen.

Carling will kill me, preferably before she tosses me to our brother’s mercy, but she has too much self-control to make me think she’d settle for that. Maybe she’ll coax Aidan into abusing me, instead, since we’ve grown up together. She’d find that amusing. A few months, that’s all I have left.

I can do nothing. Faed Nirmoh was right—fleeing would invoke greater harm than I’ve already brought to Salles.

I’m beyond sick of others dying because of me; I’m weary to the point of numbness. I’m not sure that’s a good thing. From the frowns I’ve received from Faed Nirmoh the few times I’ve seen him in the past few months, I think he’d agree with that assessment.

Not having a say in anything comes with being a lowly maidservant. I am controlled by those with power, with influence—not with spells, perhaps, but through the power of my masters’ arms.

Aidan has made this truth most obvious. He doesn’t hurt me, true, but he can force me to obey him. He dragged me somewhere I didn’t want to go and had me change garments in his presence. He could’ve watched, had he wanted.

Even the many gardens about the castle can no longer soothe me. I work the sewing, as I have for years, preparing for the wedding.

Sometimes William sits nearby with his whittling, but more often Aidan watches me as he does now. I don’t know why. He doesn’t speak to me in here. He only watches my work.

He seems disappointed as he watches me embroider he and his betrothed’s names into a bedsheet. Why? Did he expect me to be a lovesick fool and hide my own there, too?

Even if he does somehow bear the hope that Carling will die young, leaving him to marry a woman of his own choosing, he will not always wait. When he grows decrepit and dies, the she-mage will be merely graying. If Carling lets him live that long.

And by the time Aidan has reached the natural end of his life, I’ll have been long dead, myself.

In finishing the bedsheet, I slip and prick my finger. Immediately the prince takes my hand and presses the hurt finger, stopping any bleeding. He suppresses a quiver at my now-normal chill.