She blinked away tears, but a few escaped, dripping silently and stealthily from her eyes toward the pillow. She squeezed her eyes shut and hugged Luha tighter, pressing her face into her brown tresses and breathing deep.

The crash of the dungeon doors jolted Aven awake. “Oh, good,” he muttered. “I was just starting to get comfortable.”

Two soldiers entered, apparently unamused as they unshackled him. They hauled him out again, up stair after stair, past torch after torch after lantern.

When the night air hit him, he gasped for breath, filling his lungs with the fresh, cold air. He may have been imagining it—was he increasingly delirious?—but he felt as though he could feel the starlight tingling on his skin.

They headed back toward the smithy. Inside, the tall one waited, wearing the driest and cruelest expression Aven had ever seen. There was the brand in the coals.

Again?

What could this mean?

“We must complete the process,” he muttered to Aven, but the comment was awkward. Forced. A lie? Why did he trouble to address Aven at all when he hadn’t the first time?

They lashed him down again. He swallowed and gritted his teeth. It had been one thing to reach out to Casel before, but he was fast losing energy. Could he do it again? Had it even helped anything? Shackled all the time, he had no way of testing his enslavement.

He gasped as he suddenly realized—all these mages, and he had yet to see another pair of visible shackles. If he were a slave, they’d have no reason to keep him chained.

Perhaps it required two treatments, or perhaps there was a phase before the binding really set in. Perhaps there was a whole series of tortures before the process would be complete.

Or perhaps he had done it.

Had he stopped the process? Was that why he was here on this table again? And if he had kept them from enslaving him… was it possible he could free Miara, too?

Before he could think it completely through or allow hope to take root, the brand slid rapidly from the coals and into his unwounded shoulder. The pain sliced through his consciousness so quickly, he couldn’t breathe for a moment. This time he hadn’t had a chance to reach out to the star first. The hungry maggots of energy bored into his skin faster and harder, wriggling wildly, like a thousand screams straight into his veins, and he could hardly keep his thoughts.

Against his own will, he let out a scream.

The physical pain was nothing compared to the magic of the brand. That agony was overwhelming—but it also pushed him forward. He did not need to think, he did not need to try—his instincts reached on their own, groping for salvation. Something in him knew what to do now, found the star, and held tight. He pulled the icy energy with all his might, no prayers, no wishes—just hungry desperation.

Like a sudden river of ice in his veins, he felt her energy spread through him, flying, racing, rooting out the dark magic, turning his body frigid.

At his shoulder, the fire met the ice. The brand was still there, the heat still seared his skin in agonizing intensity. But there it stopped, like two winds blowing directly against each other, each one holding the other back. It was as if the energy of the star wanted to flow beyond him into the brand itself. It didn’t want to stop with Aven. Something about the heat wouldn’t let it continue.

Finally, the man ceased. He said the same words again, but his voice was strained.

It’s not working. They can’t enslave me even if they know I am a mage. It mustn’t be working!

The surge of energy and triumph he felt at that idea quickly dissipated as the soldiers untied him and brought him upright. Yellow splotches whirled before his eyes. He lurched against one of the nearest ones and wished he could say it was part of some clever ruse toward an escape.

They dragged him back past the torches and lanterns, past the over-hot furnace, back into the dungeon cell. As exhausted as he was, his hope hung on what they would do when they entered.

Again, a guard shackled him to the wall. They locked the door behind them.

Aven had never felt so happy to be chained to something. Well, except perhaps to be chained to Miara’s bed. Exhausted as he was, he found himself grinning in the darkness.

Was it possible? Was it true? Did he dare believe? And if he’d protected himself… was there a chance Miara was really free, too? Or that there might be some way to free her if he got a chance to try again?

He sat, thinking, eyes alive and watching the coals in the furnace dance. Perhaps he was not such a failure after all. He had to figure out a way to know for sure.

15

Boundaries

Miara jolted awake. Nothing had startled her, as much as she’d suddenly realized how much light filled the room. The sun was well risen. She hadn’t woken up this late since she was a child.

She automatically reached for Luha beside her, but she was gone and the bed cold. It was well beyond the morning bell.

How could she have slept so late? The compulsion had greeted her each morning for over two decades now, and the Mistress’s release from work had never changed anything before. Perhaps it had been only habit all along. Or perhaps she was just so exhausted. She’d probably woken ever so slightly and fallen asleep again without remembering it.

She stood and cracked open the window farther to get a look at the day. It was even later than she’d thought because the sky was dreary and overcast, nearly as dim as the dawn hours, but too many people were out and about. Judging by that, it must be midday at least.

She stood at the window a long time. Where was there to go? What needed to be done? Nothing. She watched the people walking about and felt the air freeze her skin at each whip of the wind, which only made her think of him and bathing in the river not so long ago.

A bath. And not an icy one. Perhaps that was something worth doing. Aven would urge her to if he were here. Or even join her. She gathered her things and headed for the bathhouse.

Of all the journeys she’d gone on, she never ceased to be grateful to return to these ivory marble halls. The squat building was not far, but the cold, whipping wind chilled her even more deeply in the few moments she was outside. The darkest winter days would be on them soon. But what did it matter? What did any season matter?

What were they doing to Aven?

The thought nagged at the base of her skull. There was no way to know. She shook her head at herself as she reached the baths. Inside, she headed to the right—the women’s side—where fresh bathing robes and drying robes hung from hooks near the entryway, places to leave your clothing for laundering, places to wash in small sinks. But the main attraction was through the last set of doors.