1
As Tariel stoodaround the large, round table, only half listening to the stillroom mistress’s lecture, she wondered if it was possible to mix up a potion that could summon thedead.
Not that she had any intention of using such a potion for evil, she thought idly as she spun a stem between her thumb and forefinger. She would not raise an army of undead to march across Fjordland and storm the capital, nor raze the lands and plunder the villages. Unlike some, Tariel’s desires were rather simple innature.
She merely wanted to know where she had comefrom.
Lady Tyrook won’t see it that way,she thought mulishly as she watched the stillroom mistress place a few slices of dried mellowroot in her mortar. The pestle made a scraping sound against the gray stone as she worked on grinding the root into a fine powder that would later be mixed with several other ingredients, then steeped in boiling water.If anyone caught me speaking to ghosts, I would be burned at the stake as awitch.
Tariel shuddered. She’d only seen a witch burning once, when she was nine years old. A village girl had been accused of bespelling a young man into falling in love with her. The charge had come from the young man’s mother, and as Sir Jerrold the Relentless, Fjordland’s Prime Witch Hunter, had been visiting, it wasn’t long before the poor girl was tied to a pyre in the middle of the village, her screams scorching the heavens as she burned for hersins.
Of course, everyone in the town knew that the girl hadn’t really been a witch. She’d merely fallen in love with the wrong man. Her beloved’s mother had wanted him to marry a rich merchant girl, and when he’d refused to bow to her wishes, she’d taken care of the problem herself. But Tariel had been too young to know that at the time. In fact, she had been far too young to witness such a horrific thing, and if not for Lady Tyrook’s wish to impress upon her what happened to girls who were not good and obedient, she would have never suffered the horrific memories that had plagued her for yearsafterward.
“And now, we add two spoonfuls of ground mellowroot into your bowl,” Mistress Ellarta instructed the class. “Oncewe’ve—”
“Don’t you mean one spoonful?” Tarielinterrupted.
The stillroom mistress paused, and all eyes turned to Tariel. She was the oldest in the room at eighteen, though far from the tallest. The girl who stood next to her was nearly a head taller despite being barelyfifteen.
“I beg your pardon?” sheasked.
“Two spoonfuls will put the patient into a deep sleep,” Tariel went on, ignoring the prickle of discomfort at having the room’s full attention. “And depending on the age, the patient might never wake up. It would be a shame if one of us accidentally killed someone due to an avoidableerror.”
Mistress Ellarta’s dark gray eyes flashed. “Since you seem to know this recipe so well, I see no reason why you should waste your precious time here with the rest of us.” She sneered and flicked a spindly hand. “You are dismissed,Tariel.”
Rage bloomed in Tariel’s heart, and it grew even stronger when Buloma and Willa, two tall blondes who had always had it in for Tariel, snickered from across the table. She wanted to lash out at them with the power bubbling in her veins, but instead she merely inclined her head, then turned and gracefully walked out of the room, keeping her steps unhurried as she had been taught to do from a youngage.
It did not matter that she was so clearly different from the others. She had to act like a proper Fjordland lady at all times, or suffer Lady Tyrook’swrath.
As she shut the door to the stillroom behind her, the magic turned in on Tariel, punishing her for refusing to release it. She gritted her teeth as a vicious headache pummeled her temples, and braced her hand against the stone wall to keep fromreeling.
These headaches had plagued Tariel since she was a small child. She knew they were directly related to her magic—whenever she suppressed a flare-up, as she was doing right now, it created an intense pressure in her head. The only solution was for her to give it an outlet, but in Fjordland, where magic was shunned and witches were persecuted, wielding magic was a deathsentence.
Taking slow breaths through her nose, Tariel managed to force back the headache into something less skull-crushing. Once it had reduced from a stabbing lightning bolt to a thundering pound, she pushed off the wall and continued down the hall toward her tower room. Hopefully the potions she kept there would offer her somerelease…
As Tariel traveled through the castle, swords clanged and drill commands barked in the distance. Her heart quickened, and, with the pain now receding a bit, she detoured by the courtyard, where the knights and squires trained. She hoped to catch a glimpse of Riann putting his swordsmanship skills to use, even though she knew she should keep away fromhim.
The clash of steel grew louder as Tariel slipped through the door. The guard just outside the entrance ignored her, and she ducked behind a tall hedge, hoping to steal a few minutes of entertainment. She so loved watching the men battle—the way their armor shone in the light as they parried and thrust, their bright gazes filled with intensity. Tariel knew she was not the only one who felt that way—the trio of ladies perched on the stone bench near the other side of the courtyard entrance were just as entranced, hiding their giggles behind gloved hands as they watched the menfight.
Riann trained with another knight toward the far end of the courtyard. His helmet obscured his face, but Tariel would have known him anywhere, even though so many of the knights looked the same. The way he moved, as if his armor were a natural extension of him rather than an extra hundred pounds of weight, was a marriage of grace and power she could never hope to master even if she practiced for a thousandyears.
Riann’s opponent slashed at him with his broadsword, an overly aggressive move, as if some tension existed between them. Riann met the man’s sword with his own, then pushed him back in an impressive show of strength. But the other knight did not give in—he charged, and their swords clashed once more. The two locked weapons for a long, fraught moment, and as Tariel watched with bated breath, Riann’s eyes met hers over his opponent’sshoulder.
That split second of broken concentration was all the other knight needed. He shoved Riann back, hard enough to make him stumble. Tariel cried out in alarm as Riann crashed into the wall, but just when she thought the other knight might best him, he spun away, avoiding what in a real fight would have been a killing blow. The other knight’s sword hit the wall, and the sound of steel screeching across stone sent shivers racing down Tariel’s spine. Hands clasped, she watched as Riann swung his sword in a wide arc, the blade headed straight for the man’s exposed side, but at the last second, the other knight evaded, then slashed at Riann’s arm. Blood sprayed through the air as the sword sliced flesh, the steel seeking purchase in Riann’s inner elbow. Cries of dismay rose up from the ladies, and Tariel instinctively bolted forward, wanting to go to his aid even though logically, she could donothing—
“You!” Zuran, the Captain of the Guard, stepped directly in front of Tariel. She held back a scowl as she looked up into his grizzled face. His jaw was covered with a short, neatly trimmed beard that somehow did not hide the way his mouth turned down in displeasure as he glared at her. “What are you doing outhere?”
“I’m watching the men train,” Tariel said, and she was proud that her voice did not tremble even though the man tried to intimidate her. “Am I notallowed?”
“Absolutely not.” His eyes narrowed. He clasped a meaty hand around her shoulder, hard enough to hurt. “You are a distraction to my men, and I won’t have you here tempting them with your wiles during their training. Begone withyou!”
Shame stung Tariel’s cheeks as the captain spun her around and shoved her back to the entrance. She could feel the eyes of the men on her, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw the women on the bench smirking at her. Part of her wanted to glance over her shoulder to meet Riann’s eyes, to seek comfort in his gaze for even a moment. But she did not want to get him in trouble, so she straightened her spine and went inside, refusing to let the others see how humiliated shewas.
With the castle’s stone walls closing about her, and her mood even darker than when she had set out, her headache tightened around her temples in a vice-like grip. Keeping her head down, Tariel hurried toward her rooms, desperate for the solace of her chambers. But on her way up a flight of stairs, she nearly ran headfirst into Marilla, Lady Tyrook’sdaughter.
“Watch where you’re going, girl!” the blonde said, looking down her perfectly straight nose at Tariel. Marilla was everything Tariel was not—tall and blonde and willowy, with perfect skin untouched by the sun. The only thing they shared was their eye color—nearly identical shades of blue, though Marilla’s did not seem nearly as bright against her paleskin.
Those eyes narrowed now as they surveyed Tariel, who wanted nothing more than to push past her. “What are you doing here?” she demanded. “Are you not supposed to be in the stillroom with the othergirls?”
