“But—why?” I whispered. I’d thought enchanters were like mercenaries, free to serve whoever could afford their exorbitant fees.
He shrugged. “It is the price we pay for our power. All enchanters must swear an oath—it prevents us from becoming too powerful, or greedy. Magic is…addictive, you see. And over time, it can corrupt.”
I did see. I remembered how my scissors hummed to me, howgoodit felt to sew with them. They filled me with such irresistible power, my hands tingled and throbbed even after I used them.
“Can you be free?” I asked softly.
“That’s a challenging question,” Edan said. He lifted my chin and took my hand gently. “Khanujin’s been good to me. It isn’t as bad as it must sound.”
I shivered from the intimacy of his touch. My heart—my rebellious heart—began to race. “And…what if you leave him?”
Edan let go of my chin. “Then I would be trapped in my spirit form forever.”
His spirit form…
“A hawk,” I breathed.
“Clever girl,” he whispered, letting go of my hand.
“But you’re only…only a hawk at night.”
He nodded. “When I’m near my master, I can change at will. It’s useful for spying on people—during the war it was especially helpful. But as I go farther away from him, my nights are stolen from me and I must spend them in my spirit form. My magic grows weaker the longer I am away from my master, until I can no longer transform back into a man.”
A cold knot of fear twisted inside me. “How much time before…”
“Out here?” He kicked the dirt, then sat cross-legged on the ground. “Long enough for us to get back to the palace. Don’t worry about me.”
But Ididworry about him. Now I understood the fatigue written on his brow, the hiding and evasive answers.
He brought his forehead to mine. “Cheer up,” he said, his voice husky. “It isn’t so bad being a hawk. I can travel more quickly than I do in my human form, and I don’t need as much food.”
An ache rose in my throat. “Your skin is getting burned.” I’d noticed this days ago, but only now did I bring it up. “You said you didn’t feel the heat or the cold.”
“As I said, the farther I go and the longer I stay away from my master, the less attuned to magic I become.”
“You said that magic was scarce in the desert.”
“That is true. But being away from Khanujin is the real problem. My spirit form instinctively tries to fly back to him every night; narrowing the distance—even for a short while—helps. But we’ve been too far from the palace for quite some time.”
I felt a surge of compassion for Edan, and I knelt beside him. “So your oath…it is for eternity?”
He shook his head. “All enchanters become free eventually. Once we have served a thousand years, our magic leaves us, and we live out the rest of our days as mortals.”
Hope glimmered in me. “How many years have you served?”
“I’m a little more than halfway through my term.”
“Oh.” I swallowed painfully. Edan was over five hundred years old! I could hardly believe it. He didn’t look older than twenty. “Can’t you ask Emperor Khanujin to free you?”
Edan leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I used to think so,” he said finally, “but not anymore. His father promised to free me after he unified A’landi. I waited years, but he was always afraid the shansen would rise against him. When at last he resolved to fulfill his promise, he died. And his fears about the shansen came to fruition.”
“But the truce—”
“Tensions with the shansen are still high. The wedding may hold things together for a while, but Khanujin is worried the shansen will betray the truce.”
“That would be dishonorable.”
“Perhaps,” Edan allowed, “but so long as he remains a threat, Khanujin will never free me. Especially since the shansen knows that Khanujin is weak without me.”
