“Come here,” the Domina said after they had heard the thunk of the latch falling into place on the other side of the door. Sophie moved closer, trying not to reveal her caution. The Domina waved at the door, and a ward shimmered into life over it. Keeping them in or shielding them from listening ears? A shiver ran down her spine. The Domina could do anything she wanted, really. The queen-to-be was too ill to stop her, and Sophie had nowhere near enough control of her powers yet.
The Domina bent over the queen-to-be. “I need to remove the bandages on your arm. See how the burn is healing.”
Eloisa winced a little but nodded. Sophie held her breath. Burns were hard to treat. She’d assisted her mother tending to women on the estate who’d burned themselves with hearth fires or kitchen accidents. The pain of the injuries had been hard to watch. Her mother had tended to err on the side of dosing them liberally with the strongest pain tonics they could brew, which could be a risky strategy.
The other complication with burns was that the wounds grew infected easily. Even if infection was escaped, there was inevitably scarring. There were liniments and salves that could prevent the worst of it, but Sophie had never seen anyone walk away from a serious burn fully recovered. Would Eloisa carry the scars of the attack her whole life?
Before she could worry too much, the Domina told her to fetch a basin and bandages from the table on the far side of the room, which was littered with bottles of tonics and potions, small jars of powders, and piles of dressings. Sophie watched, trying not to wince as the Domina eased the bandage free from Eloisa’s arm. The burn revealed was raw-looking but not as bad as Sophie had expected. She leaned a little closer, watching carefully as the Domina gently cleaned the damaged skin. If Sophie hadn’t known better, she would have guessed the wound had been healing for several weeks.
“Has the pain improved?” the Domina asked.
Eloisa glanced at Sophie. “Yes. It’s far less today.” She looked back at the Domina. “Is this because of what we discussed earlier?”
Sophie kept her eyes fixed on the basin she held. Had they been talking about her? About what the Domina had done—not that Sophie was entirely clear what that might have been. The Domina dropped the cotton she had been using back into the basin.
“I think so. But it warrants another experiment.”
Sophie’s stomach curled uneasily. She didn’t like the sound of that. Or of the speculative expression on the Domina’s face when she risked looking up.
“Return the basin and then come back here,” the Domina ordered.
Her heartbeat doubled as she made the journey to the table and back. She couldn’t walk slowly, couldn’t appear reluctant, though her nerves shrieked at her to do exactly that. She had to trust the queen-to-be. Sophie was sworn to serve her. She would honor her vow. She was too aware of her chest rising and falling fast against the restrictive dress and corset as she returned to the Domina’s side.
“Give me your hand.”
It was worse the second time. The searing surge of power came faster and stronger, setting her nerves alight with the feeling of fire. There was no hesitation in the Domina’s demand on her power or her connection to the earth magic or whatever it was she was using. She just dragged the power up through Sophie like she was calling a lightning bolt up from the earth beneath Sophie’s feet. Sophie fought to breathe, to remember who she was. To remember why she was trying to stand there and take this. The pain ricocheted and echoed, seeming to double with each hard-won breath, until she dissolved into nothing but the pain and light, a flare of hard, gold sensation that licked at her and bit until, once again, she lost the fight.
This time when she woke, it was to the sound of voices. The Domina’s and Eloisa’s. Somehow, through the memory of pain and the exhaustion that made her want nothing more than to surrender back to the darkness, she managed to tell herself to stay very still.
If you are awake, they’ll stop talking, a voice from somewhere deep in her mind said. You’ll learn nothing. Do not move.
It seemed as sensible a plan as any other. She lay quietly, keeping her breaths slow and shallow, drawing on the skills she’d used to fool her little brothers when they’d wanted to wake her up early. Her mother had forbidden them from waking her if she was sleeping, so the ability to feign sleep came in useful on the mornings when she couldn’t face a near-dawn excursion to chase frogs or whatever crazed plan occupied their boyish brains for the day. She let her brain focus on the voices above her.
“—have an explanation for this?” Eloisa said. Her voice was clear. Strong. As it had always sounded. Was she healed? Sophie almost lifted her head but stopped herself.
“I have a theory,” the Domina said. “But not an explanation. I would have to search the archives to see if there are precedents.”
“That sounds time-consuming. Tell me your theory for now. We’ll start from there.”
“I think it’s because she’s unbound.” The voice was blunt. “Normally, the binding locks a certain portion of power to the goddess. For the temple to call upon. But she—” There was a pause, and Sophie tried to look as asleep as possible, wondering if the Domina was looking at her. And if she was ever going to call her something other than “she” in a tone of disgust.
“She is unbound. So there is no limit to the power I can access through her.”
“Wouldn’t it be limited by her power?”
“She seems to be strong. But using her as a channel is different from drawing on her power directly. That takes blood or . . .” She trailed off.
“Water magic,” Eloisa said.
Sophie clenched her teeth, determined not to react. No one ever mentioned the fourth art in public. It was forbidden here. Water magic was the magic of the Illvyan mages and their demon sanctii. Dangerous. Uncontrollable. Wild. Anathema to the goddess, by the law of the temple and the land.
“Exactly,” agreed the Domina, as if they were discussing nothing more important than the weather. “Though she is so open, there is no need to try a different approach.”