Next chapter: "Jealous." I can't predict the speed that this story will be updated, but I do have all of it planned out. Some chapters just take longer than others. I still feel that this chapter doesn't exactly fit with the others, but I wanted to move forward in time to get to the fun parts.

Egyptian plovers (called Carthaki plovers for the story) are really cool birds, and all facts mentioned about them are at least reported to be true. The most famous story (perching in crocodile mouths to clean teeth) has never been officially authenticated, but a few ornithologists say it happened, and it's just too cool to leave out of a later chapter.

The Emperor's Mage
Chapter Seven: Work

For Lindhall's sake, Daine had made a good effort to stay professional and distant in all of her dealings with Arram Draper. With every single afternoon in the emperor's wonderful aviary, that was increasingly difficult.

Alanna was much more sympathetic than her teacher would be, but there was no time to talk about the difference between Ozorne's glittering mage and the charming, slightly awkward man in plain linen that ordered in platters of snacks before Daine even realized she was starving. Alanna was the most famous member of the peace delegation, and scores of Carthaki nobles would come sit in on the talks for a day just to catch a glimpse of her. Most of the chatter had centered on Alanna's red hair and small size until she took out her frustrations about the slow pace by working her way through every single fighter on the practice yard. After that, Alanna had lost most of her mornings to teaching swordplay to dozens of admirers, when not roundly defeating the men who still believed that a woman could not possibly prevail in a fight.

Daine had been invited in for the last twenty minutes of Alanna's mirror-talk with George just the night before, and as promised Kitten and Cloud had been with him. Cloud had looked decidedly unhappy, and Kitten had immediately started scolding Daine for not being there, but she had expected that. It still left Daine feeling better to know that both of them were well. She trusted George completely, but it wasn't easy to mind a young dragon and a sulking pony.

Lindhall was also pulled into the peace talks nearly every day, straight from the end of breakfast until it was time to change for the formal suppers, as the only Tortallan to fully understand the Carthaki court and its politics. He didn't even sit by her at dinners the way that someone had assigned the seats. Daine was hardly lonely with Varice next to her, but she knew that Lindhall worried. It was for the best that Arram had been moved back to the highest table, to the emperor's right. Daine liked Arram well enough, but Lindhall was already having kittens that Daine spent every single one of her afternoons in the aviary with Arram Draper as the only two-legger in sight.

By the time the suppers were over, Daine usually stumbled to her bed and went immediately to sleep. It was hard work to listen to so many birds clamoring for her attention and for healing when she was spending enough time nursing the sicker ones back into health with healing tonics and careful grooming. With Arram watching, she made sure to spend a bit of time crushing together dried herbs and grinding the oil from succulent leaves, but there was really no great herbal remedy that could heal any ailment. She had discovered months ago that she could heal the worst of diseases with nothing but clean water that she slowly fed into animals, but it worked even better if she took longer making her false tonics. She grew the plants herself, after Maude's advice, and harvested and dried the herbs by her own hand. The thick-leafed, waxy succulents lived in her room near a windowsill where she could check on them frequently, and never seemed to fall into ill health from frequent harvestings.

It made no sense to Duke Baird, but Daine could heal nearly any animal if she spent enough time in its company, and using poultices and dips and even plain salves made the effect all that much stronger. Some of the animal healers had better stitching or stronger salves, but wounds that Daine mended always healed the fastest. Her slowest healing- making healing potions from pure water and a few harmless herbs- was slowly working for the birds. She had set out wide, shallow dishes with perches placed along the edges and coaxed all of the mildly ill birds to drink every day. She kept the water fresh, and used smaller, more concentrated tonics for the sickest of the animals.

She had been at it for a week before Arram politely mentioned that there was a more direct way to heal. She'd played innocent, just like Alanna and Lindhall would have wanted, with a protective hand on the healer's kit she carried about everywhere, and he hadn't paid the act the slightest bit of mind.

Arram said that she could heal with wild magic. He said that she could sew together wounds and burn out poison, with nothing more than her mind and her concentration. He said that he could tell her how to focus on just one voice at a time in the crowd of yelling birds, and that it was even possible for her to command any of the People- within reason, that was. Somehow he knew that the rats were contrary and the chickens good for nothing but panic and clucking about eggs. It seemed he knew everything that she had ever wanted to know, and everything that she had never thought to ask.

Lindhall had worried about the way that Arram wore wealth as if it were linen, or the looks that drew attention even in Tortall's capital. He had been worried about the famous charm, the debonair manners, and the vast amount of time Daine would be spending with him.

Lindhall should have worried about Arram's grasp of wild magic. If Daine trusted Arram a little, just enough to go down to the stables with him to have a look at a horse with an injury he swore she should be able to treat in just one afternoon, she might finally be able to use the power that spiraled around her in invisible patterns and that even people were beginning to sense. Arram promised her more in casual, confident assurances than Lindhall had ever been able to hope.

It took nine days for Daine to make her decision, and the only warning she left was a note in her suite of rooms. The slaves only came in to freshen the sheets in the morning (as if anybody needed new sheets each day) and to be sure that dust wasn't gathering in the corners. Daine stopped in her room after lunch. She had intentionally forgotten her gown that morning. Usually, she'd drop a gown off at the nobles' baths on her way to breakfast and leave the aviary thirty minutes before dinner for a nice soak in a hot bath, but she had made a show of barely making it to breakfast on time. Nobody thought it the slightest bit odd that she stopped in her room after lunch with Varice, and if all went well nobody would know she had left a note on her bed with an arrow lying across it.

I went to the stables with Arram. Someone mentioned the archery practice courts yesterday, and when I said to Arram that I'd never gone this long without stringing my bow, he promised to show me those first. I'll have a whole lot of horses, my bow, and a very protective Carthaki plover tailing me. Ragi's eggchicks just hatched two days ago, and plovers do hardly anything after the chicks hatched. Did you know they can run as soon as they pop out of the egg?

I'm fine. I didn't want you to get worried if you went by the aviary and I wasn't there. Go back to the peace talks and finish up so we can go home.

-Daine