School starts up again tomorrow, but I have a few chapters that are almost ready to go. I don't know if updating every day will be feasible, but I don't think that this story will go too long without an update. That's the benefit of keeping the chapters short.

Next chapter: Listen

The Emperor's Mage
Chapter 23: Soon

Daine was surprised to wake hours after sunrise. She would have already missed breakfast and might be late to lunch, by the look of the sun, and a look around revealed that she wasn't in her rooms. She looked around Alanna's chambers, trying to remember why she would have fallen asleep in her friend's bed, when Alanna herself walked out from the bathing room with a towel around her head.

"I thought you'd be asleep until noon," Alanna said, a little too quietly. "Are you feeling alright?"

Daine didn't feel any after-effects of a healing, but her mind felt a little muddled. She didn't remember until she heard some little bird or other trilling the beauty of his mate. She'd healed the aviary's birds, after figuring out what was wrong just before dinner, and then... "Did Arram bring me over here?" Daine stretched experimentally, but nothing seemed to be wrong. There was no reason for Alanna to look so solemn.

"Ah—indirectly." Alanna had already tossed the towel aside, leaving her wet hair to drip on a rather dressy gown. Somehow, Daine didn't have an eye for detail even with no bad news spoken. "You should..."

Daine slowly sat up, keeping the headboard right at her back. "Nothing happened at home?"

"No. Nothing in Tortall." Alanna visibly hesitated as she walked to the edge of the bed. When she spoke, the words all came out at a deliberately slow pace. "It's Arram, Daine. Last night, Ozorne charged you with freeing slaves, and he believed that Arram had hidden you away where we wouldn't fight you. Arram confessed that he has been sneaking slaves out of this place for ten years now."

"But—he-Lindhall said—" Daine's hands clenched tight in the covers. "Arram was carrying me, last night, and it weren't over this way."

"He brought you to the Goddess's temple, and had badger look after you until I could get there. I used the focus I have to find you, but I could have followed the hint Arram told us." Alanna reached out, as if to offer comfort, but her hand fell short.

It was for the best, really, because Daine didn't want anybody touching her. She wanted Cloud, and Kitten, and she wanted to wake up in her bed back in Tortall and have Alanna's kids pestering her for stories and lessons. She tried to control her emotions, but there were too many to pull in with meditation. She felt too much for any human means to control it. Animals through all the palace stopped where they were. She could feel them. Horses stopped in mid-gallop, birds dove for the ground, and even the rats paused when her magic shot out to touch everything in what felt like three times her usual range, with a strength she'd never known. They might have started feeling her grief, and going half-mad the way she was to feel so many contradicting things, if Alanna hadn't caught her hands, violet light blazing brightly enough to make the entire room glow purple.

Daine coughed at the sudden shock of it, her grief forgotten. It felt like Alanna had sunk both of them into frigidly cold water while blasting shields separating Daine's inner self from the wild magic all around it, but it worked. Daine had her emotions under control with no more of a display. It wouldn't do any good to show just how much power she had, not when she'd been weaker than a kitten just days ago. Now, her power was more like a full-grown tiger, and not the kind of thing that she wanted Ozorne knowing about.

"I'm so sorry, Daine," Alanna whispered. They both knew she wasn't talking about the spell.

"Can I... he's not dead already, or you would've said."

Alanna shook her head. "He'll be executed at sunset, sweetling, and I can't do a thing for him. It would destroy the peace talks, and we're... Arram is guilty of the crimes that Ozorne's charged. All of the other countries would be forced to negate treaties with us."

Daine swallowed. She had slipped into numbness when Alanna's water spell had passed, and so far it felt safer. "It's because you're the King's Champion, and all that you do goes right back onto Jon. It'd be like somebody came into Tortall and started enslaving people, and one of Carthak's folk said that it was okay." Her eyes watered regardless, because put that way she couldn't do a thing. Arram had known just what he was risking, helping folk get out of Carthak. He would have known that no one could save him from the consequences.

That didn't make it right.