Sorry, folks. My muse got kidnapped by the Insomniac Express and then hit by the Not-Streptococcus-Pyogenes Bus. (Much of my recent attention has been forced into memorizing several thirty-item lists of bacteria, disease processes, which bacteria are generally found where, and what seaweed jell-o to use for specific bacteria. The characters were staying away from all those diseases even when I was starting to feel better.) I think the muse made a full recovery, quite likely thanks to the awesome reviewers that kept leaving reviews just in case I'd forgotten about the story. I'm going through the story again for fast edits, mostly to clean up a few details I'd written before setting the plot of the story. Nothing of the plot has changed, just a few details and references.

The Emperor's Mage
Chapter Twenty-nine: Inert

Ozorne had wasted no time in replacing his chief mage. Later, she might feel indignant or upset or angry, but Alanna's magic still kept Daine feeling drowsily calm. It all felt like a very odd sort of dream as the mage peered at the leather waterskin, muttering spells and biting his lip from nervousness. Daine did feel a dim echo of vindictive pleasure to see the mage so afraid, when he had dared to take Arram's place, but she couldn't sustain it for long. Even without the spell, she would have let that emotion go. For all she knew, that man was just as good as Arram, and just as caught in Carthak.

After several minutes, the mage returned her waterskin and she was allowed to enter the holding cell. They had fully accepted her story of a Gallan ritual for crossroads in a person's life without any further embellishments. Usually, from what Gary had told her while he showed her to the cells built against the side of an amphitheater, those condemned to die would be given a sweet Carthaki wine. They wanted to show that Arram was truly in disgrace. If Daine had known that, she might have tried to make her tincture taste something more than bitter.

When she was in the cell, meeting Arram's eyes for what might be the last time, all of her half-formed speeches disappeared. She dropped to her knees, which put her almost at his level, and even with the spell the grief almost crippled her. All she could manage was "hello."

He half-smiled, so she hadn't done too badly, even if he was pale and sweating. "I made my choice, Daine. Tell the Lioness to be sure you and Lindhall don't spend weeks on end mourning. A day will suit me very well."

Daine managed a full smile at his tone. He was trying to sound like a fussy noble, and she'd oblige him in nearly anything. She opened the waterskin, letting him get a sense of the rather pungent odor. "It's a Gallan specialty. I'm sorry for the taste, but my ma always said that if the remedies tasted too fine people would fair like taking ill."

"Thank you, Daine." He said it with so much dignity that it carried them through the slight awkwardness of a girl helping a man twice her size drink from the waterskin. He made no protest at the bitterness, and she relaxed only when he'd had all of a dose.

"It's what I can do for you," she whispered, under the pretense of getting last drops out of the waterskin. "I can't do enough, at all, but you won't feel pain now. Badger'n my da will speak for you to the Black God, and Badger's been watching you ever since folk knew I'd come here." She had to rock back, then, but the guards hadn't noticed anything amiss. "I just wish I could do more."

"Daine..." He turned toward the guards, his expression oddly flat, but he had more animation when looking at her. "Don't watch the execution," he ordered quietly. "I mean it. I don't want to think of you being hurt by it, too, and it's bad enough that Varice will insist on watching to the very end."

Daine didn't have time to think of a protest, and he didn't have for some last reason that he was struggling over. The guards were rapping on the bars, her signal to leave, and there was no easy argument to make. She nodded, instead. She would give him what comfort she could, and she could let Alanna's magic carry her through the day.