Chapter Eleven

In Agel's study, Caelan stood a moment longer after the woman left, his mind awash with her beauty. He had never seen anyone like her before. She was exotic, unusual. Slanting cheekbones, almond eyes fringed with incredibly long lashes, a voluptuous mouth, hair like darkened copper. She smelled of sandalwood and cinnabar, clean and inviting. Tall and slender, richly gowned beneath her cloak, she came from another world far from his, a forbidden world he would never enter. He felt a little stunned by her, like a man who had stood too long in the sun.

She had been quick and clever, too slippery to convince. He did not believe she was truly the empress as she had claimed. Despite Agel’s collaboration, Caelan thought she was probably an attendant, a lady highborn and very adept at deception. But she was too young to be empress; she was younger than he. Besides, for all her cleverness, she had not acted like a wife. She seemed confused whenever the emperor was mentioned. She had stammered stupid things about rules that kept her from seeing the man.

Wives were not kept from their husbands. That was nonsense.

But if she was only a lady of the court, then no matter what she had said or half promised, she could not really help him.

Hopelessness swept over Caelan. He sighed and felt weariness sink through his bones.

“Run,” the woman had advised him.

He could barely walk, and yet he knew her suggestion came from genuine concern. He had no future here. Even if the prince still lay deeply unconscious and knew nothing of Caelan’s attempt to betray him, Caelan could not return. He had taken the prince home, but that ended his service. Already he had torn the prince’s coat of arms from his sleeve and hurled it into a roadside ditch.

Where, then, did he go? Did he slip out again through the side gate of the palace, winked on his way by the sentry who had won such a fortune on him? Did he hide himself in the city, waiting for the bounty hunters to sniff him out? Did he set out along a road? Did he take passage on a ship? No sea captain would allow him aboard as a passenger, looking like he did.

Could he admit defeat and give up when he was this close to the emperor? Or should he try again?

Aching and tired, he limped to the door and eased it open a crack.

The passageway seemed clear. He stepped out, holding his breath, and headed down it. There had to be a way to reach the emperor. He would find it.

As he passed the door to the infirmary, however, it swung open and Agel stepped out.

Astonished, Caelan stopped in his tracks. “You! What are you doing here? I thought you left.”

Agel shook his head and pointed to the bulging pouch he carried over one shoulder. “I had preparations to make. And I could not leave you here in such terrible condition.”

Caelan was not ready to forgive him. Kinsmen should stand together, no matter what their private differences were. He had seen behavior in Agel today that shamed him.

“All I need is a meal,” Caelan said, knowing that what he really wanted was a soaking bath, a massage, and several hours of sleep.

Agel nodded. “Let me tend you first. It won’t take a moment, and then I will go to the prince.”

Agel walked back into the study, and Caelan followed. His mind was too blurred with fatigue for him to wonder much why Agel had delayed leaving. In a way, Caelan found himself relieved. He needed his cousin’s help. Perhaps Agel had finally calmed down enough to offer it.

“Sit there,” Agel said, pointing at the stool.

Caelan obeyed and Agel took a small vial from his pouch. He handed it to Caelan.

“Drink this,” he ordered.

Caelan sniffed it but detected nothing repulsive. “What is it?”

“Who is the healer here?” Agel said, as prickly as ever. Then he smiled. “A restorative, you idiot. Drink it, and you will feel strong enough to eat the meal I have sent for.”

Caelan swallowed the liquid in a swift gulp. It had no bitter aftertaste. Relieved, he handed over the empty vial.

“Thank you for waiting,” he said. “I got nowhere with the woman.”

“Can’t you speak of her respectfully?” Agel said with irritation. “You are fortunate to still have your tongue. She was too lenient with you.”

“Oh, come, I know she isn’t the real empress, but only a handmaid,” Caelan replied. “Enough pretense. I must have your help, if only to—”

An involuntary shudder passed through him. He broke off his sentence and passed his hand across his brow. It felt clammy.

Agel stepped closer to him, staring down at him as though from a very great height.

Alarmed, Caelan wondered why Agel was suddenly so tall and he was suddenly so very short, so very tiny, shrinking and shrinking, until he was only a speck, and then nothing at all.

When he awakened, he was lying on a braided run in the antechamber of Prince Tirhin’s personal suite of rooms. Puzzled, Caelan took a while to sort through it. He did not understand what he was doing here, or why he was lying on the floor.

When he tried to sit up, every muscle in his body protested with a level of soreness that made him groan.

At once Agel appeared in the doorway that led to the bedchamber. “So you’re finally awake,” he said coldly. “It’s about time. Get up and come in here.”

Caelan opened his mouth to ask questions, but Agel had already vanished.

Frowning, Caelan slowly sat up, finding his wits by slow degrees, then levered himself to his feet. He had slept deeply, but he still felt muddled and groggy. A glance at the small window told him night had fallen outside, but how many hours had passed? And how did he come to be back here in the prince’s house?

Memories sifted back to him in pieces. He realized he had been drugged.

Agel’s meddling angered him, but he wasn’t ready to face the implications yet.

Limping with one hand pressed to his aching side, Caelan went first to the door that led outside. It was locked, and he could not budge the latch. Grimly he turned around and walked to the bedchamber.

He paused in the doorway, looking inside.

A single lamp burned near the bed, leaving most of the room in shadow.

Within the circle of light, the prince lay beneath a blanket, asleep or unconscious Caelan did not know. His face had a waxy sheen, far too pale. Agel stood beside him, holding the prince’s wrist in his long fingers.

Disappointed and worried, Caelan drew in a sharp breath and walked on into the room.

Agel released his grip on Tirhin’s wrist and turned to face Caelan.

“Is he better?” Caelan asked.

“Not much,” Agel said bluntly. “His physical hurts are minor. Those I have dealt with. But it is his reason that concerns me.”

Caelan frowned at the man who was now his master in name only. “Yes,” he said very softly.

Agel’s gaze narrowed. “It is time that you told me exactly what happened. I can do nothing if I do not have information.”

Caelan’s frown deepened. “Why did you bring me back here to him? Why drug me? What is your intention?”

“It should be obvious,” Agel said coldly. “You are intent on self-destruction, as usual. But this time I will stop you.”

“Why?”

“Because we are kinsmen,” Agel said sharply. “What happens to you will affect me. If you betray this great man who is your master, will I not also be looked on with suspicion? Treachery is said to run in families.”

Caelan stared at him in amazement tinged with disgust. “You are thinking only of yourself.”

“I am being prudent.”

“You hypocrite—”

Agel lifted his hand. “I will not argue further with you. You are the property of his highness. If you do not stay where you belong, you will be branded a runaway. It is shameful enough to have a cousin who is a slave. Worse to have a cousin who kills for sport. But to have a cousin who attacks his master and then runs from his crime is—”

“Wait!” Caelan said in bewilderment. “What twisting of truth is this? I didn’t attack him.”

“Didn’t you?” Agel said, his gaze never wavering. “Didn’t he reprimand you, and didn’t you turn on him violently? Your temper has always been unreliable. And now you are afraid, too afraid to confess what you have done.”

Caelan was horrified. He realized immediately what the implications would be if Agel spread this lie. “You can’t do this,” he said, his voice choked. “You mustn’t.”

“Then cease this stupid insistence that the prince is a traitor,” Agel said.

Caelan stared at him, his mind whirling. He felt stunned with disgust at what his cousin was attempting to do.

“Who has set you to do this?” he asked finally. He was shaking inside, from rage and fear both. He wanted to throttle Agel, but he dared not move until he had answers. “Who?”

Agel would not meet his gaze. “Our purpose is to save this man. Tell me what you can.”

“Why should I?”

Agel looked suddenly fierce. “I have worked long and hard to secure my appointment to the imperial court. I won’t let you jeopardize that.”

“Tirhin is a traitor,” Caelan said in a hard voice. “You cannot coerce me into saying otherwise. My loyalty to him has ended. Don’t serve him, Agel. He is not worth your concern.”

“That is not for you to say!” Agel said sharply. “You are not this man’s judge.”

Anger leaped in Caelan, but he crossed his arms over his chest and said, “If his mind has gone, there is no reclaiming it.”

“I did not say his mind is gone. But he is far away, deeply severed.”

“That is justice,” Caelan said.

Agel’s eyes grew even colder. “And I have said you are not his judge! This man is a prince, and you are a slave. You are dust beneath his feet, unworthy in rank even to lick them.”

Caelan snorted. “I do not need a lecture about rank and standing. I have been taught my place at the end of a whip. But I am well born, and there is nothing in my lineage to make me ashamed. Never will I forget that.”

“If you are a slave, it is because you threw away all the advantages you were born to. You wasted everything. You deserve to be here, abased and wearing a chain of possession.”

Caelan’s fists clenched. He wanted to choked those pompous, lying words from his cousin. He wanted to hit Agel, to hurt him. He wished with all his heart to see Agel facing a Thyzarene attack, with the dragons screaming and belching fire, and the laughing riders spearing their victims. Oh, to see Agel in shackles, naked and covered with welts from a scourging, lying in filthy straw and grateful for a crust of molded bread.

All Agel knew about slavery was what he saw in Imperial most fashionable circles—the sleek, pampered house slaves, the groundskeeping workers, the champion gladiators who wore fine clothing and had servants of their own. He would never understand the debasement and degradation. He would never know the shame or the mental torment.

Agel already lived in a cage, one of his own making. His bars were prejudice and narrow thinking. How could he understand anything, much less the desperate need to be free? How could he understand honor, when he had thrown his own away? How far had the cruel elders at Rieschelhold twisted his thinking?

Caelan’s anger faded to pity. His fists uncurled, and he drew in a deep, ragged breath. Agel was not worth his hatred. Agel was not worth anything.

He turned in silence to walk out.

“You can’t go,” Agel said to his back.

Caelan kept walking.

“You can’t! I will say that you attacked the prince and injured him. I will accuse you, and you will go to the dungeons a condemned man.”

Caelan drew in a breath. He felt cold with contempt.

Turning around, he sent Agel a steely glare, but it was met by the ice of Agel’s gaze.

“You don’t want to die, do you?” Agel asked him. “You still care about your own life.”

Caelan said nothing. His jaw was clamped too tightly.

Agel took his silence for assent. “Now. You will answer my questions and give me the assistance I need.”

“If you condemn me,” Caelan said hoarsely, “will you not also condemn yourself, as my kinsman?”

“Treachery and murderous assault are two different things,” Agel said in a calm voice. “I cannot be blamed for the latter. You are well known to be a violent man, of unreliable temper and savage fighting skills. And it is also known that you expected his highness to free you for your successes in the arena. He has not done so. Are these not sufficient provocations for a man of your ilk?”

Caelan frowned, wondering how Agel could be so ruthless. “Why are you doing this?”

“I told you. It was very difficult to get this appointment. Now that I have it, I intend to keep it. How better to impress the emperor than by healing his beloved son of these injuries? Do you think I came to Imperia merely to treat wounded gladiators, favorite slaves, and imperial concubines? No, I came to treat the emperor himself, and I will not let your stupidity keep me from that.”

Understanding dawned on Caelan. “You haven’t been received yet,” he said slowly. “The emperor has not yet permitted you to examine him.”

It was Agel’s turn to stand silent and tight-lipped.

“You are here on a trial basis. You can be dismissed if you fail to please.”

Agel’s chin lifted. “Already I have been called on by the empress. That was a great step forward, at least until you broke in and interrupted the consultation.”

Caelan shook his head. “She wasn’t the empress, you fool. Her Imperial Majesty wouldn’t come to your shabby infirmary in person.”

“But she did.”

“I have been here longer than you,” Caelan said scornfully. “I know palace protocol. The empress would send for you, by messenger and escort.”

“But the guard said she was ... she herself said she was—”

Agel’s confusion made Caelan laugh. “People lie,” he said. “Especially do aristocrats lie to their servants and inferiors.”

A tide of red crept up Agel’s throat into his face.

“She was not the empress,” Caelan said emphatically. “Perhaps she came to you on her Majesty’s behalf, to observe you and your methods, to see how clean you are, to see whether you are suitable. That’s all.”

“But... but still, the empress has expressed interest,” Agel said finally, trying to rally. “It changes little. As regards you, it changes nothing.”

Caelan’s amusement died. He looked at Agel stonily.

“Now, back to the matter at hand,” Agel said, gesturing at the unconscious prince. “Does he know anything about severance? Can he return by himself? Has he had any training?”

“No.”

“Of course. Severance is not practiced here.” Agel compressed his lips and stared at Caelan very hard. “You were on the Forbidden Mountain. You encountered wind spirits—”

“No, shyrieas.”

Agel waited, but when Caelan said nothing further he walked to the far side of the room and motioned for Caelan to follow him. “Am I to wrest every word from you like drawing teeth?” he asked angrily. “Must I threaten you again to elicit your cooperation?”

“No, I think you have threatened me sufficiently,” Caelan said.

“Then answer my questions, that I may do my work.”

It occurred to Caelan that if he was to accuse the prince with any hope of being believed, then Tirhin should be conscious. It was possible that Tirhin might confess or reveal his guilt in some way if questioned. Unconscious and half-dead, he would have the benefit of his father’s sympathy, and only Agel’s lies would be believed.

Sighing, Caelan nodded. “Very well.”

He went back to Tirhin’s bedside with Agel and stood there looking down at the man he had once respected.

“You know what shyrieas are,” Caelan said before Agel could prompt him. “Demons of this land. I cannot describe their appearance. They—they feed on a man’s thoughts, his fears. All that is dark inside you draws them like honey. All your sins, all your evil intentions are food for them. They come at you half seen, like wind spirits. They scream until you go mad, and then they are upon you ... in you.”

His voice grew ragged, and he fell quiet. His memories were unwelcome, bringing back the horror of that attack. They had fed on him as well, and he still felt shaken and not quite whole. He wondered if he ever would. Worse, he kept thinking back to the night he had been attacked by the wind spirits at E’nonhold. Old Farns had tried to save him, and had died for the effort. The memory of the old man’s dear face, so drawn and still on the pillow, came back vividly. Prince Tirhin’s face had a similar look. Caelan could feel himself knotting even tighter inside. The prince was not likely to recover. And if he did not, Caelan’s warning would never be heard.

He needed Tirhin on his feet and sane, to betray guilt when questioned so that the council would believe Caelan’s accusations.

“If the demons have indeed taken his reason,” Agel said in his somber way, “then I cannot restore it.”

Caelan drew in a sharp breath but did not speak.

“If he is simply hiding deep within himself from shock, then he has a chance to eventual recovery,” Agel said. “But it will be slow and difficult.”

Caelan looked at him. “Can you determine which it is?”

“I will try.”

Agel leaned over Tirhin and placed his palms on the prince’s face. Uttering the severance mantra under his breath, Agel closed his eyes. After a moment his own expression grew still, then went slack. He began to sway rhythmically at first, then more jerkily, then convulsively as though he were trying to hurl himself back but could not break the contact.

His mouth opened, and he made wordless, gasping sounds.

Alarmed, Caelan reached out, then stopped himself at the last moment from touching his cousin. Even without actual physical contact, sevaisin was stirring in him. He could feel a force of evil reaching forth, something that sent chills racing through him. The evil was centered in Tirhin’s body, but now it was twisting and entwining through Agel as though the healer’s touch had brought it forth. As Caelan stood beside his cousin, he sensed this evil wanted him too.

Repulsion filled him, but Caelan had no time to delay if he was to destroy this thing.

Sweat was pouring off Agel. Still standing there with his eyes closed and his mouth screaming silently, he went on twisting from side to side, unable to break free.

Pressing his fingertips together, Caelan closed his own eyes and plunged deep into severance. At once its icy walls closed around him, buffering him from the black, writhing, indescribable thing that coiled and twisted around Tirhin and Agel. It turned its wedge-shaped head and opened its mouth to display dripping fangs. Hissing, it struck at Caelan, but severance shielded him. He forced himself to look on this evil, to look into it. He saw its threads of life and where they stretched back to the source that governed it.

Caelan severed the threads. The creature screamed with a shriek so piercing it brought Caelan pain. Both Tirhin and Agel screamed too.

In that one brief second of contact, Caelan felt a flood of black hatred and viciousness flow over him. He felt one touch from what lay beyond the creature, and it was clammy and rotted and utterly horrifying.

Then he was free, and the link was broken. The creature faded from black to gray, then to nothing at all. It was gone, as though it had never existed.

Breathing hard, Caelan released himself from severance and stood blinking and shivering in a room that was suddenly too cold for comfort. Even now he could still feel a lingering foulness that made him shudder. But whatever had been planted inside Tirhin was gone.

Leaning over, Caelan rubbed his eyes with the backs of his hands and gulped in more air. He felt spent and winded, as though he’d run miles.

Then he pulled himself together and straightened. Almost afraid to know, he turned to the others. Tirhin looked gray-faced and dead. Agel lay slumped over him.

Anxiously Caelan pulled his cousin upright and gripped him by both arms to shake him.

Agel flopped in his grasp, semiconscious, knees buckling.

Caelan sank with him to the floor. “Agel! Agel, wake up!” he said urgently. “Come on. Wake up. You must wake up.”

Agel moaned and opened his eyes. His face was still beaded with sweat. He looked as though he had been dragged through a place no man should ever have to enter.

Caelan patted his cheek, still talking to him, urging him.

Finally Agel grabbed his hand and pulled it down. He blinked in an effort to focus, and scowled at Caelan. “I am awake,” he said acidly. “Stop trying to revive me.”

Relief swept Caelan. He grinned and almost laughed as he helped Agel sit up. “Thank Gault,” he said. “I thought you were lost to us.”

Agel leaned over again, bracing his hands on the floor as though he was going to be sick. But he was not. After a moment, he pushed himself to his feet and stood swaying unsteadily.

His eyes met Caelan’s and held them. “What, in the name of all purity, have you brought here with you?” he asked.

Caelan sobered instantly. “I don’t know. It’s gone.”

Agel closed his eyes a moment, then opened them to glare at Caelan. “How do you know?”

“I sent it away.”

“You have authority over it?”

Caelan heard accusation in his voice. He could see fear in Agel’s eyes, along with a dawning look of horror.

“You can make it come, and go, at your bidding?” the healer asked, his voice rising. “What are you?”

“You misunderstand!” Caelan said sharply. “I do not govern it. Murdeth and Fury, why must you always leap to the wrong conclusions? Anyone else would be relieved that I was able to destroy it.”

“Only evil can destroy evil,” Agel said, his eyes still wide with shock. “Only evil knows the secrets within itself.”

“All I did was sever it from its source,” Caelan said impatiently.

Agel flinched away from him, bumping into Tirhin’s bed as he did so. “Severance cannot be used that way. It is not possible.”

“Of course it is. Beva taught me—”

“Don’t even mention your father’s name in connection with this! It’s unspeakable.”

“Shut up,” Caelan snapped, trying to stem Agel’s hysteria. “You are still using a mantra to sever, like a novice.”

Agel was tight-lipped. “Not everyone is as talented as you.”

“To sever is to take away. You see the source of disease, and you simply cut the link. You see the threads of life, and you simply cut them. You see the source of a demon or whatever in Gault’s name that thing was, and you—”

“What simplistic nonsense is this?” Agel said angrily. “You—”

“Simplistic?” Caelan retorted. “Is not all truth simplicity? That’s how you recognize it. Are you angry because I saved your life, or are you angry because I can do what you cannot?”

“You are evil. I felt you join with it.”

“I didn’t—” Caelan cut off the denial. He could not explain the difference. “Sevaisin exists everywhere. It calls constantly. Sometimes it is difficult not to use it.”

“Exactly why it is forbidden.”

“It is not forbidden here. No one condemns the joining.”

“No one has ever considered Imperia the center of purity or balance either,” Agel replied. “Hedonistic, all-embracing, indulgent of every vice—”

“Why don’t you calm down?” Caelan interrupted. “It was a trap, a bad one, but you survived it. What about the prince?”

Agel glared at him, then turned resentfully to examine Tirhin.

“He is alive,” Agel said at last. “Weaker than before. The rest... I do not know. I am not fit enough to work as I should.”

“You should sit down,” Caelan said. “Let me bring you a cup of water.”

“A cup of poison, more likely,” Agel snapped.

Caelan had been about to offer him a steadying hand, but now he stepped back. He was hurt and furious by Agel’s attitude. Agel was badly frightened, clinging to blind prejudice and superstition rather than reason. Caelan tried to keep his own temper, tried to be compassionate, but he was losing patience rapidly.

“If you were well, I would hit you for your insult.”

Agel made a gesture of repudiation. “Spoken like a true believer in peace and harmony.”

“Damn you, Agel!”

“You are casna,” Agel retorted. “You must be.”

“Don’t say that! I am not a devil. I am not of the darkness.”

“Then what are you?” Agel shouted back. His detachment and trained calm had deserted him. With his hair matted with sweat and his eyes wide and fearful, he looked like a boy in over his head instead of a master healer with a prestigious appointment to the imperial court. “You cannot be my uncle’s son. You are no kinsman of mine. Not with the things you do, with the knowledge you have. I’ve heard the stories,” he went on before Caelan could interrupt. “I heard about warding keys. Even Papa used to say that Uncle Beva was mad to take on a son like you. He never should have struck that bargain with the Choven.”

“What do you mean?” Caelan said, desperately trying to follow Agel’s angry spate of words. “What are you saying? What bargain with the Choven?”

“Pretend all you like. But I know, Caelan. You are not... the elders were right to drive you from school. In their wisdom, they saw the makings of evil.”

“I just saved your life, you fool,” Caelan said furiously.

“And what will you demand for it?”

Rage and intense hurt battled inside Caelan. He could not believe Agel was saying such things. What had turned his cousin into this petty, fearful, small-minded man?

“I loved you like a brother,” Caelan said softly. “I came to you for help and your sage council. Instead, you have insulted and slandered me. Now, after I just saved your life, it is not thanks you give me but harshness. Why, Agel? Is it only jealousy that has made you so small?”

Agel’s face turned white. He glared at Caelan, his jaw tight, his lips thin. “Always you are the injured one, the innocent one,” he said in a harsh voice. “But why did the evil lurking in the prince’s body not touch you? You carried him for hours, or so you claim. Yet it did not strike at you.”

Caelan’s mouth dropped open. “I did not seek to heal him. That must be what triggered the trap and unleashed it.”

“Yes, and who suggested that I examine him?”

“I didn’t want him treated!” Caelan said in disbelief. “You insisted. You want my master to be grateful to you.”

“Master?” Agel snorted. “You do not know the meaning of the word. Rebellion is your name. Yes! Rebellion and disorder.”

There was no getting through Agel’s fear. It shielded him from reason and logic. It closed out all truth. He had no intention of listening to anything Caelan said.

Yet still Caelan tried. “If I had known a demon lingered inside the prince, I would have warned you.”

“Not if you wanted to entrap me and turn me to your darkness.”

“I—” Caelan threw up his hands. “What is the use?”

Agel stared at him, eyes glittering with condemnation. “This all begins to make sense.”

“Finally!”

“There has been no treason. You lured the prince out into danger. You did this to him.”

Caelan blinked in disbelief. “What are you saying? Why should I?”

“Casual Devil! You are aptly named. You—”

“Are you blaming me for the attack of shyrieas?” Caelan shook his head. “Why not claim next that I commanded them?”

“Do you?”

“No.”

Agel nodded, but his expression did not change. “No, you do not command them. No, you do not run with them. Yet you emerged from their attack unscathed.”

“Hardly—”

“You were not hurt by the wind spirits either.”

“Yes, I was.”

“You survived,” Agel said, his voice cutting and hard.

“Would you rather I died?” Caelan retorted bitterly. “Am I to be condemned for living?”

“There is something about you that is unlike other men,” Agel said. “Something inside you that makes you different.”

Caelan wanted to laugh. “And therefore I am evil?”

“The elders of Rieschelhold thought you were.”

“They were secret followers of the Vindicant sect,” Caelan said. “Or something worse.”

Agel took a quick step toward him. “Don’t you dare slander them!”

Now Caelan did laugh, throwing back his head to crow with derision. “How long have you been in Imperia, cousin?”

Agel blinked at the sudden change of subject. “Two months.”

“Oh, only two months? Then you’ve scarcely had time to learn your way around the city.”

“What has this to do with—”

“And when did you graduate from the school? A year past? Two?”

“Five months past.”

“Five months,” Caelan said with false heartiness. “Imagine. You have been in training all this time—”

“I spent extra time there,” Agel broke in defensively. “Since I was denied my apprenticeship with Uncle Beva—”

“And now you are newly arrived in Imperia, a wise man, a trained man, a man used to the ways of the world.”

Agel was growing wary now. He watched Caelan and said nothing.

“Therefore, with all your tremendous travel and experience, the wide range of your encounters, the expansion of your innate wisdom, you are able to make judgments about all manner of things, whether you know aught of them or not.”

Agel drew himself erect and tucked his hands inside his sleeves. “I have severance to guide me.”

“And harmony?” Caelan asked.

Agel nodded. “Yes, the ways of harmony.”

“And balance?”

“Yes.”

“No!” Caelan shouted. “You lie! You denounce sevaisin, and without it there is no balance. You live in a onesided world, cousin. You see through one eye. You understand so very little, and as long as you live in fear, denouncing everything that is strange to you, you will understand less and less.”

The prince shifted his head and moaned.

At once Agel turned to him, but instead of touching the prince with a reassuring hand, Agel eyed him a moment, then backed away.

Caelan hurried to the other side of the prince’s bed. “He is coming around. He is better. Help him!”

Agel backed even farther and shook his head.

Annoyance swelled inside Caelan. “You fool. He won’t hurt you. The evil is gone from him.”

“You are the wise one,” Agel said in a tight, spiteful voice. “You are the one who can sever without using a mantra. Why don’t you heal him? Just reach in and sever him from his illness.”

“Please,” Caelan said.

The prince moaned again, and Caelan gripped the man’s hand tightly to offer comfort. It was an action done without thinking, and Caelan realized that even if he had lost respect for Tirhin he had not yet lost his compassion.

“Agel, help him.”

“You have the gifts. You have the goodness. I am only a second-rate healer from a school of evil blasphemers.” Agel shrugged. “What can I do?”

“This is unnecessary,” Caelan said, his frustration rising. “You were the one who insisted on coming here to attend the man. Why don’t you help him now?”

“I have done all I can.”

“No, you haven’t!”

“And I say I have.” As he spoke, Agel looked past Caelan at the doorway. An unreadable expression flickered in his face; then he smiled very slightly at Caelan. “What his highness needs now is rest... and perhaps some water. There is a ewer in the other room. Fetch it, please.”

Puzzled by his sudden switch of mood, Caelan turned and walked into the antechamber. There was a ewer on a stand, but it was empty. Even as Caelan picked it up, Agel slammed and bolted the door behind him.

Whirling, Caelan realized he had been neatly trapped. He hurled the ewer at the door, where it clanged loudly.

He tried both doors, pushing against them with all his strength, but they remained firmly bolted. Swearing to himself, Caelan paced rapidly back and forth.

The window was too small for him to climb through. He went back to the door that led to Tirhin’s chamber and pounded on it with his fist.

“Agel!” he shouted. “Agel!”

But his cousin did not respond.