Page 38 of A Touch of Royalty

Cas nodded. “He lives in a tower in the mountains and only sees his students now.” He shook his head. “He’s a bit of a recluse.”

“Did something happen to him?” Emryn took a bite of eggs and a nibble of her biscuit. “I can’t imagine he was always a recluse.”

“As long as I’ve known him.” Cas said. “When he was teaching me, I went to his tower quite a bit. It’s basically a library masquerading as a home.”

Emryn nodded, plainly thinking rather hard. “He’s certainly interesting.”

“Truly,” Cas pushed his plate away from him. “Well, shall we go?”

“Where are we going?” Emryn rose, stacking her plates together. “I should do the dishes.”

“The staff will handle the dishes, Emryn.” He reached out and took her hand. “You and I are going down to the city. I have something that I want to show you.”

25

CITY

It had been a while since she’d been on the streets of the city. Emryn was mostly a resident of the temple, and let the people come to her. It was only in extraordinary circumstances that she would leave the temple and go to the people.

The plague five years back had been one such circumstance and she would never tell anyone about standing in the middle of a night-silent street and pouring her fire out as far as it would go, sucking all the illness back to her and immolating as much of it as she could.

She’d been ill after that, but almost all the healers had fallen ill at one point or another during those hellish months. So she’d never been looked at over and above, being just another sick body in the temple.

And if an entire quarter of the city had been plague free after that one night, well that had been an intervention of the Mother, nothing that a single healer could have done.

Emryn had fallen ill three other times during those months, and each time prayers had gone up to the Mother for another quadrant of the city being freed from the sickness.

Those prayers, that praise, they belonged to the Mother. Emryn’s gifts were given by the Mother and if the last time had nearly cost Emryn her life, that would have been a small price to pay for having those lives continue on.

It had taken her a month to recover.

But she’d lived, and the plague on the city had ended.

And no one would ever know about Emryn’s actions on those nights.

Because Emryn would never tell anyone about them.

She walked the city streets, hand in hand with Cas, trying to pretend that there wasn’t a phalanx of soldiers following in their wake.

And that was when she heard the cry. Pained and frightened, and Emryn didn’t stop to think about what she was doing. Her training knew, her power knew, and she kilted up her skirts and dashed off toward the sound.

Skidding to her knees at the side of the little boy and his mother who was trying to shove the bone back through the skin, hands slipping in scarlet.

“Mistress, stop,” Emryn took the woman’s hands away. “I will heal him.”

“The cart-” the woman stammered. “He was hit by the cart.”

“Breathe,” Emryn said, turning her attention back to the little boy who was going into shock if the pallid skin and the lack of tears were any indication.

Emryn positioned her hands over the wound, letting wisps of her fire out, trying to block the view of the passersby as to what she was doing.

The bone receded, the skin healing over as Emryn guided the jagged break back together and wrapped it in her fire so that the bone would mend.

She could do nothing about the blood, could only salve the pain a little, but the injury was healed.

“Do not let him walk,” Emryn turned to the woman, who was looking at her in awe. “He is not to put weight on the leg for two days while the healing as absorbed.”

“Yes healer,” the woman reached out to pull her son into her arms. “Thank you, healer.”

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