Page 67 of A Touch of Royalty

“Then the premise is the same,” Asan said. “They are your fire, will them back to the well inside you.”

“I can try.” Emryn closed her eyes, moving to kneel on the floor and lay her hands on her knees.

She didn’t turn inward, these weren’t the needs of her body but a physical structure that she was supposed to somehow make vanish. But were they truly physical? When she’d torn them out as a child, they had always vanished in her hands into starlight in her hands.

So perhaps, despite being heavy, they were truly just manifestations of her power. And if that was true, she could do precisely what Asan had said.

She reached down into the place where the wings sat on her back, and looked at the connection. There was a thread there, just as there was in Cas, and it was past simple to disconnect the thread.

Or it should have been. The thread was an artery and in order to disconnect an artery and not allow the patient to bleed to death, a healer first had to shut the flow down.

She blocked it, stepping into the flow and directing it back to where it was coming from. Blocking the fire from flowing into the wings.

Severing the connection was simple after that.

And she felt her body lighten.

Emryn opened her eyes in time to see the last wisps of starlight float past her head.

44

LEAVE

Cas watched the wings thin and vanish into starlight and held in the cheer. She’d managed to figure it out, which didn’t truly surprise him, but it seemed as though Asan was a little startled.

“She’s brilliant,” Cas said as Emryn opened her eyes, watching her track the last wisps of light.

“Truly,” Asan said, still with that surprise in his eyes. “I should not have doubted she would be able to figure it out.”

“I don’t know if I can reconnect the arteries, but it shouldn’t be too hard since I didn’t actually relocate them. All I did was block the flow and remove the threads.”

“Well done.” Asan said, but there was a look in his eyes that Cas couldn’t parse. “I have to communicate with the college, would the both of you excuse me?”

He was out of the room before either of them could do more than nod.

“That was strange.” Emryn looked at the door that Asan had just vanished through. “Did I offend him somehow?”

“He does that sometimes,” Cas said, knowing that his tutor would have taken a mirror back to his tower in the mountains.“He is about to rain hell on the management for the temples. He’ll be back after he reads them the riot act.”

“Alright.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “When would you like to leave to ride the land?”

“Does tomorrow suit you?”

She nodded and then shook her head. “I’m visiting the village tomorrow for tea.”

“Then the day after will be more than soon enough,” Cas said. “I told Mother that I would likely be gone a month or so, which would put us back in the capital right during the bulk of hunt season and plenty of time to have you dressed for the season.”

“Season?”

He nodded, smiling at his wife. “It’s quite a lot of parties and things. I’m grateful to be wed this year; there will be far fewer young ladies trying to trap me into indecent situations.”

Emryn giggled. “Let them try.”

“I rather think they would fare poorly against you, Emryn.”

She nodded, smiling. “I would never do anything to put their health at risk, but I do know a few herbs that, if eaten raw, will put you in the bathroom for an extended period of time. And I know what nights Cook intends to serve salad.”

Cas laughed, both at the visual and at the look on Emryn’s face. “Vicious little thing.”

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