Venarra bent her head and paused to pluck a spray of honeyblossom. A tinge of rose touched her pale cheeks. "Her faith may be misplaced. As you saw yesterday, I am not always as disciplined as I should be."

Ellysetta wished she were less able to put herself in other people's shoes. The cold anger she wanted to hug close was already melting in the face of Venarra's slight blush and shamed admission. "You were afraid for your truemate."

"I still am. I don't trust what is inside you. Some Mage-claimed are innocent—I know that—but it doesn't stop the horrors they wreak in their master's name."

Ellysetta bit her lip. "I know."

Venarra looked up. "I think perhaps Jisera would be the better shei'dalin to conduct your training. You restored her brother's soul. Like Rain, she sees only the good in you, while I cannot look past the potential for evil. I cannot pretend otherwise, and you will not be able to open yourself to me as you must."

Before Ellysetta could answer, the sound of running feet grew near. "Venarra!" A trio of shei'dalins burst into the garden. "Shei'dalin, come quickly!"

Venarra sprang towards them. "What is it? What's happened?"

Ellysetta ran close on their heels, following the four of them as they hurried to one of the healing rooms near the front of the hall. A warrior stood shaking by the door, his hands and chest streaked with blood, his face ashen.

"She fell," he wept. "She stumbled at the top of the century stairs. I didn't know until it was too late."

A Fey woman—her skin entirely drained of its Fey luminescence—lay motionless on the healing table. Her hair was matted with blood, her neck and limbs twisted. Jisera and several shei'dalins were already with her, their hands splayed and glowing, but when Jisera looked up at Venarra her eyes were grim.

At the look, the warrior began to weep. "Nei. Please…nei."

Venarra caught his face in her hands and forced him to look at her. "Las" she said. The word tolled like a bell, and the warrior instantly calmed. "I will not let her die."

What followed was a healing like none Ellysetta had ever seen. Venarra leaned over the broken Fey woman and power gathered in her. The black eyes turned to molten amber, glowing like suns, and the fierce control that made her seem so cold fell away, revealing a face of such intense, overpowering love that Ellysetta wanted to weep. Venarra lit up bright as a Lightmaiden of Adelis, a golden-white aura swirling around her. She put her hands on the dying woman's chest and sent that brightness into the limp body. Her eyes closed. "Stay, beloved," she said, and her voice was a song, a prayer, an order, a plea, a command so strong even Ellysetta felt its compelling power. "Stay for your e'tan."

Two bells later, the Fey woman who had been teetering on the cusp of death walked out wrapped in the protective strength of her mate's arms, and Venarra, exhausted and drained, slumped against the healing table. The other shei'dalins passed by her, touching her arm and sharing a bit of their own strength with her until the Shei'dalin's pale skin began to glow with faint luminescence once more.

"What just happened?" Ellysetta asked. "What did you do?"

Venarra glanced up wearily, but Jisera answered for her. "She held Carina's soul to the Light until the rest of us could heal her body." Jisera laid a hand on Venarra's shoulder and sent a soft pulse of golden light into the Shei'dalin. "She was too far gone for the rest of us to reach. Without you, my friend, she and Daran would both be dead."

When Jisera and the others were gone, Ellysetta asked, "Can Jisera teach me to do what you just did?" She remembered her mother, remembered trying desperately to hold her to life even as Lauriana slipped farther and farther away. If she could have spun Venarra's weave then, perhaps Mama would still be alive.

"Eventually," Venarra said. Already, she'd shaken off the soft edge of weariness, and her cool reserve had slipped back into place. "Assuming you learn to control your magic well enough."

"Can she teach me to do it as well as you?"

Venarra raised a brow. "Why do you ask?"

Instead of answering, Ellysetta said, "Marissya thinks you are the one who should teach me, correct? That you are the one most able to help me control my weaves?"

"Aiyah" the Shei'dalin agreed slowly.

"Then if you are willing, I would like you to teach me."

"Why?"

"Because when the war comes, I want to be the best shei'dalin I can be. If I can save even one life the way you just did, that matters more than any amount of personal distrust between us."

Venarra eyed her consideringly. "I am a harsh instructor. I expect perfection from my students."

Ellysetta squared her shoulders. "I will work until I give you that perfection."

A long silence stretched between them, and then Venarra nodded. "Very well. Come sit here beside me and give me your hands." Venarra patted a spot on the table beside her. "The first lesson you must learn is how to open your mind to mine, and then I will show you how to anchor yourself so you don't get lost in your healing."

Celieria City

Gethen Nour stood over the body of the cook Lord Darramon had hired to accompany his traveling party west to the Garreval. "Come here, umagi," he commanded, and Den Brodson stepped forward. Nour seized his skull and held him tight as the memories of the dead cook poured from Gethen's mind into Brodson's.