Links

Chapter Ten

Reema's entire body was shaking by the time she reached her own chambers. She had passed Thiago in the corridors with an ape guard who carried the tea, and directed them to follow the princess and the other guards to her new chambers. Once she was behind the safety of the closed door, she leaned against it, exhaling away as much of her tension as she could. The entire series of events since the Escadians' arrival didn't seem to make any sense.

And the explosion...Reema shook her head, trying to clear it.

She'd read about magical incompatibilities before, and their terrifying ability to produce reactions similar to what she had just experienced, but the fact that the wound on Princess Althea's leg had healed, at least to an extent, was inconsistent with the usual laws of such incompatibilities. Such conflicts in magic were typically an all-or-nothing deal. There were no "partial" conflicts. It just wasn't the way of things.

The only other plausible explanation was that the princess was also a third form Link, and that whatever magic she possessed must be of the same class as Reema's own. The statistical probability of that was astronomically small, but obviously not impossible. Still...something about the princess' magic had seemed different to Reema right off the bat—to consider it was the same as her own was almost unthinkable—she knew her own magic. Why would that same magic feel so different just because it came from a different body?

The queen began to systematically drop the plates of armor from her body, leaving them in a pile to the left of the door and making a mental reminder to pick them up in the morning. Free of the weight of the beautiful armor, she slipped off the mid-calf-height boots and tucked them neatly into the boot tray by her wardrobe. She shrugged off all but her undergarments and stepped into her chambers' private bath. It would do her well after the night's confusions to relax and let the hot waters of a bath sooth her aching body.

The healing had taken far more from her than she'd anticipated—and it hadn't even been a full success. She knew she needed to go care for the wound—or at least show the princess how to do so herself—but with it partially cauterized, the queen believed it could wait the few hours until morning. Gryphons were known for carrying dangerous bacteria in their beaks and claws, but the blood loss had been far more concerning than the evident infection. Abruptly, her mind played the sight of the Escadian princess shivering from her place on the chair. Something in her gut panged at the imagery, just like it had when she had been crouched before the princess, tending to her leg. The wound had been large, yes, but there obviously hadn't been any damaged arteries. Why, then, had the woman been so noticeably affected by loss of blood? Unless, of course, she had another injury the queen hadn't yet seen.

Reema shook off the feeling, deciding there would have been evidence of further bleeding, and turned on the tap. She stripped the remainder of her clothing from her body while she waited for the water to begin steaming and then slipped into the large porcelain tub. As she exhaled and relaxed into the scalding hot liquid, the queen's mind drifted to the moment with the chandelier. It had been the first time instinct had been allowed to make her fearful of death in...many years. Had the chandelier dropped, her rather insubstantial body would have been cut in two. Ordinarily she would have begged for this to be the case—but for some reason, in that particular instant, when she'd been so sure for just a split second that she was going to die, Reema suddenly hadn't wanted to. And then the princess had shocked her even more when her previously non-working magic resurfaced just long enough for her to stop the chandelier's fall.

Reema had seen Althea quaking with the strain of holding it up, and that was when she had scrambled out of the line of fire. The queen was confused. She knew her curse did not allow her to die by her own hand—and no matter how she had tried to endanger herself over the years in the hopes that she might die by some other, indirect means, she had never succeeded. This time, though, she'd thought it was coming—some random, insignificant moment in which she hadn't planned to die—and she had been so certain she had thwarted the curse at last. But she hadn't. The Escadian princess had interfered, just as other powers unseen had interfered countless times over the years. But would those powers that be have gone so far as to control a Link to protect the queen's miserable excuse for a life? Could they have spurred the magic to return? Reema didn't see how that was possible—but the possibility that the princess had preserved that life of her own accord was even more disconcerting.