I raised my eyebrows at the bitterness in her words and I wondered how uncomfortable she’d found life in Estian after the freedoms her father had allowed her.

“You’re right,” I said, “at least in that most of them wouldn’t have run to your rescue. But it would be as bad for him as if he were caught having relations with one of his hunting dogs. They would lose all respect for him, and that would be dangerous. My cousin’s downfall must be important to him in order for him to risk being found out.”

“So he won’t stop with me,” she said. “And he probably didn’t start with me, either.”

She sounded a little frantic, and I wondered if there were a man in particular she was worried about.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. It would take more than the word of a peasant or merchant to give King Jakoven a clear shot at Beckram. Someone that everyone knows is one of Alizon’s supporters. Have you been missing anyone who fits that bill?”

She shook her head. “No—not when I was taken. I don’t know about now.”

I shifted forward slowly, to give her time to control her initial recoil, and put a gentle hand against her shoulder. “There’s nothing you can do from your sickbed. Rest.”

She held still under my touch, but made no move to lie back until I got off the bed.

“Do you need help?” I asked, letting my hand drop casually to my side. “I know what your back must be feeling like.”

“No,” she said. She hesitated for a moment, then sank back beneath the woven blankets and turned painfully onto her side to take pressure off her back and sore rib. “I can’t think,” she muttered.

“Don’t panic,” I said. I’d been healed by Oreg a couple of times, too: I knew how it felt to have exhaustion pull my consciousness away from me. “It’s just the magic.”

Her lips curved up as her eyes closed. “They call you a wizard—the Shavig Wizard, as if there were no other mages to come out of Shavig—or Hurog, for that matter. Did you really pull Hurog apart with your power?”

“No,” I answered. With my soul, perhaps, mine and Oreg’s, but not my magic. “Rumor exaggerates. Oreg’s our wizard here. On a good day I can light the fire in the hearth.” I was a bit better than that, or had been before Oreg decided last month that I needed to learn to use my own magic rather than Hurog’s to power my spells.

The smile fell away from her lips and she struggled up on her elbows and forced her eyes open. “I shouldn’t have come here,” she said, her voice slurring the words. “It’s too dangerous.”