A single lamp was burning there, the wick turned low. The usually bustling room was deserted and quiet. The kneading table was wiped clean of flour and the food all stored away in crocks or covered with clean cloths. The room was still uncomfortably warm from the day’s cooking. The week’s baking of bread was set out in fragrant round-topped loaves on the counter. The smell was heavenly. It was my father’s pride that our home had water piped right into it. A large elevated cistern was regularly replenished from the river, and the gravity flow system supplied all our drinking and bathing water. The thick stone walls of the cistern kept the water cool even in summer. I drank three tall mugs of it, one after another, and then slowly drank a fourth. I damped a kitchen cloth and wiped the sweat and dust from my face and the back of my neck. It had been a very long day.

I wet the cloth well and gingerly opened my shirt. I had bled. I turned the wick for better light. Blood soaked the front of my shirt. The waistband of my trousers was stiff with it. Cautiously, I washed the blood from my gut, wiping it carefully away until a fine seam as long as my forefinger showed on my belly. I gritted my teeth against expected pain and prodded at it.

It didn’t hurt. I couldn’t even make it bleed. The blade of the swanneck had sunk into me, but this wound was no deeper than a bad cat scratch.

Had I imagined it? No. There was too much blood. I traced the puckered seam with my finger. The scratch closed up behind my touch like magic.

Like magic. A wave of vertigo washed over me. I held on to the edge of the sink until it passed. Then, very carefully, I rinsed my blood out of the cloth and watched the dark water trickle down the drain. I wrung the water out and hung the rag to dry. My wound had healed. Like magic. Because it was magic. Magic inside me. I suddenly thought of Dewara’s purpling face and bared teeth. Had Duril’s lead shot killed the old man? Or had he been dying even as he attacked me? I recalled again the thundering of my heart and the seething of my blood. I poked at the idea that I had killed Dewara with magic. I didn’t much like it. I took a deep and steadying breath.

The evening’s ride and the weight of the revelations I had received had left me ravenous. I took a loaf of the still-warm bread and a small crock of butter to the table. I filled a mug with the cheap ale that my father kept for the servants. Then I pulled out a chair and sat down with a sigh. For a short time, I just sat in the dim stillness, trying to come to grips with what I had learned.