Without knowing what the shamans wanted, the queen might look to blame the whole Empire, the way she’d punished all shamanborn for what happened to her parents.

However, if I were to discover the true purpose of the attack and present that information to the queen, it could both prevent a war and win me back my place with Kendara. If I were the queen’s Shadow, this would be information I’d need to acquire, anyway. What better way to prove myself?

I groan and cover my face. What hope do I have of accomplishing any of that when I couldn’t even stop one shaman from hurting Saengo?

A door opens down the hall, beyond my line of sight. Curses and profanities taint the air in a voice I recognize as Eyebrow Tattoos’s. A heartbeat later, the door slams shut with enough force that it reverberates through my cell. A girl limps into view, thin and disheveled, with an impressive red mark already darkening into a bruise across her cheek.

The guard outside my door unlocks my cell and gestures for the girl to enter. His keys jangle as he locks it again after her. The girl sets down a basket filled with bundles of herbs tied with twine. When she straightens, her eyes are the vivid emerald of an earthwender.

Those eyes linger on mine, narrowed slightly. An emotion passes over her face, too quick to name before she looks away. Seeing as she’s obviously a prisoner here as well, I don’t blame her for being guarded.

“Are …” Something in the tremor of her quiet voice makes me wary. “Are you really—”

“Five minutes,” the guard says, cutting her off.

She flinches, lips compressed. Her question is forgotten as she steps closer. “Before he left, Prince Meilek asked me to tend to your injuries.”

“You’re a healer?”

“Of a sort.” She gestures to her basket. “I’m no light stitcher. And anyway, I don’t have a familiar anymore.” Her voice dips even lower, but bitterness saturates her words.

Shamans can’t access their magic without familiars. Although I’ve never quite grasped how it works, I know that familiars begin as spirits, intangible and unable to communicate except through a medium, but only until they bond with a shaman. Then they become physical conduits, connecting shamans to their magic. I’ve no idea what any of it means for me.

Once, familiars would have been as common a sight in Evewyn as shamanborn. When the Valley of Cranes was first transformed from a lush mountain refuge into a harsh prison, familiars were either killed or imprisoned separately from their shamans. But those familiars soon died off from the rot, a disease born of the Dead Wood. The disease, which affects only familiars and possesses no known cure, first appeared decades ago, and neither king nor Scholar has been able to offer an explanation for why.