“I am not a paladin, but I would do what my people need,” Dorrin said. “The king told me to take my cohort, if they were willing, and they have agreed. I’m not sure it will be enough.”

Paks grinned. “Nothing’s certain, is it? But what bothers you most?”

“I’m not sure I’ll recognize everything that needs to be done,” Dorrin said. “I’m not sure I can stand against the magery they have.”

“The strength of their talent, or their training? Do you think your power is that much weaker, or is it that you don’t know how to use it?”

“Training, I suppose. Like a novice picking up a good sword, but having no skills, no experience.”

“You believe they could overpower you? Kill you?”

“I suspect so,” Dorrin said. “It’s not the danger to myself that I worry about—much, anyway. It’s what will happen to the land and people should I fail. Not just Verrakai land, either, but the whole of Tsaia. I don’t suppose you feel a call to come help me …”

“No,” Paks said. “I feel no call at all right now, but I can think of a way to help you, if you are willing.”

“And what is that?”

“If it is training you lack, then let us train your talents. Now. Perhaps it will not take as long as you think.”

“You could do that? You would do that?”

“I can try. We can try.” Paks grinned like a child about to try swinging from a vine over a river, all glee and eagerness. “What do you need most, do you think?”

Dorrin ticked them off on her fingers. “A shield against their magery, protecting not just myself but those I lead. A way to lock their magery, so they cannot use it. I saw one of my uncles do that once, to a half-breed, one of his bastards, who showed fight. Healing, if that’s in me—by legend, it had become the rarest of the gifts, and I never saw any of my family use it.”

“So first we find out what your gifts are, and waken them,” Paks said. “We should start, then, with the one you believe most difficult, healing.”

Dorrin felt her belly clench. Her family’s stories of the healing magery all involved loss, despair, weakening … but Paks was right.

If it could be put to good use, she might save some of the children that way, healing whatever hurts had been done them … and being able to heal might win supporters from those long damaged by her family.

“Let’s go to my room,” Paks said. “Quieter there.”

Dorrin was expected at table with the king; she was sure Selfer or Bosk would come looking for her. “I must leave word that I’m busy—”

“I’ll tell them I wanted to confer with you.” Paks grinned. “For now, nobody interrupts me.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Paks’s room, at one end of the palace complex and a floor higher than her own, looked to have been a servant’s once. Plain, a pair of narrow beds separated by a carved chest, a bare wood floor. A wardrobe stood against one wall; the opposite had pegs at various heights. Paks’s cloak hung on one; her pack, neatly rolled, was at the foot of her bed.