My stomach flipped with mixed emotions. Happy Yelena had arrived and terrified about the Council session.
Healer Hayes entered the room and shooed Janco out so he could change my bandage. He frowned and hemmed as he worked.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him.
“It’s healing. But it’s slow.” His lips pressed together as if he chewed on a thought. “You need to know why.”
My heart beat a faster rhythm. The news had to be bad. I waited as he struggled to find the right words.
“I couldn’t use magic to heal you,” he said.
“Why not?”
“The Masters have erected a null shield around you. No one can work magic through a shield, so your shoulder will have to heal on its own. Sorry.”
I didn’t have the energy to be upset. It wasn’t a surprise. It felt more like a betrayal. I’ve been living in the Keep for five years, working with the Masters on various projects and risking my life. Couldn’t they even give me the benefit of the doubt?
“And sorry about this.” Hayes sliced my bound arm free.
Pain exploded as the weight of my arm dragged on my shoulder. He worked fast and placed my elbow into a sling, but not fast enough to prevent tears from flooding my vision.
He brushed my hair from my eyes when he finished. “How about some good news?” He smiled. “You can go back to your own quarters this afternoon.”
I worried when Yelena didn’t visit, but, as promised, Hayes discharged me. My return to my own quarters should have been a relief, except for my entourage. Two guards, Mara and Janco followed me to my rooms.
Mara fussed about, opened the shutters, changed the linens and dusted. Janco sat on the couch and muttered about the audacity of the guards who remained outside my door.
The apprentice quarters were all identical—a bedroom and living area with a stone hearth. One simple armchair and small couch faced the fireplace on the left side of the room. A wooden table and two chairs occupied the right side of the room, and the bedroom contained a single bed, an armoire and a desk.
“Where are my saddlebags?” I asked Mara.
She stopped for a moment as if deciding. “Confiscated along with your cloak. Sorry, I tried to reason with them.”
I fumed silently and it was a respite when Mara and Janco finally left. Pacing my rooms, I wanted to…What? My shoulder throbbed. I couldn’t work with glass. Zitora hadn’t visited me. I’d been ordered to remain in my quarters until my hearing tomorrow.
The Council session would be my chance to prove myself. I rummaged around my desk for parchment and ink. Good thing I wrote with my right hand. Sitting, I detailed everything that had happened, including conversations. Tama Moon’s hypothetical situation of using my talents as leverage didn’t seem so wrong to me now.
Reviewing the talk with Tama, I realized the actions of the Master Magicians were extreme. If they didn’t know about my ability to siphon magic, then why would Zitora and Irys bring an armed guard with them to the glass shop? Why did they have a null shield around me? Because they knew. And there was only one logical person who could have told them. Councilor Tama Moon.
After a sleepless night caused by worry—where was Yelena?—and pain—the whole left side of my body ached—I reported to the Council as instructed, entering the cavernous great hall in the Council Building. I apologized to the eleven Council members and three Master Magicians for not following a direct order. I attempted to explain my actions, but from their hostility, I knew they had formed their own conclusions and nothing I said would change their minds.
I expected the harsh reprimand. I expected the fear and the comments on my character or lack thereof. I anticipated the disbelief about the Warpers and the blood magic.
What I failed to expect was Zitora and Yelena’s silence, and Councilor Tama Moon’s ruthless undermining of my credibility.
Tama claimed, “Ulrick was working undercover to infiltrate the illegal operations on the northern ice sheet. And to save the Stormdancer.” Her voice resonated with authority in the vast room. “Opal was unaware of this, so her reactions to Ulrick’s cover story would be genuine. Unfortunately, he played his role too well, and she is unable to believe the real story.”
As the silence in the great hall thickened until it clung to my sweaty skin like syrup, I glanced at Yelena and Zitora, appealing to them to correct Tama, to leap to my defense, to do…something. Anything.
Zitora stood. “Councilor Moon speaks the truth.”
10
EVERY SINGLE PART OF MY BODY REACTED AS IF I HAD BEEN doused by the ice-cold runoff from the Emerald Mountains. Blindsided and ambushed, I sat in front of the Councilors and Masters unable to speak or even draw a breath.
“I’m sorry to have put you through that.” Zitora spoke to me for the first time since I was shot by the arrow. “But it was vital to the mission.” She turned to the Council. “Opal’s determination to help Ulrick, even though he didn’t need it, should be noted in her favor.”
The atmosphere in the great hall changed. A sense of relief permeated the air as the Councilors nodded and gave me sympathetic looks as if to say the poor dear had no clue, no wonder she disobeyed our orders to return. Their belief that all the Warpers were dead had been restored, and the whole nonsense about blood magic and switching souls had been explained away as a mere cover story.
Somewhat recovered, I opened my mouth to protest, but an invisible hand snapped my jaw shut. Yelena’s gaze met mine. With a slight shake of her head, she warned me to keep quiet. The force on my teeth released.