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Yennes reached within herself for the tenacity that once governed her. She willed it to return now. “I…” she began, though her voice hitched. “I wish to see the Queen.”

The guard chuckled and shook his head at the sky as though consulting it. “Go on home, miss. The Queen don’t take tea with commoners.”

Yennes swallowed. Her hands came before her in a tumble of overriding nerves. But she kept her gaze levelled with the guard’s and did not back away from the gate. “And what if the commoner could cure her wife?” she said slowly, deliberately. “Would she see me then?”

Without waiting to hear the guard’s dismissal, Yennes muttered the spell that would call fire to her palm, and she watched it reflect in the guard’s muddy eyes.

It took less time than Yennes had anticipated to find herself in the palace’s throne room, though she had not expected to arrive shackled and flanked by armoured guards.

They stood on intricately tiled floor beneath a vast glass-domed ceiling. The empty wooden thrones on the dais were bathed in morning light, as though awaiting the Mother herself to adorn them. The Terrsaw palace was a world removed from the throne room she had last stood in, whose only light was gleaned from dim sconces and the magnificent reflection of the Pool of Iskra.

Hurried footsteps sounded from the corridor to the left. The guards at her shoulders tightened their grip on her arms and Yennes held her breath. The footsteps gathered momentum and out of the arched entry spilled a woman in the most elaborate dress Yennes could imagine.

Yennes had the immediate impression that she was being picked apart. The Queen, an older, austere woman, scanned her from head to toe. Yennes could not help but notice the shadows that darkened the delicate skin beneath her eyes, or the hair that had come unfastened from the clasps that held it back. Her forehead was heavily lined and gave the appearance of a perpetual frown. Even glittering with jewels and embellishments, Yennes could not help but see the Queen of Terrsaw as little more than a dishevelled woman.

“Bow your head,” one of the guards ordered Yennes and she did so hastily, diverting her eyes to the mosaic on the floor.

“Who are you?” the Queen’s voice rang out. It filled the entire room, reaching the heights of the domed ceiling. It sent an inexplicable chill down Yennes’ spine.

“She says she’s come from the other side of the river,” one guard offers.

“Notyou,” Alvira snapped. Yennes lifted her face carefully to see that the Queen’s gaze was still firmly raking her. “I am speaking to the girl bold enough to claim she can cure my wife.”

Yennes’ hands rattled in their shackles as they gripped and released. “My name is Yennes,” she said, hoping the volume of her voice hid its tremor.

The Queen’s voice was dull as she spoke, but there was no mistaking the roll in her jaw, nor the violent glint in her eyes. “I will ask you this question once, Yennes,” she said. “And if I find the answer lacking, you’ll be thrown into a cell below ground until I forget your name.” She paused and the pressure in the room seemed to swell. “Are you a mage?”

Yennes’ heart stuttered. “N-no,” she said. “I am no mage.”

The Queen eyes seemed to blacken. She turned to the guard on Yennes’ right and sneered in his direction. “Did you not claim you saw her conjure fire?”

“She did, Your Majesty!” the guard implored. “Saw it with my own eyes.”

“Take her to the keep,” the Queen said by way of reply, already turning to leave. “You have wasted enough of my time.”

The guards were already lifting Yennes off her feet. “Wait!” she shouted, thrashing against their hold. She slammed her eyes shut and reached for the iskra. “Igniss!”

The flame erupted from her palm. It captured the sleeve of one of the guards handling her and set it alight. He jumped away, aghast, stifling the wool against his chest plate with little success.

But the Queen halted her exit. She watched the guard’s sleeve with widened eyes, and it wasn’t until the singed smell of burning wool faded that she looked to Yennes’ once more.

“You lied,” she accused, though her lips turned upward. Her eyes gleamed.

“No ma’am–”

“Your Majesty.”

“No, Your Majesty,” Yennes repeated. “I am not mage-born. I came about this magic by other means.”

“What ‘other means’?” Alvira demanded, each syllable striking Yennes squarely.

Yennes readied to reveal herself. She sensed this was not a woman who would linger while she hesitated. Her patience seemed gossamer thin. “I took it,” Yennes said. “From the Glacians.”

All fell still and silent. Even their breaths seemed to falter under the resonance of her confession. It was the Queen who spoke first, of course, but only after she had traded side-long glances with her guards. Only after she had masked her expression with a dry, indiscernible veneer. Only two words were pushed past her lips: “Prove it.”

Yennes looked down at her own body, as though she might suddenly find some means to avail herself. “I am Ledge-born,” she said, her eyes darting from person to person. “I was taken over the Chasm by the Glacians… thrown into their pool. But I survived it and journeyed here.”

But the Queen was already laughing, already swallowing the ends of Yennes’ story. “A woeful tale to hide your true heritage, mage,” she said. “Though I can understand it. The prejudice some still wage against your kind is regrettable.”