She climbed up the staircase, Chime flying in loose circles over her head. It was time for the nightly battle she always fought when she shared sleeping quarters with Chime. Who knew so much space could be taken up by a small glass dragon? she asked herself for the thousandth time. She just sprawls somehow, and manages to fill any bed or bedroll I want to sleep in…
Just before she reached the top step, Tris felt something, though she could not be sure what it was. A cold pocket of air? she wondered. Slimy cold air, if there’s such a thing?
It was her last coherent thought before her foot slipped.
Tris fought to turn and fall the way her teachers in hand-to-hand combat had taught her, but some other force yanked both of her feet high in the air. She did not simply fall. With Chime’s screams like scraped crystal in her ears, Tris cartwheeled and bounced down the long stair, hitting every hard step with what felt like a different part of her body.
17
While servants ran for the best healer in the district, Sandry requested, and got, a heavy sheet of canvas. She spread it out next to Tris, struggling not to look at her sister’s contorted body. I’ll just cry if I do, and if I cry, I’m no good to anyone, she told herself, smoothing the canvas over and over. She looked around. “Briar?” she asked, her voice still rasping.
“Right here.” He had come to stand on Tris’s other side, knowing without asking what she needed from him. Together, using their power as carefully as they had ever done, Sandry and Briar worked with the hemp cloth, wriggling it very carefully under the unconscious Tris. All of their concentration was on getting the cloth in place without causing her more pain. By the time it was under her, the healer and her two assistants had come. The woman nodded in approval of their work, then stepped back. The assistants let their magic flow out to grip the makeshift stretcher. Gently they raised it and floated Tris upstairs.
Sandry trotted after them. “She’s a mage, she’s a mage with weather, her hair is her mage kit,” she explained breathlessly, frightened for Tris. “Chime, go to Briar, you can’t help her. Chime, I mean it! Don’t make me use magic on you!” When Chime reluctantly changed course and flew back downstairs to Briar, Sandry babbled on: “Please, whatever you do, Viymeses, Viynain, don’t undo Tris’s braids or you’ll release something. I think they’re spelled so only she can untie them—”
They had gone into Tris’s room. Now the healer turned back, her finger to her lips. “We will tend to her. Thank you for the information about her power, and her braids. Now let us do our work.” She closed the door in Sandry’s face.
Briar and Daja came up the stairs at a slower pace, Briar with Chime on his shoulder. Once the door was closed, the only signs of life inside came when the assistants popped in and out with requests for hot water, cloths, tea, and the like. Sandry, Daja, and Briar sat on the floor out of the assistants’ way, Sandry with Chime in her lap, Daja and Briar leaning against each other.
Ambros and Ealaga had stayed below to settle the household and to bring in a mage to see what had made Tris fall so spectacularly. When they finally came upstairs, Ealaga ordered a footman to bring chairs for everyone. She and Ambros took their own seats, waiting for news, while the three young mages lurched to their feet to sit in a more dignified way.
After half an hour’s silence, Briar announced, “We can see magic, you know. There was no need to call an outsider in. There wasn’t a spell on the steps.”
“Have you studied curses?” Ambros asked quietly.
“Just the usual stuff, no specialization,” whispered Daja. “They’re disgusting.”
“Yes, but some people here use them.” Ealaga said. “A very few are so good that they can place a curse in a hidden place, where even those who see magic won’t see it. There it remains until it’s called to life. Then it will seek out its target.” She looked at her hands. “Ishabal Ladyhammer is said—in whispers, you understand—to be able to wield curses without detection. Subtle curses. Ones that seem like accidents.”
“But then every time there is a household accident, people could well think they had drawn the wrath of the empress,” protested Sandry. “You would follow that road to madness!”
“Or to very well-behaved citizens,” Daja murmured.
“It was an accident,” Sandry insisted, her face white. Did I bring this on Tris? she asked herself. Is she hurt now because I couldn’t be a good girl and simply wait out the summer to go home?
“When I fall on stairs, I land on my knees or my back or my side,” Briar said hesitantly. “If I’m on my side: I roll, if I’m on my back, I slide. On my knees sometimes, I slide down a little.” Briar traced a vine on the back of one hand, his voice muffled. “I never cartwheeled. I never bounced. She couldn’t even grab hold of the rails—did you see? But she was taught how to fall, same as the rest of us. She can twirl a mean staff, she can kick a fellow’s”—he looked at Ealaga and changed what he was about to say—“teeth up between his ears, and she can fall properly, so she doesn’t hit anything important. So she can stop herself and get back on her feet. Except here she just kept going.”
“They hope if she stays behind, they can persuade her that her interests are better served in Namorn?” suggested Ambros. “What she can do—it is so very overwhelming. To manipulate the weather itself…”