For a moment, old fears and thoughts of her mother flitted through her mind again. Would their lives have been better if she’d been born without magic? Perhaps—no. She thrust the emotions aside. She didn’t need the love of someone who would betray her own child so easily over something that Miara had no choice about. To hell with her. A shame her mother had been such an easily manipulated twit.

In Mage Hall, she had finally begun to really learn. She remembered the exhilaration she’d felt first coaxing little seeds into saplings under her father’s tutelage. What would life even be like without magic? She could soar in the skies, dig into the earth, swim in the sea, capture this strong man, and control him easily. She was powerful. She had fangs, feathers, fur, fins, and everything in between. She could hear a horse’s whisper and call a rose to life. She could feel this man’s heart beating, his life force, deep inside her mind, the way a non-mage would hear wind outside the window—absently, constantly, without end. Imagining the world without that seemed depressingly empty.

Did he know what he was missing? Had he had a choice?

It didn’t matter. He was in this situation either way, just like she was.

She hadn’t been listening to him, so she stilled her thoughts and listened. Definitely asleep now. She studied the angles of his face in the dwindling firelight. His eyelids twitched a little. He was really quite handsome, as she supposed princes ought to be. She could still see his soft green eyes, the color of sage leaf or silvered elephant’s ear. Who was he? Who had he been? Had other women dreamed of those eyes and remembered them fondly? Longed to be as close to him as those vines? Even… closer? Did someone even now grieve and worry for him?

What about the voice behind her on the terrace?

She forced her eyes toward the sky. It didn’t matter who he was or who loved or missed him—she had no choice in this. It was best not to think about it.

She remembered Brother Sefim. He was a priest, her father’s close friend, and also her teacher. Before she’d taken to the road, she’d told Sefim of her mission to kidnap the prince.

“Don’t worry,” she had said, trying to reassure herself more than him. “I’m sure the Akarian’s a fool. All royals seem to be. Everyone they’ve sent me after thus far has been.”

“Every single one of them a fool?” Sefim had laughed, raising an eyebrow.

“They are not the most diverse lot. I’ll cling to the likelihood that this noble-born prince will be a bastard who deserves to be kidnapped.” He had shaken his silvered head at her, grinning broadly. “All right, all right. No one deserves to be kidnapped. You have no love for my sanity, do you?”

“I have more love for your soul,” he had said. “But I’m not worried about it. It is the Masters who are in the wrong here. Not you.”

She smiled to herself and hoped Aven wouldn’t notice. She wanted to believe Brother Sefim. But she still felt herself working magic against the Way. She still felt like she was very wrong. It was hard to believe she would not be punished for it, one way or another.

Was there some way to avoid such a thing? Right this wrong, short of setting him free? Although she had not chosen to kidnap him, she could choose whether or not she understood what she had done. Would that help? Could she punish herself with the suffering and guilt and not carry yet another debt against this man or against the Way?

And if she could understand, could she stand the pain of it?

The stars were coming out, and she could see them clearly now. She took a deep breath of the cold, smoky air, and she knew—painful or not, she had to understand. Tomorrow, she would ask her own questions.

The next morning, Aven awoke to discover that none of it had been a dream. It was all very real, and he was still tied to the ground by very real magical vines that didn’t show any hope of letting go.

The sun had risen, but its rays didn’t shine into the camp just yet. He looked toward the woman—Mara. She lay sleeping, or at least it seemed so. The fire burned low but still gave off enough heat to hold back the morning chill.

He lay for a while, listening. The wind through the trees, the birds excitedly singing the tidings of morning, the cracks and pops of the fire—all were lovely to his ears. When was the last time he’d left Estun? He couldn’t remember. He shook his head. He had missed so much, locked inside that damn cave. He should be thanking this woman.

And what was it all for? He loved his parents, but they’d locked him in a dungeon of dark and earth and fire for years, and it hadn’t even accomplished anything. His magic still lingered; it couldn’t be choked out. He carried its burden but none of its benefits. This woman could easily control him with her power, and what could he do about it? Nothing but swirl the air around in annoyance!

Then, suddenly, something occurred to him. All his life, he’d hidden his magic, been afraid of the consequences of someone finding out that he was secretly a mage. But right now, there was no one to know, no one to be afraid of.

Maybe getting kidnapped was the best thing that had ever happened to him. And hell, that really said a lot about where he came from, didn’t it.

On the other hand, he didn’t think she knew he had any magic yet, and if she had bothered to kidnap him, chances were she didn’t have his best interests at heart. Perhaps she was exactly the person he should be hiding his magic from. Not that that made him any more capable of doing it.

And besides. She was still asleep.

Now was the time to experiment. What to try? Clearly the air came naturally to him. But he had rarely tried to do something deliberately. Where to even start? And how would he know the difference between his magic and an incidental breeze at the exact same moment?

He probably couldn’t, but what the hell. There were yellow, orange, and browning leaves scattering the ground. That’d be as good a place to start as any.

He turned his head to face the woman while he tried. Of course, blowing leaves near him meant he could blow them into the fire and perhaps then out of it again, alight. But, well, he would hope for the best. And perhaps they would blow onto his captor and this whole matter could be settled!

Eyeing her out of the corner of his eye, he focused on the leaves beside him. Now, how to begin?

First, he focused on them as intensely as he could. He tried to imagine pushing his mind and his will toward the leaves, or across the leaves from his head toward his toes. He tried to imagine the leaves doing what he wanted.