Prologue~Ch. 1~Ch. 2~Ch. 3~Ch. 4~Ch. 5~Ch. 6~Ch. 7~Ch. 8~Ch. 9~Ch. 10~
Ch. 11~Ch. 12~Ch. 13~Ch. 14~Ch. 15~Ch. 16~Ch. 17~Ch. 18~Ch. 19~Ch. 20
Ch. 21~Ch. 22~Ch. 23~Ch. 24~~Ch. 25~Ch. 26~Ch. 27~Ch. 28~Ch. 29~Ch. 30~
Ch. 31
It was the pain in her head that woke Jessica this time. She groaned and stirred, not quite ready to open her eyes yet.
“Here,” a soothing masculine voice told her. “Drink this, it will help with the pain.”
“Alexandre?”
“Tis quite safe to open your eyes,” he said, amusement lacing his voice. “We are the only ones here.”
Jessica thought about it for a minute, then cautiously cracked open her eyes. To her relief, she was back in her tent and the only light came from a fat white candle on the small table beside her bed.
Alexander helped her raise her head enough to drink from the wooden mug he held for her.
“What happened?” She felt like she’d been run over by a herd of buffalo followed by a troop of dancers wearing soccer cleats tap dancing on her head.
“You’re suffering from a magical backlash,” Alexandre told her gravely.
“A magical what?” Jessica blinked rapidly to try and clear her vision, but the minstrel kept wavering in and out of focus.
“Backlash. You drew in too much power too fast at the Well.”
“The Well,” she mused. “I remember Ewan showing me the Well. It didn’t look like any well I’ve ever seen, more like a Zen garden with all those rocks and sand.” Her voice faded away as she remembered the way it made her feel, the irresistible pull of the magic.
“What is it?” Alexandre asked.
“It was such an incredible feeling,” she said. “The power was like nothing I’ve ever felt before. I just wanted to drink it down.”
“It appears to me that’s exactly what you did, only I’d say you over-indulged.”
“I guess that’s where the old saying “getting drunk on power” came from,” she said with a giggle that turned into a wince. “This has got to be the world’s worst hangover ever.”
“Try some more of this,” Alexandre suggested. He helped her raise her head again and she obediently took another drink.
“This doesn’t taste half bad – which one of the healers came up with it?”
“None of them, I fear,” he admitted. “Tis my own remedy.”
“Really? I’m surprised they’d let you get away with it. You’d think with me being unconscious they’d jump at the chance to start messing with me again.”
Alexandre looked away and feigned an interest in the carvings on the mug he was holding.
“What is it?” she asked. When a reply was not immediately forthcoming, she tried again. “Alexandre, why aren’t there any healers in my tent?”
He sighed heavily. “It’s because they’re afraid.”
“Afraid? Afraid of what?” she asked in surprise.
“It’s your power they fear,” he admitted reluctantly.
“My power? But I don’t even . . .” her voice trailed off.
“Don’t even know how to use your power?” he asked shrewdly.
“Well, now that you mention it, yes.”
“One more sip and I’ll let you rest again,” he said.
She obediently raised her head again and took another large drink.
“Ghren has never been a land to tolerate magic well,” Alexandre told her. “In fact, until the wizard currently occupying the castle, there has only been one other wizard in the king’s employ, and that was almost ten years ago.”
“What happened to him?” Jessica asked.
Alexandre shrugged. “No one knows. He disappeared about the same time as the king’s oldest son.”
“Oldest son? You mean Ewan has a brother?” In all their time talking together, Ewan had never once mentioned having a brother.
“He did have. It is rumoured the prince ran off with the wizard to become his apprentice. Of course it is also rumoured he was used by the wizard as a sacrifice in a dark magic spell.”
“But surely the king tried to find him?”
“A token search was made, of course, but although he was first born, he was not the favourite son. In time his name was stricken from the family tree and soon it became forbidden to even mention his name.”
“That’s terrible!”
“That is the way of the monarchy. Their word is law, never forget this. They own the land and everything and everyone on it. They can do whatever they please and none dare gainsay them.”
There was a bitter tone to his voice that made Jessica wonder just what had been done to Alexandre in the past. One look at his face made her decide not to ask.
“I grew up in the court of Ghren,” he continued. “I left a year before the prince disappeared – it was my time of journeying towards becoming a bard.”
“Not that I’m not glad you’re here now,” Jessica said, “But if Ghren is so terrible, why did you come back?”
“Because growing up I had one friend to whom I owe not only my loyalty, but my life. I cannot rest easy until I have determined what happened to him.”
“The king’s oldest son,” Jessica guessed.
“Aye.”
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