House of Shadows (Royal Houses 2)

Valia left her at the door to Helly’s healing office. It was open, and Kerrigan knocked as she strode inside.

Helly glanced up. “Oh good, you’re here.”

“You sent for me?”

“Correct. And I wouldn’t have had to do that if you had told me what happened at Geivhrea.”

Kerrigan winced. “Yeah, sorry. It slipped my mind.”

Helly arched an eyebrow. “Blacking out and having depleted magic slipped your mind?”

“If you haven’t noticed, I’m on probation and trying to stay in the Society.”

Helly waved a hand. “Yes. Yes. Sit. Let’s look at you.”

Kerrigan came over to the table and took a seat. Helly examined her eyes, ears, and nose before checking her heart rate. Then, she ran a few additional tests and shrugged. “You seem perfectly healthy to me.”

“Sonali said that.”

“So,” Helly said, crossing her arms, “did you have a vision?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Hmm… but these are the same symptoms, yes?”

“They are. And it happened once before too.”

“When?” Helly asked, taking notes on a parchment.

“After I was arrested.”

“And what were you doing right before you blacked out this time?”

Kerrigan swallowed. Helly was Lady Hellina, First of the House of Stoirm. She would know what it meant if she and March were arguing. She might even understand the political ramifications that Kerrigan had never been aware of.

“Well?” Helly asked.

“March and I were arguing about our betrothal.”

Helly sat across from her and crossed her arms. “I see.”

Kerrigan glanced down and offered a half-truth. “My dad offered me my dowry to give to him to break it off. He didn’t mention that House of Medallion wouldn’t see that as enough for a debt paid.”

“Your father is woefully uninterested in politics. I suspect someone like Ashby March would have taken that very poorly.”

“Yes,” Kerrigan managed.

“So, you were in deep distress.”

“Yes.” Kerrigan glanced up at her. “Do you know what’s happening to me?”

“For all intents and purposes, it looks like magic sickness.”

“What?” Kerrigan gasped. “That makes no sense, Helly. Magic sickness only happens to the really old Fae who refuse their magic all their lives. I’m only seventeen!”

“I’m aware. However, what we know from Gelryn about your spirit magic makes me think that it’s accelerating the condition. It could even be why spiritcasters inevitably go mad and die. Magic sickness does the same to those who are untrained in the arts of their own magic. They spend their lives ignoring what was given to them, and their magic poisons them.”

“It’s that accelerated?”

“You’re a unique case,” Helly said.

“I don’t want to be a unique case,” she said, flopping backward. “I want to just figure this out.”

“I know. I’ll try to get a message to Zina. I thought she’d already be back by now.”

“Me too.”

Helly touched Kerrigan’s arm. “We still have time. I’ve made some improvements for those with magic sickness, and I can reach out to others who have had more contact with it in the south. Bastian might be able to help. Just try not to stress.”

Kerrigan burst into laughter. “Try not to stress while I’m on probation and have Lorian breathing down my neck?”

“Let me deal with Lorian.”

She sighed. “Right.”

“It’ll all be fine. You’re doing well in your training. You and Tieran are a great pair. Work with him and focus on the bond.” Kerrigan forced herself not to recoil at the words. “I’m sure it can only help in this situation.”

Kerrigan nodded. Another problem that she couldn’t voice. Another stressor she couldn’t get rid of. No wonder her magic was trying to poison her.

47

The Symptoms

Over the weeks, Helly’s diagnosis of her illness became clearer.

She’d had three more blackouts since the ball, each one connected to a stressor. One after a particularly grueling water-magic exam. Luckily, she got back to her room before it completely took her over. The second time, she wasn’t so lucky. She collapsed after a formations flying lesson, which she’d bombed—hard—and she fell over right on the dining table. Audria thought it was exhaustion. Kerrigan knew better. The last time, she received a letter from March, explaining that he would be in town for the spring Season event and he expected her to go with him. She took a handful of steps as her anger built, and everything dissolved. Fordham had found her on the ground, hanging out of her doorway.

“You can’t keep doing this,” he said. “You need to figure out how to fix it. The others think you’re losing your mind.”

“I am,” she groaned.

“Don’t say that,” he snapped at her. “You give no one reason to doubt you. Not after all the work we’ve put in.”

And it had been “we” since Fordham had been helping her pass much of the flying exercises by feeding her the answers.

“What am I supposed to do? Every time I get upset, I black out. I can’t fix it. I don’t have a spirit magic teacher, and no matter how much I scream into the spirit plane, I can’t find Zina’s signature. I can’t reach her to tell her to come back. Helly hasn’t heard anything.”