Page 22 of The Kingdom's Crown

"I don't understand why it matters either way, if I'm honest."

"It's too much. It's too much power running about," Nathan muttered, leaning back into his chair, head shaking and eyes trailing away from mine.

I frowned, running through his words, through the fragments I'd read on the notes strewn about.

"Unpredictable. Dangerous! Might end up doing anything, in anyone's hands. Might hurt someone," Nathan continued.

My mouth opened and then shut again. The royal mages werepreventingmagic being released? And even more disturbing was the fact that Nathan's words sounded a little too similar to the one's I'd thrown in Bryony's face when I discovered her Hunger. I'd been wrong in that argument—onmanypoints—and the Hunger had more or less demonstrated that it posed more danger to Bryony than it did the general populace or any inexperienced magician.

"What does a royal magician do?" I asked. Aside from choke Kimmery's magic inside of a conduit the size of a boulder.

"It really isn't any of your business. You shouldn't even be here." Nathan was growing agitated again, taking a gulp of the tea I'd brewed and then grimacing as he remembered how it had ended up in his hands.

"I was only thinking I might be able to assist—"

"Assist? A Chosen?! That's not—you're not… We don't need any extra hands around here as it is. We're running the castle, we're not some experimental busybodies from the universities. Certainly not self-trained mages."

His words were winding in all the wrong directions, and he gave up his chair to pace around the room. The pulse of the conduit on the other side of the wall was tangible and tempting, overwhelming even, and I wondered what kind of toll it took on a magician who worked next to that drum of power every day.

"Magical janitorial staff," I murmured, eyeing the spines of books, memorizing the titles.

"Get out."

I looked, and the older man was vibrating, glaring down at me. If I were a mage in his position, I would've hated the work. I suspected hedidhate it. I hoped he found the purpose of that conduit as unnatural as I did, but either way, I'd pissed him off properly, ruffled his tidy feathers, and it was time to go. Nearly.

"One last question," I said, ignoring his glare. "The princess said there's been no luck healing the dowager queen with magic. Why not?"

"You can use magic to heal a wound certainly, or cure an illness. But the dowager queen's magic is the illness," Nathan said, frowning.

"Her magic is poisoned?"

"It's running out. She's too ill to feed the Hunger, so the Hunger feeds on her. She knows what's wrong with her, believe me, Chosen," Nathan said.

"But then the queen or Bryony—"

"No! No. It has to be her own. Trying to force magic in would only do more harm. It creates friction, you see, after it leaves the source. We can use a little magic here and there against her symptoms, nothing more."

I frowned, disturbed by every bit of this news. Bryony tried to resist her Hunger sometimes and we'd seen how it hurt her, but I'd always imagined it would just lead to her lashing out and demanding sex eventually, not that she might resist it to her own death. I needed to know more of her nature if I was going to keep her safe.

I stood, bowing briefly, distracting him from the easy lift of a book from the floor which I slipped into an inner pocket of my coat.

"Apologies for the interruption in your busy day. I'll see myself out."

Nathan didn't move to the door, but he followed me every step of the way until I was out in the hall. The main door slammed shut behind me, and I turned, listening to the locks fasten in place again, smirking at the heady flare of magic. Well, that certainly wasn't Leftman's charm now. Poor Kenneth would never find his way out.

* * *

"So the conduitwill take my magic too?" Bryony asked, trailing her fingertips in the fountain pool.

Owen had remembered Bryony liked the rose gardens and sweet-talked her away from her grandmother's bedside and outside for the afternoon with the rest of us. She sat between Daniel and Cosmo, the latter sketching the pair as Daniel's fingers flirted with the lace overlay of Bryony's skirt.

I didn't like the steady small frown Bryony had been wearing for days now. She looked a little tired, a little bored, but mostly tense, all her muscles bound up tight like she was constantly bracing herself for an attack. She'd relaxed a little by the water, but not enough to reassure me—or the rest of her Chosen, based on their watchful expressions—that she wasn't entirely miserable here in the castle, but my news regarding her grandmother's health had draped a shadow over her eyes.

"If you let it loose, probably. If you and I are containing it, it doesn't seem a problem, but…"

Bryony's lips curled up, but it wasn't a real smile. "But I make more than we really need."

"Be fanciful with it then," I said shrugging. "Direct it to our furniture, your dresses. Owen's old shirts."

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