My whole being, body and soul, was full of fire. I was being burned from the inside out. I wanted to scream and couldn’t, wanted to faint and didn’t. I was completely paralyzed. In that moment if I could have moved I might have grabbed for the dagger to kill myself with. A piece of my soul was being torn loose and I had never felt such pain in my life. I had thought that having the house mark set on me had hurt, but that had been nothing, a pinprick compared to the sword that was being driven into my soul. There was no merciful release into darkness; it just went on and on. I was going to go mad if the pain lasted one second longer.

And then it was over. I collapsed on the floor, gasping. A lingering residue of pain sparked through my body. I ached all over as though every inch of me, down to the very bones, was bruised. I was dimly aware of Lord Morren’s voice saying, “Most gratifying. Your gift is even stronger than the girl’s. You will do quite well for my future projects.”

I groaned. I didn’t even want to think about this happening again. Lord Morren ignored it, indeed ignored me entirely, and went about whatever magical project he was working on. I just lay there. I didn’t have the energy to even think about moving. It was well over an hour later when I finally recovered enough to lever myself slowly upright. The temptation to simply lie there until Lord Morren moved me or ordered me to move was great, but I had so little control over my situation, I wanted to hang onto what I could. Somehow getting up was a minor act of independence.

I managed to get to my hands and knees, but getting to my feet was out of the question for the moment, so I crawled the few feet to the nearest wall. I slumped against it and closed my eyes. I was tired, so very tired, but I didn’t want to sleep. Knowledge was power. I repeated that to myself like some kind of mantra. I had no control over the situation, but somehow, someday, I might be able to do something, if I only knew enough.

I pried my eyes open and looked around the room. It was just as cluttered as it had been the last time I’d seen it. Lord Morren was sitting at a desk in one corner, writing something in a notebook. A staff leaned against the desk next to him. It was made of ebon-black wood, elaborately carved and topped with a crystal. It was surrounded with a dull glow of power. I couldn’t use magic, but I could see and sense it perfectly well. I sometimes felt like a man with perfect eyesight and no hands. As I scanned the room, dozens of objects showed that magic glow. But as my eyes passed over one dim corner something tugged at my gaze and kept it. Another staff leaned there. It too was of black wood, but it was very plain. No carvings decorated it, no crystal topped it, and to a first glance, no aura of power surrounded it. And yet there was something… I blinked, trying to see what pulled at my vision so. If I looked at it just right there was a kind of glow. It was almost familiar. The patterns of power that hung around the other objects in the room were unfamiliar, though I could guess they were the auras of Lord Morren and Amelia. The staff though… it was more like the aura that surrounded my father’s spells. It took me a while to figure it out, but finally my tired brain put two and two together and I realized that this must be what Lord Morren had done with the power he’d drawn from me. He’d stored it in his staff. So that was why the staff drew my gaze, my own power was calling to me. Being latent, I’d never seen my own magical aura. But why was the magic hidden, disguised? I glanced back at the other staff, obviously glowing with power, and decided it must be a trap. Some thief, thinking to steal a powerful mage’s staff and either sell it or use it himself, would ignore the plain and apparently powerless stick of wood in favor of the crystal-topped staff and doubtless set off some lethal spell. It seemed to be the sort of thing Lord Morren would go for.

Lord Morren finished whatever he was writing and looked up. His eyes fell on me and he got to his feet and came over. I almost expected some further revelation, but all he did was order me to get to my feet and go back to my room. I slowly picked myself up. The short walk to the end of the room, across the landing, and into the open door of my tiny cell seemed to take forever. I collapsed weakly onto the straw pallet that served as my mattress.