Jinnell held the little vial of potion up to the light and shook it nervously, wondering if she was about to do something unutterably stupid. No doubt her mother would answer with a resounding yes!
For the third time, she opened her Mindseye and compared the contents of her cup with the contents of the vial she had pilfered from the household supply, and for the third time she assured herself that she had replicated it perfectly. At least as far as the elements were concerned. She wasn’t sure what the liquid in the real potion was, except that it contained alcohol of some sort, so she had used wine for her own. She wished Mama weren’t being so stubborn about slavishly following the abbess’s lesson plan.
Jinnell was learning what she could from the lessons, but most spells she’d watched her mother work required at least one element she herself couldn’t see. If Mama wanted her to learn magic, then it seemed only logical they should create their own lesson plan on the side. They did not need the abbess’s formulas when the two of them together could look at existing potions in Mindsight and figure out what was in them.
“It’s too dangerous,” Mama had said the moment Jinnell had made the suggestion. “Without a formula, we can’t be sure there aren’t crucial elements in there we can’t see.”
Jinnell had sighed in frustration, not entirely surprised at the response. “You can see practically everything,” she complained. “I seriously doubt that’s a major danger.”
Mama had raised an eyebrow at her. “Oh, so you’ve become an expert now, have you?”
Jinnell had made two more attempts to persuade Mama to be reasonable, to no avail. She supposed someday she would have children of her own and would understand Mama’s protective instincts—that’s what Mama insisted, anyway—but only if she didn’t find herself shipped off to Nandel as a virgin sacrifice.
Putting down both the vial and the cup of homemade potion, Jinnell rolled up the sleeve of her nightdress. There was no reason to think there were any elements in the healing potion that she couldn’t see. She could see the Zin, which bound the other elements into the potion. She could see Von, which she had learned during their very first magic lesson was often used in healing potions; and she could see Mai, a feminine element the book said was associated with mending and healing. Those, in combination with the obligatory Rho, should be everything she needed to create a spell of healing. And healing spells were so common that there was no reason to assume there was some higher-level element in there she couldn’t see.
Still, Jinnell hesitated. Just because she couldn’t think of some other property the potion might need didn’t mean such a thing didn’t exist, and she had seen a small glimpse of what could happen when one used an incorrectly formulated potion. Maybe now that she’d already put together her own version of the potion, Mama would be willing to examine the two side by side and confirm that she wasn’t missing anything.
Then she sighed, for that was nothing but wishful thinking. Mama would never let her take the risk. If she wanted to test her ability to replicate a potion, she would have to do it in secret and tell Mama after the fact.
Impatient with her own dithering, she used a hairpin to draw a shallow scratch across her forearm, just barely enough to break the skin. She added a mote of Rho to the purchased potion, then drank it down, the sharp, mouth-puckering flavor making her grimace as it burned its way down her throat. As a child, she had always resisted taking the potion for her small hurts, preferring to suffer the pain than endure the taste, though her parents had occasionally overridden her wishes. Whatever the base liquid was, it clearly contained a high concentration of alcohol.
Moments after she downed the potion, the scratch on her arm knitted itself back together as she watched, until it faded to nothing but a thin red line that would be gone by morning. Nodding in satisfaction, she picked up the pin again and created an identical shallow scratch a little distance away from the first one. Then she activated her own potion and drank it down.
The first thing she noticed was that it tasted a lot better, though perhaps that was just because she was unused to whatever harder liquor had been used for the original. The wine of her potion had a slight, sour aftertaste as a result of the elements, but it was easy to ignore, and there was very little of that unpleasant burn in her throat.
Jinnell practically whooped in triumph when the little scratch sealed itself neatly, leaving a faint red line that was almost identical to the result of the first experiment. Mama would be furious with her for experimenting on her own, but surely this would be evidence that it was worth it!
Suddenly, and for no reason at all, her stomach gave an unhappy lurch. She closed her eyes and swallowed hard, thinking the nausea was a result of nerves and would soon pass. Her stomach twisted again, and she belched, tasting bile on the back of her tongue. She eyed her healing potion balefully. Surely it couldn’t be to blame. It contained little more than a spoonful of wine. Maybe it was the strong alcohol in the first potion that was making her stomach unhappy.
Sweat broke out on her brow, and her stomach made a nasty rumbling noise. Jinnell breathed deeply through her nose, trying to keep her gorge down. She’d never reacted this way to a healing potion before. Which, unless she could convince herself otherwise, suggested that her mother had been right and there was something in it that she couldn’t see.
For maybe fifteen minutes, she battled against the nausea, hoping it would fade away. Then she spent most of the rest of the night heaving into her chamber pot until near dawn when the nausea finally relented and she was able to snatch a couple of hours of sleep.
Semsulin gave Ellin one last disapproving look before stepping out of her private study and sending Graesan in. Ordinarily, her personal honor guard stayed at some remove when she was in the royal apartments, and Ellin could see that her summons had worried Graesan.
“You wished to see me, Your Majesty?” he inquired, bowing low and failing to hide his concern. He probably thought she was displeased with him or one of his men, the concern no doubt encouraged by Semsulin’s dour expression when he’d left the room.
Ellin smiled at him brightly and saw his concern change to puzzlement. Her pulse was pleasantly speeding, and she was genuinely excited to share some good news, despite Semsulin’s unsubtle opposition. She gestured toward a chair in front of her desk.
“Please have a seat,” she said with a grin she could not suppress.
Graesan’s eyebrows shot up in shock. “Excuse me? That would not—I mean…”
Her smile broadened as he continued to sputter. Members of her honor guard were never permitted to sit in her presence, and she had to admit she rather enjoyed seeing the usually stoic, unflappable Graesan put so off balance.
“I’m promoting you,” she said, pointing more insistently at the chair. “There is no breach in protocol if you sit when I invite you to.”
“Promoting me?” he said doubtfully, and still didn’t take a seat. “But I’m your master of the guard. How can…?”
“Graesan, sit down.” Thanks to his ignoble birth—and despite his father’s attempts to legitimize him—there was no question that master of the guard was an extraordinarily high rank for Graesan to achieve. She couldn’t blame him for being unprepared for a promotion of any kind, though it saddened her that he couldn’t just accept the honor as his due.
Eyes wide, a look of extreme discomfort on his face, Graesan sat on the very edge of one of the chairs, looking as if he was ready to leap to his feet at any moment. Ellin had imagined her announcement as a happy, joyful moment, and Graesan’s reaction was more than a little disconcerting. Semsulin’s resistance she had been expecting and was well prepared for, but Graesan’s she had not.
“I’m removing you from my honor guard and making you my personal secretary,” she told him. She was determined to take Star’s advice and make a more concerted effort to let Graesan know exactly how she felt about him, but as her master of the guard, he was so rarely alone with her that she had found little opportunity. Her personal secretary, however, would have many an excuse to be alone with her during the day, and though that contact would not be extended—or uninterrupted—they would both be able to drop their public façades every once in a while.
Graesan shook his head as he scanned her face. “That would be most unwise, Your Majesty,” he said. And, damn him, he rose from the chair once more.
Ellin sighed and leaned back in her own chair, hating the fact that Graesan had to pay such a price for his father’s indiscretion. It wasn’t Graesan’s fault his father hadn’t been able to keep his hands off a housemaid.
“I understand all the reasons why it would be an unconventional move,” she assured him. “Believe me, Semsulin made certain of that.”
“Then you should listen to your lord chancellor.”
“No,” she said decisively. “I need my personal secretary to be someone I can trust and with whom I feel comfortable. There is no one else I can think of who meets that description.”
“I’m a bastard, and my mother was a housemaid!” he protested, his cheeks suffused with color. “I am not an appropriate choice for this position.”
“Your father gave you his name for a reason,” she explained calmly, “and—”
To her shock—and, by the look on his face, his own—Graesan interrupted her. “He cannot make me legitimate just by giving me his name, no matter how badly he would like to think so. There are a great many people who will be scandalized at the thought of a housemaid’s son becoming personal secretary to the queen. You have enough challenges to your rule already.”
“I’ve been through this with Semsulin.” Who’d told her she was being stubborn and childish, although he had grudgingly been forced to admit she was within her rights. “While some people may disapprove, there is a limit to how scandalized people can be over the appointment of any member of my household staff. I’m not bestowing a title or a land grant upon you, so there’s little anyone can do but mutter.” She rose to her feet and moved around the desk so she could be closer to eye level with him.
“Accept this honor and the pay raise that comes with it,” she urged him. Technically, he had no say in his promotion and was not free to refuse it, but it would hardly be an auspicious beginning to her planned seduction to force his hand. “You deserve it for your years of loyal service.”
Graesan swallowed hard, and the expression in his eyes told her he was fighting an internal battle of some sort. Semsulin had warned her that the promotion would not be as easy on Graesan as she would have liked. There were those of his peers who already looked down their noses at him and whispered about him behind his back, and his elevation in rank would only make their jealousy grow stronger.
“Are you worried about how your fellow guardsmen will take it?” she asked softly, moving just into the edge of his personal space. The sharpening of his gaze told her he was very much aware of her proximity, though he made no effort to move away.
“Those who already dislike me cannot dislike me any more than they already do,” he said. “They call me Graesan Rai-Summer within my hearing to try to put me in my place. And that is my true name, no matter what my father says.”
“But it is not your legal name,” she insisted. “Appearances matter, and Graesan Rah-Brondar is of sufficient rank to be secretary to the queen even if Graesan Rai-Summer is not.” She edged even closer, staring up into his face in what she hoped was an intimate way. “I will spend a great deal of time with my personal secretary,” she said in a low murmur, and was rewarded with a distinct darkening of Graesan’s eyes. “And some of that time will be in private.”
“Perhaps that is another reason why the promotion would be unwise,” he said, his voice suddenly hoarse.
“Or perhaps it’s the best reason of all for you to accept it.” She reached out tentatively to touch his chest. He was in uniform, of course, wearing mail under his tabard, so the touch was not as satisfying as it might have been, but she shivered and he gasped all the same.
Ellin thought perhaps she was finally breaking through, but Graesan took a hasty step back.
“Don’t fool yourself into believing we are really in private,” he said with a pointed look at the closed study door.
She felt his rejection like a slap in the face, despite his very practical explanation for it. “And if we were truly in private,” she asked, “would you still have backed away from me?”
“We will never be truly in private,” he said gently, and there was no missing the hint of regret in his voice. “Even if I am your personal secretary. If that’s the only reason you wish to promote me—”
“It’s not!” she protested, and it truly wasn’t. Though admittedly, it ranked high on her list of priorities. She couldn’t bear to put the distance of the desk between them once more, but she moved farther out of his personal space.
“I need a friend, Graesan,” she said, and for the first time in what felt like forever, she stopped trying to put on a brave face. “I am surrounded by people who are constantly making demands of me while picking apart my every word, my every move, my every facial expression for signs of weakness.” Tears stung her eyes, though she blinked quickly to clear them. “I need someone by my side with whom I don’t have to pretend all the time. Someone who sees me, rather than Queen Ellinsoltah.”
“You have friends…” he started, but he knew as well as she that the friends she grew up with were no longer enough. Many of them had married and moved away, and those who had not…What did Queen Ellinsoltah have in common with an unmarried miss whose life revolved around balls and parties and finding a husband?
“I need you,” she said simply. “I won’t insist you accept the promotion if you truly don’t want it, but if there’s any way you can see your way clear…”
Ellin was not strictly proud of herself or her behavior. She was quite aware that she was being manipulative, and though she would have liked to blame it on the influence of her courtiers, she knew it was all on her. But for this short time when she was a sovereign queen and unmarried, she had opportunities she would never again have in her life, and she was determined to take advantage of them. Graesan’s rejection had stung, but the sting was eased by his obvious desire to accept her offers—both the one she’d voiced and the one she hadn’t. And as long as he accepted the promotion, she would have other chances to change his mind.
“I still believe it is…imprudent,” Graesan said. “For more reasons than one.”
“But will you accept?”
His shoulders lowered in something very like defeat. “Of course I will accept.”