PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF THE EDG
“MY lady?”
Charlotte looked up from her cup of tea at Laisa. The young girl held an envelope of thick, heavy paper.
“This came for you.”
A sudden pain pierced Charlotte’s chest, as if something vital had broken inside her. She felt cold and jittery. It was bad news. If it were good news, she would’ve gotten a scryer cal . She felt the urge to squeeze and crumple her blond hair in her fingers. She hadn’t done that since she was a child.
“Thank you,” she made herself say.
The maid lingered, concern stamped on her face. “Can I get you anything, my lady?” Charlotte shook her head.
Laisa studied her for a long moment, reluctantly crossed the balcony to the door, and went inside.
The envelope lay in front of Charlotte.
She forced herself to raise her cup of tea to her lips. The rim of the cup shuddered.
Her fingers were shaking.
She focused on that rim, cal ing on years of practicing control over her emotions. Calm and col ected, that was the mantra of the healer. An effective healer is neither callous, nor tenderhearted, her memory whispered in her mind. She doesn’t permit herself to succumb to passion or despair, and she never allows her craft to be compromised by her emotions.
She had lived by this creed for twenty years. It never failed her.
Calm above all things.
Calm.
Charlotte took a deep breath, counting each rise and fal of her chest. One, two, three, four . . . ten. The cup in her hands was motionless. Charlotte drank from it, set it down, and tore the envelope open.
Her fingertips had gone numb. The ornate seal of the Adrianglian Academy of Physicians marked the top of the paper.
We regret to inform you . . .
Charlotte forced herself to read it, every last word, then stared past the white stone rail of the balcony at the garden below. Down there, a sand-colored brick path ran to the distant trees. Short silvery grass trailed the path on both sides, flanked by a row of low emerald hedges, beyond which flowers bloomed: roses in a dozen shades, their heavy blossoms perfect; constel ation shrubs with bunches of star-shaped flowers in crimson, pink, and white; yel ow knight spears, their delicate flowerets shaped like tiny bel s . . .
She would not be blooming. She
would not bear fruit. The last door had slammed in her face. Charlotte hugged herself. She was barren.
The word pressed on her, like a crushing physical weight, a heavy anchor around her neck. She would never feel a life grow inside her. She would never pass on her gift or see the shadow of her features in her baby’s face. The treatments and magic of the best healers in Adrianglia had failed.
The irony was so thick, she laughed, a bitter brittle sound.
In the country of Adrianglia, two things mattered most: one’s name and one’s magic. Her family was neither old nor wealthy, and her name was ordinary.
Her magic was anything but. At four years old she had healed an injured kitten, and her life took a sharp turn in an unexpected direction.
Medical talents were rare and highly prized by the realm, so rare that when she was seven, Adrianglia came for her. Her parents explained the situation: she would leave them to study at the Ganer Col ege of Medicinal Arts. Adrianglia would house her, teach her, nurture her magic, and in return upon completion of her education, Charlotte would give the realm ten years of civil service. At the end of that decade, she would be granted a noble title, making her one of the coveted elite, and a smal estate. Her parents, in turn, would receive a lump sum of money to soothe their grief at losing a child. Even at that age, she realized she had been sold.
Three months later, she left for the Col ege and never returned.
At ten she was a child wonder; at fourteen, a rising star; and at seventeen, when her service official y began, Charlotte was the best the Col ege had to offer. They cal ed her the Healer and guarded her like a treasure. In anticipation of assuming her title, she had received instruction from the best tutors. Lady Augustine, whose bloodline stretched back through centuries al the way to the Old Continent, had personal y overseen her education, ensuring that Charlotte entered Adrianglian society as if she had always belonged within it. Her poise was flawless, her taste refined, her behavior exemplary. By the time she emerged from the Col ege, now Charlotte de Ney, Baroness of Ney and the owner of a smal estate, she had healed thousands.
But she could never heal herself.
Neither could anyone else. After eighteen months of treatments, experts, and magic, she held the final verdict in her hand. She was barren.
Barren. Like a desert. Like a
wasteland.
Why her? Why couldn’t she have a baby? She’d healed countless children, pul ing them from the brink of death and returning them to their parents, but the little nursery she had set up next to their bedroom would remain empty. Hadn’t she earned this little bit of happiness? What had she done that was so horrible that she couldn’t have a baby?