But Jacin’s frown remained, his attention caught on something over her shoulder. “Who’s that, in the throne room?”
Winter glanced back. Her chambers were in the private wing of Artemisia Palace, where the royal family slept, just down the hall from her father and stepmother’s rooms. They were on the third floor, with a marvelous view of Lake Artemisia below, and she could see most of the opposite wing of the palace, which wrapped around the lake’s far side.
At the very center of the palace was the throne room. It was the only room that had a balcony jutting far out over the lake’s waters—with no rail or barrier to provide protection if anyone stepped too close to the edge.
And there was a woman standing there, peering into the waters below.
Winter didn’t recognize her, but the uniform of a palace servant was clear even from far away.
“What’s she doing?” she asked.
She had barely finished speaking before Jacin turned and started to run.
Heart thumping, Winter scrambled to undo the belt around her wrists. “Wait—Jacin! Wait for me!”
He did not wait, and it didn’t occur to Winter to use her gift to force him to wait until he was already out her bedroom door. Finally she managed to get the belt undone. With one hurried look back toward the throne room, relieved to see that the woman hadn’t moved, she bolted after Jacin.
Her guard—her real guard—startled when she burst out into the corridor and followed at a fast clip as she flew down the hallway, around the familiar white-stone curves of the palace. No one tried to stop her, though guards and nobility and thaumaturges alike stepped out of her way as she barreled past.
From a distance she watched Jacin’s white-blond hair disappear through the enormous black doors of the throne room. The doors had almost shut again when she wedged her arm between them and shoved her way inside.
Jacin stood only a few steps into the room and Winter nearly crashed into him, catching herself on his outstretched arm instead.
“No!” the woman gasped. “Take her out of here. Her Highness needn’t see this.” Her voice was wobbly and cracked, her eyes bloodshot. She was young, maybe in her early twenties, and she was pretty in a natural way. No glamour was creating her rosy skin or thick brown hair, but neither was a glamour hiding the hollowness of her cheeks or the wild panic in her eyes. Everything in her expression suggested a brokenness, a desperation, and a heartbreak later Winter understood.
The woman stood barely half a step from the balcony’s edge. She intended to jump.
Of her own will.
Winter’s jaw hung open. How could anyone wish that for oneself?
“Please,” Winter said, taking a hesitant step forward. “Step back now. It’ll be all right.”
Jacin planted a hand on Winter’s shoulder, as if he meant to hold her back, but with a twitch of her thoughts Winter sent his hand right back to his side. She heard his unhappy intake of breath but ignored it as she stepped beyond his reach.
Behind her, she heard the clomp of her guards’ footsteps as they caught up, the bang of the doors admitting them.
But they were only guards. They had as much talent as Jacin or Winter’s father—which is to say, almost none at all. They could not help this poor woman.
She could, though. She could save her.
Gulping, Winter took another step.
The woman had started to cry. “Please,” she pleaded. “Please go away, Your Highness. Please let me do this.” She hid her face behind her hands and Winter noticed a purple-yellow bruise on her arm.
“It will be all right now. You can trust me.”
Just come back.
The woman recoiled, and her expression began to change. No longer frightened, but rather dark and determined. She clenched her jaw and looked down at the lapping waves. The lake was unfathomably deep and spread all the way to the horizon, as far as one could see.
Her toe crept back, teetering toward the edge.
Horror expanded in Winter’s chest. The woman needed help, needed her help …
She squeezed her fists and, with her mind, reached for that toe. She was aware of the danger—if she accidentally knocked the woman off-balance, then she might send her off the balcony even while she was trying to save her.
But it was instinctual, as it had been from her first lessons with Master Gertman.
She was careful. She was slow and gentle. She eased her will into the woman’s toe and the sole of her foot and her ankle and up to her knee and her thigh.
She brought the woman’s foot steadily down.
The woman whimpered. “No. Please. Please.”
“It’s all right,” Winter cooed, urging forward the other leg now. One step.
A second step.
The woman retreated, ever so slowly, from the balcony’s edge.
After the third step, she sagged, the strength draining from her, and Winter allowed her to collapse onto the glass floor.
Relief rushed through her and she went to the woman, kneeling beside her and placing a hand on her shoulder. The woman’s sobs came harder.
“You’re all right now,” said Winter. “You’re safe.”
When the woman only cried harder, Winter did her best to comfort her. She persuaded the woman that it was true, that she was safe and everything would be all right. She imprinted pleasant emotions on the surface of her mind. It was the most difficult of the manipulations that Lunars were capable of—to change not only people’s vision or to bend their bodies to one’s will, but to change the very depth of their own feelings.
But Winter believed she could do it. She had to do it. This was what she’d been practicing for.
She chose happiness. A soft blanket of joy settling over the woman’s thoughts. She didn’t stop until a grateful smile stretched over the woman’s mouth, warming Winter to the core.
“Th-thank you, Princess,” the woman said, her voice listless and trembling.
Winter beamed back. “You’re welcome.”
She had nearly forgotten Jacin and her guards watching them until more footsteps crashed into the room.
“What is the meaning of this?”
She froze, all sense of comfort vanishing at her fingertips. As if a string had been cut, the servant moaned and crumpled onto her side.
Swallowing hard, Winter glanced back. Her stepmother, Queen Levana, along with a handful of guards and her two highest-ranking thaumaturges—Sybil Mira and Aimery Park—all stood scowling at the display. Winter and Jacin and the woman whose smile had already collapsed into an empty look.
Winter’s personal guard stammered what explanation he could, and Winter looked away, unable to bear her stepmother’s disapproving frown.
“It seems the girl is in need of assistance.” This was Thaumaturge Park, his voice like a gentle stream over smooth rocks. He had the loveliest voice of any person in the court, and yet hearing it always sent chills down Winter’s spine.
“She needs to be put back to work,” said Queen Levana. “I will not abide idleness in my palace. If she creates such a disturbance again, she will be dealt with in court. Now—I want everyone out of my throne room this instant.”
The servant curled in on herself, limp as a helpless doll.
Winter tried to give the servant a gift of tranquility as the guards dragged her away, but the woman’s expression was so desolate that she had no way of knowing if she’d succeeded.
* * *
“What happened in the throne room today, Winter?”