Prologue
The soldiers watched Asteria enter the infirmary as though death itself had crossed the threshold wearing white.
The silence greeted her first.
Not gratitude.
Not reverence.
Expectation.
It filled the hall more completely than the stench of blood, smoke, sweat, urine, vomit, and rotting flesh. Thousands of wounded men had been brought back from the battlefield, and every one of them seemed to believe her arrival meant the suffering had ended.
Asteria felt their hope settle upon her before she had taken three steps.
It was always heavier than accusation.
At least hatred admitted what it wanted.
Hope disguised its hunger as faith.
She had heard the camp long before her carriage reached it. Wheels dragged through the mud. Horses screamed beneath impatient hands. Officers shouted for soldiers and servants to clear the road. Men called her name before they had even seen her.
The princess had come.
Princess Asteria.
The most powerful mage born within the kingdom in nearly three decades.
They had repeated it like a prayer.
Some of the wounded had forced themselves upright when they heard her carriage approaching. Others had begun weeping. One man near the entrance had torn open the stitches along his side in his attempt to sit, yet he continued staring at her as though the blood spreading across his bandages no longer mattered.
They expected a miracle.
A burst of divine light.
A command spoken over the dying.
A single merciful act powerful enough to erase the consequences of months of arrogance, miscalculation, and bloodshed.
Asteria gave them none.
Her expression tightened as she looked across the infirmary.
The physicians had removed the dead before her arrival, though they had not managed to hide where the bodies had lain. Blood remained dark between the floorboards. Some of it had dried nearly black. Some still shone wetly beneath the harsh afternoon light pouring through the open windows.
The bodies were gone.
The smell remained.
So did the flies.
Hundreds moved through the hall in restless black clouds, gathering around open wounds and soiled bandages. They crawled over unconscious faces. They settled along the edges of blood-filled basins. Physicians waved them away with stained cloths before returning to work.
None came near Asteria.
The faint barrier surrounding her shimmered whenever an insect struck it. The air bent around her body like sunlight above fire, sending flies scattering before they could touch her skin or silver hair.
She had raised the barrier before leaving her carriage.
Not for the wounded.
For herself.
There were some violations she refused to endure simply because others considered them insignificant.
Her white gown moved around her ankles as she walked, untouched by the filth beneath her feet. Mud covered the camp outside. Blood had turned entire stretches of earth black. Servants slipped while carrying water. Physicians walked with grime dried to their knees.
None of it reached her.
The barrier kept the hem of her gown suspended above the floor. No blood marked her shoes. No dust settled upon the silver embroidery circling her sleeves.
She could feel the soldiers noticing.
They always noticed purity most when surrounded by ruin.
Her hair fell down her back in a pale, shining sheet, nearly reaching her knees. Beneath the infirmary’s brutal light, the silver appeared almost white.
Holy.
Divine.
Untouched.
The words had followed her since infancy.
The gods had marked her.
The gods had favored her.
The gods had created her to serve.
Asteria had never understood how anyone could place the word blessing beside an obligation and fail to hear the chain dragging behind it.
She continued between the cots.
Some soldiers had returned without arms. Others without legs. Some had been split open by steel and held together by thread, cloth, and desperate hands. Men burned so badly that their uniforms had fused to their bodies lay nearest the windows, where the smoke rising from their wounds had somewhere to escape.
Ten mages had been sent to save them.
Ten silver-haired bodies against thousands of ruined ones.
Six were already unconscious.
Two lay on the floor beside the soldiers they had healed, their bodies trembling even in sleep. Blood ran from one mage’s nose. Another had curled around herself with both arms locked over her ribs, though no wound remained visible beneath her uniform.
There never was.
Not for long.
Mage bodies healed too quickly to preserve evidence.
Asteria had always hated that most.
A wound vanished, and the world pretended the suffering had gone with it.
The remaining four mages were still working.
Barely.
One knelt beside a soldier whose chest had been crushed beneath a horse. Her hands hovered over him, glowing faintly as the soldier’s ribs slowly lifted beneath bruised flesh.
At the same time, the mage’s chest began to cave inward.
Bone folded.
Her breath caught in a wet, strangled gasp.
She swayed but kept her hands in place.
The soldier screamed as his body repaired itself.
The mage did not.
Perhaps she no longer possessed enough breath.
Perhaps someone had praised her silence so often that she had mistaken it for strength.
Across the room, another mage held the blackened arm of a young infantryman. Burned flesh cleared beneath her fingers. New skin spread over his ruined hand.
Smoke began rising from beneath the mage’s sleeve.
Her own flesh blistered.
The fabric clung to her arm.
Her fingers tightened around the soldier’s wrist while the smell of burning skin joined the hundreds of other horrors trapped inside the hall.
Asteria looked away before the mage’s expression changed.
She knew that expression.
The first instant of shock.
Then disbelief.
Then the terrible understanding that the pain had only begun.
The physicians moved around the mages without looking directly at them. They brought water to the soldiers. They replaced bloody cloths. They murmured encouragement to the wounded.
No one offered the mages permission to stop.
They would claim later that the mages had volunteered.
People were very fond of calling obedience voluntary when they had spent a lifetime punishing refusal.
Asteria walked on.
The first soldier to understand began to cry.
He did so quietly, though she heard him.
His face was young beneath the dirt. A blade had opened one side of it from temple to jaw, and a physician had stitched the wound too tightly. Swollen skin pulled against the dark thread whenever his mouth trembled.
He watched her pass.
Asteria did not turn her head.
Someone farther down the hall whispered, “Princess.”
She continued walking.
“Your Highness.”
The second call came from one of the conscious mages.
Asteria stopped.
Hope moved through the infirmary so suddenly that men lifted their heads. Physicians paused with their hands inside wounds. Even those who had appeared too weak to recognize her opened their eyes.
She turned slowly.
The mage kneeling between two cots looked no older than seventeen.
Perhaps eighteen.
Her silver hair had been tied back with a strip of blood-soaked cloth. Mud covered her face, leaving only the restless galaxies within her eyes visible. Violet and blue light moved too quickly beneath her irises, silver stars streaking through the colors.
Exhaustion.
Fear.
Too much borrowed pain.
Her hands shook as she lifted them from the soldier she had been treating. The wound across his stomach had closed.
A matching wound opened across hers.
Her uniform split.
Blood poured over her abdomen.
She folded forward with a broken sound, one hand striking the floor before her face could.
Several soldiers flinched.
None moved to help her.
The wound had already begun healing. Muscle drew together. Skin stretched over the opening. Within moments, only the blood remained.
The girl forced herself upright.
“Your Highness,” she repeated.
Asteria regarded her.
The girl had not yet learned that pleading rarely softened those who had already decided not to surrender themselves.
“Please,” the mage whispered.
Her voice scraped against her throat.
Behind her, the soldier she had healed sobbed with gratitude. He reached toward her shoulder, but his hand stopped before touching her.
Perhaps he noticed the way she recoiled.
Perhaps, for one brief moment, he understood what his recovery had cost.
The young mage looked around the hall.
“We cannot reach them all.”
Asteria allowed her gaze to travel over the six unconscious mages scattered across the floor.
“Clearly.”
The word was quiet.
It carried farther than shouting would have.
The girl swallowed.
“We have been healing since yesterday morning.”
“And?”
Confusion flickered across the mage’s face.
Asteria almost pitied her.
Almost.
“And we need your assistance.”
“My assistance.”
The girl’s lips parted, but nothing emerged.
Asteria turned fully toward her. The people nearest them shifted away despite having nowhere to go.
“You have known me for less than a minute,” Asteria said, “yet you have already decided that my body is available to you.”
The mage recoiled.
“That is not what I meant.”
“Is it not?”
“No, Your Highness. I only meant that they are dying.”
“I can see that.”
The room became silent again.
The young mage looked toward the surrounding cots. Men lay beneath bandages pressed against missing limbs. One soldier breathed through a metal tube forced into his throat. Another had turned gray from blood loss while a physician fought to stop the bleeding beneath his hip.
“They will not survive the night,” the girl said.
“Then I suggest someone call for gravediggers.”
A physician near the wall looked up.
His apron was so stained that its original color had disappeared. Exhaustion had carved shadows beneath his eyes. His hands were red to the wrists.
“We have done all we can.”
Asteria glanced at him.
“Then your best was insufficient.”
The physician became still.
Anger rose behind his exhaustion, but fear kept it trapped behind his teeth.
Asteria turned away.
She had taken only two steps when the young mage pushed herself upright. Her knees buckled. She caught the edge of a cot before she fell.
“Princess Asteria.”
The tone made several soldiers look away.
Not because it was disrespectful.
Because it belonged to someone standing too close to the edge of herself.
Asteria stopped again.
The girl’s hands had curled into fists at her sides.
“There are children here.”
Asteria looked around.
She saw no children.
Only soldiers.
Some were young enough that softness still lingered in their faces. Some likely had mothers who believed them invincible. Some had lied about their ages to enlist. Some had been given swords before they had ever held a lover’s hand.
But they had worn uniforms.
War had corrected whatever misunderstanding remained.
“They put on uniforms,” Asteria said.
“They were ordered to.”
“And you were ordered to heal them.”
The girl flinched.
Asteria watched closely.
“Tell me,” she continued, “has that made your suffering less painful?”
The galaxies in the mage’s eyes moved faster.
“That is different.”
“Of course it is.”
Asteria kept her voice almost gentle.
“Your orders are sacred. Theirs are tragic.”
The girl shook her head.
“I am not asking you to save everyone.”
“No. You are merely asking me to decide who deserves to place his wounds inside my body.”
“I am asking you to help us.”
“And I am refusing.”
The simplicity of the answer disturbed them more than anger would have.
The young mage stared at her.
Somewhere among the cots, a soldier cursed.
“Selfish bitch.”
The insult passed through the hall.
Asteria heard it.
Everyone knew she had.
She turned toward the sound.
The soldier lay with an arrow buried beneath his collarbone. Someone had cut away the shaft, but the metal head remained lodged somewhere inside his chest. His skin had gone pale with pain. Sweat shone across his face.
He held her gaze because hatred had briefly made him forget fear.
Asteria approached his cot.
Her barrier displaced the air as she moved. Loose strips of bandages fluttered away from her. Flies scattered. The physician beside the soldier stepped back.
She stopped at the foot of the cot.
“Say it again.”
The soldier’s courage faltered.
His eyes flicked toward the royal guards outside the infirmary. They would not need to enter. Asteria required no one’s protection.
He looked back at her.
“Selfish bitch.”
The words were weaker the second time.
Asteria studied him.
“Did I place the arrow inside you?”
His jaw tightened.
“No.”
“Did I declare this war?”
“No.”
“Did I command you to march?”
“You are a princess of this kingdom.”
“That was not my question.”
His fingers dug into the blanket.
“No.”
Asteria inclined her head.
“Then it is interesting that I became selfish only after refusing to suffer the consequences of choices I did not make.”
“You can help us.”
“And therefore I must.”
His eyes burned.
“What good is your magic if you refuse to use it?”
Asteria smiled.
There it was.
Not gratitude.
Not faith.
Ownership.
The truth that waited beneath every hymn sung in her honor.
“There it is,” she murmured.
The soldier frowned.
“The truth beneath all the prayers.”
She stepped closer.
The edge of her barrier brushed against the cot. The stained sheet sank beneath the pressure but did not touch her gown.
“You do not believe my magic belongs to me,” she said. “You believe it belongs to whoever needs it most.”
The soldier said nothing.
“That is why you call me cruel. Not because I harmed you. Not because I sent you here. Not because I placed steel in your hands and promised glory would make the dying worthwhile.”
She held his gaze.
“You call me cruel because I possess something you want, and I have chosen not to give it to you.”
“You would let thousands die to prove a point?”
“No.”
Asteria looked beyond him.
Across the hall.
Across the endless rows of ruined bodies.
“I would allow thousands of men to face the natural result of war.”
A man nearby groaned.
Someone began praying.
Asteria had heard enough prayers to know most were merely demands spoken politely.
“I warned the council,” she said. “I warned the generals. I warned the king. I told them the southern roads would flood before the supply wagons arrived. I told them disease would move through the camp faster than soldiers could march. I told them the enemy would burn the grain fields rather than leave food behind.”
Her gaze returned to the wounded soldier.
“They called me a coward.”
No one interrupted.
“They said victory required sacrifice.”
Asteria turned toward the unconscious mages.
“Now that the sacrifice has become unpleasant, everyone wishes to renegotiate the price.”
The soldier’s anger weakened.
Perhaps shame had reached him.
Perhaps only pain.
“We did not choose the war either,” he said.
“No. Many of you did not.”
For one brief moment, Asteria allowed herself to see him.
Not the uniform.
Not the accusation.
A frightened young man with metal buried in his chest, abandoned by those who had promised that obedience would protect him.
Then she closed that door.
Understanding suffering did not obligate her to absorb it.
“But you still expect me to save the men who did.”
Her attention moved toward the officers’ section at the far end of the infirmary.
It was quieter there.
Cleaner.
The highest-ranking wounded had been placed near the open windows, where the air moved more freely. Proper pillows rested beneath their heads. Their bandages were fresh. Cups of untouched medicine sat beside their cots.
Two mages worked among them.
Neither had been permitted to stop.
Asteria watched one of them repair a nobleman’s wounded hand while an infantryman nearby bled through the cloth pressed against what remained of his leg.
The nobleman would keep his fingers.
The infantryman would not survive another hour.
No one appeared confused by the order in which they had been treated.
“You should ask your commanders,” Asteria said, “why their hands were healed before your lives were saved.”
She left the soldier without another word.
The eyes following her no longer held hope.
Hatred was easier to bear.
It asked less of her.
Some stared with accusation. Others with fear. A few still watched in disbelief.
They expected her to stop.
Surely she would choose someone.
The boy with half his face burned away.
The father calling the names of children who were not there.
The soldier who had spent the morning holding his own intestines inside his body.
Surely there was a limit to what even Asteria could walk past.
There was.
But the limit belonged to her.
Not them.
She moved through the infirmary with her hands loosely clasped before her. The white train of her gown followed without touching the floor. Her silver hair drifted behind her, untouched by the heated wind pushing through the windows.
She knew what they saw.
A blessed woman from a temple painting.
Untouched.
Untroubled.
Divine.
The truth would have frightened them more.
A senior mage stood near the center of the hall, held upright beneath both arms by attendants.
His hair had once been silver. Now it was so white it appeared stripped of color.
The stars inside his eyes barely moved.
Asteria stopped.
He stared back at her.
The attendants bowed.
He did not.
Blood had dried beneath his mouth. His hands trembled. Several fingernails were missing, leaving the skin beneath them raw and shining.
“What happened to him?” Asteria asked.
One attendant lowered her head.
“He treated one hundred and twelve men, Your Highness.”
Asteria looked at his hands.
The torn nails were already growing back.
“He should have stopped after thirty.”
“We asked him to.”
The senior mage laughed.
The sound was faint and wrong.
“They begged me not to.”
His gaze drifted toward the soldiers.
“They said I was chosen.”
Asteria became still.
The mage smiled.
“They said the gods made us for this.”
One of the attendants began to cry.
The senior mage lifted his hand and watched new fingernails form along the tips of his fingers.
“I felt every one of them.”
Asteria did not ask what he meant.
She knew.
Every crushed chest.
Every severed limb.
Every blade opening flesh.
Every burn.
Every infection.
Every breath taken through a ruined throat.
The body healed.
The mind remembered.
“I can still hear them,” he whispered.
The infirmary had fallen quiet around him, yet he tilted his head as though listening to screams from somewhere no one else could reach.
“They are grateful.”
His smile disappeared.
Asteria stared at him.
He had given them everything they asked for, and still they had left him standing inside the suffering alone.
“You are a fool,” she said.
The attendants flinched.
The old mage did not.
For once, Asteria opened her barrier.
Only enough for her hand to pass through.
The stench and heat reached her immediately. So did the dampness of the air and the soft brush of a fly against the outer edge of her magic.
She placed two fingers against the mage’s forehead.
His skin burned beneath them.
“Sleep.”
The command carried a pulse of magic so faint that most would not have noticed it.
The senior mage’s eyes closed.
His body went slack between the attendants.
Asteria withdrew her hand and sealed the barrier again. The invisible wall closed around her, separating her once more from the blood, insects, and reaching hands.
“Take him somewhere quiet,” she ordered. “Bind his hands before he wakes.”
The attendant holding his left arm looked horrified.
“He has never harmed anyone.”
“Then let that remain true.”
They carried him toward a side door.
His white head rested against one attendant’s shoulder. With his eyes closed and the strain gone from his face, he looked almost peaceful.
Asteria knew better.
Sleep could silence the room.
It could not silence memory.
She watched until he disappeared through the doorway.
