When Erin woke up next, she was lying on a bed in an unfamiliar room. She blinked sleepily and turned her head, looking around.

The room was similar to the bedroom she'd stayed in at the imperial palace, although the decorations were less ornate, and the room had more of a lived-in feel to it. There was sunlight coming in from a window across from the bed, although the curtains were partially drawn, making the light dimmer. Erin was grateful for that. Her head wasn't hurting as much as before, but her forehead was still tender, and her eyes felt a bit sensitive as a result.

She could feel the warmth of someone's hand against hers, and looking that way, she saw Jechrin lying on the other side of the bed, apparently asleep. They were covered with separate blankets, and there was some space between them, but they each had an arm out, and their hands were loosely clasped together.

"Are you awake?" said a soft voice on her other side, speaking in English.

Turning her head, Erin saw Kimoja sitting in a chair that was pulled up next to the bed. She had apparently been reading, because she had a book in her hand that she set down on the bedside table before leaning closer to Erin.

"How do you feel? Can you sit up?" Kimoja was still speaking quietly, obviously not wanting to disturb Jechrin.

Erin gave Jechrin's hand a small squeeze before sliding her hand away from his. He didn't respond at all, so maybe he really was asleep this time.

She slowly pushed herself up into a sitting position. Her body was still weak, and she felt a little lightheaded, but she was able to stay upright.

"Here, let me get you some lonom. You've been asleep for half a day, so your throat's probably dry."

Kimoja took a cup from the bedside table and poured it half full of liquid from a small pitcher. Then she helped Erin hold the cup to her mouth.

As she raised her hands to hold onto it, Erin noticed that there was a small pouch-like object strapped to her upper arm on one side.

"That's a nutrition pack," Kimoja said, noticing Erin looking at it. "I wasn't sure how long you'd sleep, and Sarah said you hadn't eaten anything for several hours before coming to Eloril, so I put that on when we moved you in here. It feeds water and nutrients into the bloodstream."

"Oh...like an IV?" Erin's voice was a bit weak, but she found that she had enough strength to speak again.

Kimoja nodded. "Right. Like that. But using magic instead of a needle makes it much more comfortable."

Apparently she was familiar with human medical practices....

They were both quiet for a few minutes as Erin slowly sipped her cup of lonom. She felt a bit better afterwards.

As Kimoja put the empty cup back down on the table, Erin looked over at Jechrin. He still hadn't stirred at all. Now that she was sitting up, she could see that he had a nutrition pack on his arm as well. Below it, his forearm had a white bandage wrapped around it, covering the place where Teral had cut his skin in order to take his scent.

What had happened to Teral after that? Thinking back to the screams they'd heard coming from out in the garden, Erin wasn't sure she really wanted to know....

"I don't think he's going to wake up for a while yet," Kimoja said, seeing Erin looking at Jechrin. Her brow furrowed a little, and there was concern in her voice. "He assured us that he would be fine before he fell asleep, but...how he's sleeping isn't normal. People suffering from magic exhaustion will usually fall into a deep sleep until their magic supply recovers. But this...it's more like he's in a coma."

...or like he'd disconnected from his puppet?

Erin's eyebrows went up a little as she realized what was probably going on. But she had no idea how to explain it to Kimoja...or if she even should. The people here seemed to really hate Relians. Would Jechrin be in danger if they found out his real identity? But Arturyn had already recognized his crest and knew that Jechrin had some kind of connection to the royal family of Myrikar....

Erin bit her lip, not sure what she ought to do.

Kimoja seemed to interpret that as her being worried about Jechrin's condition, because she gave Erin a reassuring smile and patted her hand. "Well, don't worry too much. He seemed quite confident that everything would be fine, so his current state might be related to him being half Relian. I'm not that familiar with Relian physiology. They're quite aloof and mysterious people—even more than Nirayls are. So there's a lot about them we don't know. And he hasn't even been sleeping for a full day yet. There's no reason to panic."

Erin nodded, even though Kimoja's reassurances were actually about the wrong thing. It was nice that she seemed to be properly concerned about Jechrin as a healer, though, rather than being indifferent to his condition because of his Relian blood.

"What about everyone else?" Erin asked. "Where are they? Are they all right?"

"The other three were fine. That young man...Anthony, was it? I think coming to Isil-Gal for the first time shocked him a bit, and he had some minor injuries. But I treated him, so he should be fine once he's had a little time to process everything and recover. He and Kirchel both went back to the human world already, but Kirchel was planning to come back once she'd taken care of a few things there. She might be back already. She was pretty shaken up, and there were some mild side effects from the magic control she was under. But she'll probably be all right once she's gotten some rest. Arturyn sent someone with her to keep an eye on her, just in case."

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"What about Sarah?"

Kimoja gave a wry smile. "She's probably the worst off of the three, actually. It sounded like the Dhaikar officials were quite angry with her for how she handled the whole incident, and some even suspected her of being involved. The Dhaikar are an awfully uptight bunch.... Well, I guess they kind of have to be. Managing the portal system is a huge responsibility. Anyway, she'll probably come out all right eventually, since she didn't really do anything wrong. But she's going to have a rough time for the next few days, at least."

Erin grimaced, though she stopped quickly because it made her forehead hurt. She gingerly touched the spot where she'd been burned and discovered that there was a padded bandage covering it.

"I'm afraid the scar from that burn is probably going to be permanent," Kimoja said, looking apologetic. "Magic injuries don't heal as easily as normal ones do. But Legan promised he'd make you an illusion charm to hide it. His charms are really good quality, so that should keep it from impacting your life too much."

"Oh...right...." Erin stared down at the blanket covering her knees. "I guess going around Silmar with a Relian crest on my face is going to be kind of a problem, isn't it? And my parents won't be too thrilled when they see it, either...."

It was the first time she'd even thought about what Jechrin's mark might mean for her going forward. She'd been too busy just trying to survive the night to think about it before now.

"Well, don't worry too much." Kimoja patted Erin's hand again. "Like I said, Legan makes really good illusion charms. There won't be very many mages who will be able to see through it. So you should be fine."

"Right..." Erin said again.

She wasn't sure how she felt about spending the rest of her life wearing an illusion on her face. Was that how Jechrin usually hid his mark? Or did he have another method? She'd have to ask him when he woke up.

"Is Arturyn still here?"

"Yes, somewhere or other. He's been running around ever since we got here, trying to figure out exactly what's been going on and keep the country from erupting into chaos over the whole thing. Suddenly losing your king is bad enough, but finding out he was an agent from Myrikar on top of that...." Kimoja shook her head. "Times like this are when the imperial system of government really shines, since it allows the emperor to step in and manage things until the matter of succession gets sorted out. But still...it's going to take a while for Aner to completely recover."

"Then Teral is...I mean...is he...?" Erin couldn't quite finish the question.

"The former king and his advisor were both killed during the fight out in the gardens," Kimoja said gently. "The palace grounds are really quite a mess.... And we had to wait for the remaining areots to be subdued before we could come inside—that's why it took us so long to get to you last night."

"Oh." Erin wasn't sure what else to say.

Teral had been trying to read all her memories and then kill her, and she knew he'd done a lot of other horrible things, so she wasn't really sorry that he was dead.

Just...she remembered how frightened he and Galeth had looked when they heard the areots. And the thought of getting attacked by the creatures that had been making those eerie howls....

She shivered a little.

Kimoja seemed to notice and changed the subject. "Arturyn said he wanted to talk to you when you woke up. Do you feel like getting up? Even if you're not ready to talk about what happened, we can at least get you cleaned up and find you something to eat. The nutrition pack is enough to get by on, but I'm sure you'll feel better once you get some solid food."

She helped Erin get out of bed and walk over to the adjoining bathroom, then helped her wash up and change into a clean set of clothes. Kimoja obviously had a lot of experience taking care of people who were ill, because she seemed quite comfortable with the entire process.

"Is this Jechrin's room?" Erin asked, looking at the toiletries lined up neatly on the bathroom counter. Neither this room nor the bedroom had many personal items visible in them, but it definitely looked like someone had been living here.

"That's right." Kimoja was in the middle of brushing and braiding Erin's hair for her. "He said you would both be able to recover faster if you stayed close to each other, so we brought you here. Well, most of the royal family's living quarters have Imperial Guard members swarming all over them right now, so this was probably the best place for you to rest anyway."

"They're not investigating Jechrin, are they?"

"Well...a little. It will actually be easier for Arturyn to protect him if he investigates and doesn't find any evidence of Jechrin being involved in his father's crimes. And the fact that he's the one who told Arturyn what was going on counts for a lot, of course. If he really hasn't done anything wrong, then he should be fine. Arturyn will definitely treat him fairly, in spite of who his father was—don't worry about that."

Erin didn't say anything. She was actually more worried about what Arturyn would do when he found out that Teral wasn't Jechrin's real father....

After getting cleaned up, Kimoja led Erin back through the bedroom, where Jechrin was still lying motionless, and to a door that seemed to lead to an adjoining room.

There was a muscular man in an Imperial Guard uniform standing next to the door on the other side. He shot Erin a slightly suspicious look as she and Kimoja entered the room, and she saw his gaze linger on the bandage on her forehead.

"What about the Relian?" he asked in Silmarith.

"Still asleep," Kimoja replied, also in Silmarith. "I'll go back and keep watching him in a minute, but the emperor wanted this girl to come see him as soon as she was able to. Is he here?"

"Over there." The guard nodded toward a fireplace that was set into the wall off to their left. There was a table in front of it, with a number of chairs surrounding it.

"Thank you." Kimoja turned to Erin and switched back to English. "He says Arturyn is over there."

Erin blinked in surprise. Kimoja translating the guard's words for her made her realize that she'd just understood everything the two of them had been saying in Silmarith, even though Jechrin was still asleep and presumably wasn't using magic on her right now.

How? What was going on?