His face twitched. For a moment, he struggled for control and then he released his temper. “There’s your dinner, Nevare! Enjoy it! It’s the last morsel of food you’ll see for a time.” He drew in a sharp breath through his nose. “I thought I could trust you to adhere to our agreement! Will I never learn? You haven’t a scrap of honor left, have you? You’ll lie, you’ll cheat, and you’ll steal in whatever way you must in some idiotic effort to prove your ridiculous claims! And why? Because you are so desperate to make your failure my fault! Because you can’t accept responsibility for your own mistakes. You always have wanted someone else to be in charge of you and I fear you always will! You will never lead, Nevare, because you cannot command yourself!

“But I will show you what it is a true officer does, and that is, he does what must be done to keep his troops prepared. There will be no more trust between us. You will stay here in this room, and I will supervise your fast. You will see that no magic is at work here, only your own sloth and greed.”

He’d run out of breath. I remained standing and staring at him. May the good god help me as I recall that it was all I could do not to fling myself on my knees and snatch at the spilled food that was seeping across the floor. As if he knew the true focus of my attention, he pointed at it and snarled, “And clean that up!”

He turned on his heel and left me, shutting the door sharply. I heard him snap the lock into place. And the moment I knew it was latched and he could not surprise me, I dropped down to right the remainder of the glass that still cradled a mouthful of wine. The plate had not broken and part of my meal had sheltered beneath it. I cut my finger on the broken wine glass as I snatched up the spoon and carefully scooped as much of the meat pie as I could back onto the plate. Luckily, the flaky crust had kept most of its shape. I was able to gently slip my hand under it and lever it back onto the plate. The crusty seed roll was not damaged at all. The dish that had held my small serving of fruit compote had broken. I studied it, weighing the dangers of eating broken glass against the fragrance and flavor of the lush pieces of plump fruit gleaming with spiced syrup. Trembling with self-restraint, for the tantalizing aromas of the spilled food were all around me now, I forced myself to very carefully inspect each piece of fruit before I salvaged it. I placed my rescued meal back onto the tray and took it to my desk. The sight of the spilled and ruined food on the floor was almost more than I could stand. I draped the soiled napkin over it, and then hurried to my broken meal. When, an hour later, I had finished the last tiny morsel of bread, I sighed and set myself to the task of cleaning up the spilled mess.

It was only as I knelt like a penitent before the glass-strewn remnants of what should have been my meal that I forced myself to admit that my increased weight was not the only way the magic had changed me. Once I would have been too proud to salvage a meal that had fallen on the floor. Now the importance of food went far beyond its ability to nourish me. Even the pleasure I felt in the sensation of eating was secondary to another, deeper change in me.

I built my new body to house my magic.

The moment I framed the thought, I felt the rightness of it. Yes, I was fat. But I was strong now, stronger than I had ever been. And over the days of forced privation and heavy labor, I had noticed changes in myself. My body produced very little waste now. The despised chamber pot had gone largely unused. I noticed a stillness to my body that seemed new to me, in that when I sat still and studied, I felt my body sink into a greater state of rest. It reminded me of being suspended in water, or of awareness hovering in that nether place between sleep and wakefulness. I suspected that my internal workings had become terribly, terribly efficient, and that whenever I was not using my arm or my leg, it went into a suspension beyond simple rest.

I used what was left of the wash water in my basin to wet the napkin and clean my floor. I put the wet napkin and dishes and broken crockery on the tray and set it aside.

It took every bit of self-discipline I had to follow my routine that evening. I studied the lessons I’d set for myself, and faithfully entered the whole incident into my journal. I did not write there the questions that swarmed through my brain. How far would my father go in his quest to prove himself right? Would he let me die of starvation? I did not think so, but I was no longer certain.

CHAPTER NINE

PLAGUE

I came to awareness the next morning when the early summer sunlight reached through the window and touched my skin. It was simple comfort, one blessing that never changed. I closed my eyes and steeped my soul in it.

I arose at my usual time. As always, I washed and dressed and made up my bed. Then I sat down on the edge of it to await what the day might bring.