How could Lakkan be dead? I’d seen him only the afternoon before in Cal’s room, the three of us practising transferring magical energy into and out of vessels and each other. He’d teased me about the plate of cakes I chewed my way through while we worked, and said it was no wonder I was getting so big. Then he wanted to feel the baby kicking. He was so real and solid and normal, and now he was dead, gone like summer mist. It was an accident at the guards’ barracks, Tisha said. Lakkan had been training, and then he’d stopped to rest, taking off some of his protective gear, since it was so hot. He’d been standing in the shade with a group of other mage guards, sharing a flask of water, when a stray arrow had caught him in the throat. He dropped like a tree, his blood gushing into the sand. There were healers there in a few heartbeats but no one had been able to save him. We went to find Cal, and Tisha told her story all over again, her voice catching.
