Probably not.
'And now that you have it, you don't like it?' the unicorn asked archly.
'I said—ow!'
In his moment of irritated distraction, the knife had slipped, scoring a thin slice across the end of one of Kellen's fingers. Kellen stuck the wounded digit into his mouth and sucked on it mutinously. 'I said,' he mumbled around the finger, 'that it's different.'
The pain subsided. He removed the finger from his mouth and inspected the cut. It wasn't very deep, and the bleeding had already stopped. Kellen took a deep breath, knowing already from the unicorn's tone that Shalkan wouldn't stop prodding at him until he was properly answered. 'I don't know yet whether I like it—being free and out of the City—or not. I don't know much about it yet. But I know one thing; it's better to be here than dead. And I know another; it's better to be myself, with all of my memories—or most of them, anyway—and my mind intact, than to be Lycaelon's obedient puppet with half my mind gone. Now, since I don't have a lot of choice about being here and 'free,' I guess I'd better try my best to like it, hadn't I?'
'A good answer,' Shalkan said, nodding. 'And lesson number one about surviving in the Wild Lands, Kellen: always pay attention to everything around you and especially to the task at hand.'
Then Shalkan added, soberly, 'Even—or perhaps especially—when people try to distract you from your purpose.'
WITHIN a few days, the rhythm of the days with his sister had settled into a pattern. They rose at an earlier hour than he would ever have considered possible in the City, but Kellen rapidly came to appreciate the sheer beauty of the dawn here in Idalia's forest. There were no bells, but every day began with a chorus of birdsong long before the sun was visible, with mysterious threads of fog weaving among the quiet trees. The light gradually increased, and there was a sense of anticipation in the air as the new day began. Then, suddenly, the glory of sunrise—and Idalia took care that they both paused for a moment to appreciate and evaluate it, for the sunrise often gave a clue to the weather for the coming day.
Then he joined her in putting together breakfast, watching and learning the art of cookery, which at the moment was as esoteric for him as that of magick would be for the common Armethaliehan. Then—then the day's work began, a series of alternating chores and lessons in various aspects of the Wild Magic. And even if he didn't consciously remember her from his childhood, there was some sort of visceral memory remaining that made Kellen feel more comfortable with Idalia than he had ever felt with anyone else.
That was a bit unnerving at first, but it did make life with someone who was otherwise a total stranger a lot easier. Though life in the Wildwood was hard, based on unremitting physical labor dawn to dusk, Idalia didn't ask any more of him in the way of physical labor than he could do, though she certainly didn't ask any less, either.
On the other hand, when he watched her swinging an axe, chopping the wood for the fire that cooked their food and warmed them at night, Kellen felt rather guilty that a lot of the time he was lying about doing nothing while a woman did the work, and was just as glad, all things considered, when she did give him things to do.
And every day, as she showed him some other small and practical use of Wild Magic, he began to realize that she'd been telling him the simple truth upon his arrival: here in the Wildwood, she was particularly noted for Healing Spells. Given how she had healed him (and presumably Shalkan), Kellen didn't find himself actually surprised to learn that, and slowly, almost without his noticing, his amazement that a female could do magic faded completely away.
Of course women could do magic. Didn't he see his sister doing magic every day?
'WILD Magic is especially good for healing—almost anything is a Healing Spell when you come right down to it,' Idalia told him a sennight after his arrival, as she used Wild Magic to heal the ankle he'd strained while fishing in a rocky-strewn brook, explaining to him that she was also going to strengthen it so that he wouldn't repeat the injury.
Though Kellen had thought he was in pretty good physical condition from his rambles about the City, he wasn't used to clambering about on the uneven ground out here in the wilderness, much less in the treacherous streambed of the shallow stream that ran behind the cabin, and had turned his foot on a hidden stone. As usual in these lessons, he sat on the chopping stump, and she on the ground, looking up at him. He wondered if that was a deliberate choice on her part, to make the lessons as little like the ones with Anigrel as possible, though of course she could have no idea what those had been like. Anigrel had always looked down at him from a position of authority. Idalia managed to have the authority without needing to make an issue of it.
'Something like this is trivial, and I can use a keystone to supply all the power I need, but for more substantial injuries, sometimes there is a substantial price to pay. Now, that's often paid solely by the Wildmage.'
She held her hands around his ankle, and Kellen could feel a soothing warmth radiating from them that was far more than just the heat of her hands.
'That hardly seems fair,' he objected. 'The Mage isn't getting anything out of it!'
'Ah, not necessarily,' she corrected. 'The Mage—or Wildmage—often gets paid in goods or services; that's part of the whole system of barter out here. Now, as it happens, besides that payment, or instead of it, the Wildmage can share out the price the Wild Magic asks for the healing with her patient, if the injury is severe
