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monologue. “To make sure they are healing properly.”
    Cassandra nodded, and the little man smiled reassuringly.
    “I’ll try to be careful,” Methodis warned her, “but this may hurt. Your injuries were severe.”
    Reaching out slowly, he began to unwrap the bandages that bound her left leg to its splint. His touch was gentle, but practiced and sure, and it didn’t take him long to unwrap the dressing and expose the limb.
    “This is…unexpected,” he said once he was finished, clearly perplexed.
    “Is something wrong?”
    “Far from it. You are healing far better than I could have hoped for.” From his tone, Cassandra knew there was more he wasn’t saying.
    “Isn’t that a good thing?”
    Methodis hesitated briefly before replying.
    “Your injuries were extensive. Your skin was nothing but black-and-purple splotches. The bones of your legs weren’t just broken; they had basically been shattered. The tendons and muscles were mangled and crushed, as if some great force had slammed into your legs over and over. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
    He knows you caused the earthquake!
Rexol shouted in warning.
    No, you caused it,
Cassandra snapped back.
I stopped you.
    “I did my best to set and splint them,” Methodis continued, unaware of the silent debate raging inside his patient’s thoughts, “but I feared you would never walk properly again…if at all.
    “But the bones are already mending, and the bruising is almost completely gone.”
    “Then my recovery is a tribute to your talents,” Cassandra suggested.
    The old doctor shook his head.
    “This has nothing to do with me,” he insisted. “I’ve heard tales of the Order’s physical prowess. Rumors of unbelievable speed and strength. Incredible stamina. Remarkable healing powers. But I never imagined anything like this.”
    This is not just because of the Order’s teachings,
Rexol chimed in.
It’s the Crown. You’re instinctively drawing on its power.
    “How much longer until I can walk again?” Cassandra asked, ignoring the wizard.
    “I really can’t say,” Methodis admitted. “If you continue to heal at this rate, another week or two, perhaps.”
    I don’t have that much time,
Cassandra thought, recalling something Methodis had told her the first time she had regained consciousness under his care. The Order was descending on the city. Even now, she suspected, Yasmin would have Inquisitors scouring the streets looking for her.
    You could be fully healed in a few days if you embrace your full potential,
Rexol reminded her.
All you have to do is let me teach you.
    “I can’t stay here,” Cassandra told him. “You’ve put yourself in great danger by taking me in. If the Order discovers what you’ve done, you will be burned at the stake as a heretic.”
    “If defying the Order makes one a heretic, the Pontiff will have to burn down the entire city,” he replied with a shrug.
    “What do you mean?”
    “When the Pontiff declared her Purge, Callastan refused to bow down,” he said, an unmistakable hint of pride in his voice. “Too many of us remember the last time. The senseless executions. The mindless fear that turned neighbors against each other.
    “For all its failings, Callastan at least has the courage to defy the Pontiff. When she declared the Purge, we responded by exiling all her followers.”
    “I thought the earthquake changed all that,” Cassandra said. “When I woke up the first time, you told me the city was in ruins. You said there were riots in the streets. You told me the Order was coming to claim what was left of the city.”
    “I feared the worst,” Methodis admitted. “Callastan is a mosaic of every sin and vice you could imagine. But despite this, or possibly because of it, there is a strength among its people. From the corrupt rulers to the ruthless crime lords all the way down to the cunning pickpockets who work the crowds at the market, all the citizens share one single trait: They do not bow