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“Or it may simply be some disease with a random pattern of remission and recurrence. There are many of them in the southlands.”
    Ramirus offered, “That is why I called Magister Colivar here as consultant.”
    The prince spread his hands wide in invitation. It was a graceful motion, infinitely polished, that almost disguised the fear lurking behind it. Almost . “What do you need from me?”
    Colivar held out his hands. After a moment the prince realized what he wanted and placed his own in them.
    Blood flowing through warm flesh, heartbeat steady, pulse weak but regular … Colivar let his senses flow into the flesh of the prince, tasting the essence of his life, assessing the purity of his mortal shell. There was no disease there, he noted. No sign of it at all. Yes, he had suspected that would be the answer, but it was such an undesirable answer he’d been hoping he was wrong.
    Diseases could be cured.
    Drawing more power from within himself, he looked deeper into the prince’s flesh, seeking anything physical that might cause such illness: parasite, infection, unnatural growths, unseen injuries… but there was nothing. A broken bone that had healed long ago, with fragments of memories adhering to it: a fall from a horse.
    And then, only then, he looked where he did not wish to look, for the answer he did not wish to find.
    At the prince’s soulfire.
    It should have been bright, in a man this young. There was no excuse for it to be otherwise. To say that his spirit’s fire was banked low and dying was the same as saying that this youth, this attractive and energetic prince, was in fact a doddering old man.
    And yet it was so.
    No disease could explain it. No injury, no tumor, no parasite.
    Only one thing.
    He looked up at Ramirus. The man’s expression was dark. Now Colivar understood why.
    “Well?” the prince asked. “See anything useful?”
    Colivar let go of the young man’s hands. And yes, now that he knew what to look for, he could see the signs of the Wasting all over him. It took everything he had to keep his expression neutral, so that the prince could not read his emotions. That was for his own protection, of course. If he knew for a fact what was killing him, there was no telling how he would react. Or how his father would react, learning of it.
    You did not exaggerate, Ramirus, when you said we were all at risk.
    “I must confer with my colleague,” he said slowly. “There are some diseases in the south with like symptoms. We must speak on them before I can be certain of a diagnosis.”
    The prince exhaled dramatically in frustration, but nodded. One did not argue with Magisters. How like a young lion he was in his aspect, Colivar thought: bold, restless, independent. If a human enemy had struck at him, no doubt he would answer the offense as a lion might, teeth bared and claws unsheathed. Yet this illness was not a thing of leonine conflict but of secrets and shadows and mysterious causes; clearly it assaulted his pride as much as his flesh that he had not yet declared victory over it.
    If the answer is what I think, my prince, there can be no victory.
    Colivar was silent as Ramirus led him from the room. He almost forgot to bow on the way out. When the door was shut behind them he stood there for a moment, still as a statue, trying to absorb what he had observed and its implications.
    “You see,” Ramirus said quietly.
    “He is doomed.”
    “Yes.”
    “And we—”
    “Shh. Wait.” Ramirus gestured for Colivar to walk with him back the way they had come. This time Colivar did not notice the dust or the faded tapestries. His thoughts were too dark and too focused for such trivia.
    When they were far enough away that neither An-dovan nor his servants could possibly overhear them, Ramirus said, “Danton suspects the truth. But he trusts me to provide a diagnosis, and I have not yet made it official.”
    “If it’s the Wasting…” Colivar breathed in sharply. “There is no