Monster, Monarch, Maiden

Part Four Cathira

Part Four

Cathira

Don’t be lulled into complacency. Healing is one of the rarest and most dangerous Gifts. There is a story often told to first-year

students about the Iolan prince who tried to heal a shepherdess. She was caught out in the sun, and her lips blistered and

peeled. He used his Gift to renew her skin but found that he had sealed her lips together permanently. Her family was forced

to cut her face open with a knife to feed her. For this reason, I highly recommend contracting the services of a master anatomist

to teach your boy all the ways of the human body before letting him loose with his magic.

—Master Lagramor Filia, dean of the college of magic, in a letter to Princess Serith of Iola