Emma breathed out heavily in relief, reclining her head at her bed's board, as Prescott communicated to her that the queen was out of the clutches of death. Now she could leave, without feeling weird about doing so.

She had been scared out of her wits when the Queen had slumped to the floor after dismissing the council. She remembered the shouts and gasps from the council. It had been a flood of movements after that. The boys carrying the queen to her chambers, the elders moving in, calling out to the healer in the community, an aged woman who had been dressed in just a light wrapper, knotted at...