As the weeks passed, Yunho watched Kari become more and more focused on her studies.  It was like she was trying to make up for her mistake by learning as much as she could in as short amount of time possible.  And she learned breathtakingly fast.  Before the accident, he had actually been ahead of her in every subject they were being forced to learn.  But now, she flew past him at an amazing rate.  She learned things (not memorized, but learned) so fast that it left him dazed.  Of course, she spent pretty much every waking moment studying something.  For the first few days, she didn’t get much further than she had been.  It made Yunho think that she hadn’t done much studying at all before this.  She didn’t let that stop her, though.

Reina came by often to give progress reports on the maid’s recovery, but there were no more lessons in magic.  Yunho could tell that frustrated Kari to no end.  She studied everything but the one thing she thought could help fix her mistake.  He was afraid for her.  She didn’t seem to take time enough to eat or sleep.  It was as if she was trying to prove to Reina that she was ready to focus on magic by running herself into the ground with her non-magical studies.  Plus, she wouldn’t talk to him.  For the first time since they were brought here, he wasn’t trying to avoid her and she refused to speak to him!  He stuck by her side as often as he could and even had his class schedule realigned to match with hers, but still, she never said a word to him that wasn’t absolutely necessary. 

Three days after Kari was allowed to leave her bed, Reina came to him.

“Majesty, I understand that you have a lot going on, but I would like to ask you to watch out for your wife.  Kari is going to end up hurting herself if she continues on like this.  The servants informed me that she hasn’t been eating, she barely sleeps.  This isn’t good for her.”

“Reina, I know.  What do you want me to do?”

“She won’t listen to me.  She keeps asking me to restart your magic classes, but I don’t feel she’s ready for it.  She still isn’t completely healed from her accident.  I need you to make sure she gets plenty of rest and food.”

He tried.  He really did.  Kari refused to listen to him.  For two weeks, she ate very little and slept even less.  She was trying too hard, and it took quite a toll on her body.  Her cheeks hollowed, there were bags under her eyes, and her eyes seemed bloodshot.  She was pushing herself too hard.  Yunho decided he was just going to have to put his foot down.

It was late the night Yunho decided that enough was enough.  He knew Kari would be in her bedroom, reading some book on law or history or something.  Sure enough, Kari didn’t even look up from the book she was reading as he walked in.  There were no hu’um in the room, but the light from the twin moons was plenty bright enough to read by.  Even in her weakened state, she still looked beautiful to him. 

“Kari?”

She glanced at him, then pointedly went back to reading.  Yunho sighed.  This was going to be interesting.

“Kari, I’m worried about you.”

She ignored him.  It surprised him how much that hurt.  Was this how she felt when he had been avoiding her?

Alright, then.  If she was going to be like this, he was going to force her to talk to him.  He walked over to the bed and stood in her light.  She still didn’t look up at him.  He sat down next to her.  Anger flooded him when she scooted away.  Was she holding a grudge about him avoiding her before the accident?  Well, even if she was, this was no way to get back at him.  He took the book and slammed it down on the bedside table.

“Really?  What did my book ever do to you?”  At least she finally spoke to him.

“Did you not hear me?  I said I was worried about you.”

“You shouldn’t be.”

“Why not?”

“Because, I’m fine.  Now, give me my book back.  I wanna finish the chapters on fishing law before our lesson with Nia tomorrow.” 

“No.”

“Dare I ask?  Why?”

“You’ve been working too hard.  At this rate, you’re going to end up back in the Acyian t’Lialn_.”  She didn’t answer, but just stared at him with bloodshot eyes.  She definitely wasn’t thinking clearly and she needed sleep.  “Go to bed.  You need to get some rest.”

“What I need is amazing healing abilities, which I’m never going to get if Reina doesn’t start teaching me magic again.”

“And you think that by killing yourself, you’ll somehow get Reina to teach you to heal?”

“I’m not in any danger.”

“Sure.”

“I’m not.”

“Then why are your hands shaking?”  She tried to move away, but he caught her hands.  “You’re hands are freezing.  What?  Have you been holding ice, lately?”

“No.”  She pulled her hands away and he let go.  “There’s nothing wrong with me.”  Her shadowed, bloodshot eyes said differently.  Yunho shook his head.  It was time for a new tactic.  He kicked off his shoes and pulled the covers out from underneath them.  Yunho put one arm around her and pulled the covers back over them, trapping them both underneath.  He held her in his arms as she struggled weakly to escape.

“Let go.”

“No.  I’m going to hold you like this until you go to sleep.”  He could almost feel her glaring at him.  After a few more tries, she stopped trying to escape his grasp.  He could tell she wasn’t happy about it, but she just didn’t have the strength to resist any longer.

“You sleepy, yet?”

“Of course.  I’m already asleep, didn’t you know?  Now, let go of me.”

Heka watch the monitor, bored completely out of his mind.  The monitor showed him a map of Elanari territory.  It was connected to a sensor attached somewhere on the galaxy class starship that was built to find magical energy.  Nothing ever changed on the monitor.  Heka had been working on the starship, staring at the monitor day after day for six years and he had never seen anything pop up on the monitor.  After all, it was designed only to pick up powerful sources of magic, and the Elanari were far too careful with their magic to let it get out of hand enough to be sensed. 

A pale hand clasped his shoulder and brought him out of his stupor.  One of the engineers who worked in the science station had come over to bother him.

“What’s wrong, Hekanu – whatever.  You get such a good job, don’t have to do anything but sleep all day.  All because you’re a magicker.  So lucky.  I wish I had been born with magic, so I could get a job like you.”  Heka ignored him.  He was used to this kind of conduct from pretty much every member of the crew.  All of them had black eyes.  He had rainbow eyes that shown with myriad colors in the light.  The mark of magic set him apart from everyone else in a society where magical ability had been dying out for hundreds of years.  It wasn’t like he had asked to be born with magic.  Besides, his magical ability was so weak that he might as well not even have it.  He could only find his magic half the time, and even if he managed to get a hold of it, there was nothing he could do with it.  The only thing it gave him was the color of his eyes and the ability to see magic. 

The engineer glared at him for a moment, but soon lost interest and walked away.  The thing that really annoyed Heka was the crew’s insistence on reminding him of his full name:  Hekanuurikanim.  It meant ‘one who sleeps well’.  Why?  Why had his grandparents given him that awful name?  Even the stupid ones his parents had suggested were better than that.  But, naming a child was the grandparents’ job and, for some reason, his had decided on that one.  That name alone was almost as bad as the label ‘magicker’.  In their society, the black eyes were the people without magic.  Those who could use magic, the people with rainbow colored eyes, were called magickers.  Less than .5% of his people were born with magic, and those who were, were given everything.  The best schooling, the best jobs, the best places to live.  Heka’s living quarters on the starship were nicer than even the general’s living quarters.  And this was the general’s flagship!  But, the general, like everyone else aboard the starship, was a black eyes.  Those with magic were supposed to be given the best of everything, because they were the best hope for their race.  Having magic was supposed to be a blessing.  Heka thought it was a curse.  He often wondered what he had done to deserve such a horrible curse.  If he was going to be hated for having magic, why couldn’t he at least have enough magic to actually do something useful with it?  Why did he have to be so weak? 

Something flickered on the screen.  Heka didn’t notice it at first, but after a few seconds it registered in his mind.  Someone had let a powerful burst of magic get out of control.  Right in the middle of Elanari territory.  The blip on the screen meant that someone, powerful even for an Elanari, had lost control of their magic for a moment.  But, the Elanari never lost control.  Did this mean that they had finally figured out how to have children again?  Only an Elanari child could produce a magical burst of energy of that magnitude.  But, the Elanari haven’t been able to have children for almost three centuries.  Heka shook his head.  He had a job to do; he couldn’t be sitting here wondering if the Elanari finally had a child.  He had to let the general know about this.  Ignoring the looks from the engineers and scientists in the room, Heka strode quickly to the door and made his way to the bridge. 

The starship was a busy place.  People in uniform walked quickly down the corridor all around Heka, ignoring him or sneering at him depending on their level of jealousy of the curse of magic.  Didn’t they have anything better to do?  He passed a window and had to look away before it made him sick.  The space outside the starship looked warped.  He had never been able to stand looking at it for very long.  Of course, space looked warped because it was warped.  That’s how the ship was able to travel so fast without breaking the laws of physics.  Heka didn’t really understand it, but apparently they could collapse the space in front of the ship and expand the space behind the ship to travel faster than light.  So, they weren’t really moving, but space was moving around them.  And, he had been taught that there were no restrictions on how fast space itself moved.  So, they could travel between star systems within their own galaxy at speeds 3 and 4 times the speed of light.  Which, if he had had any interest at all in physics, would’ve been pretty cool to Heka.  As it was, looking at the results of it just made him queasy. 

He made it to the bridge without looking through any more windows.  The general, standing in the middle of the empty room, turned to him as he walked in.

“Yes, Heka?”  At least the general used his nickname.

“I saw something on the monitor, sir.”

The general’s black eyes glittered with excitement.  “Are you sure?  An Elanari finally lost control of their magic?”

Heka nodded.  He wondered why it was so important to know whether or not one of the Elanari ever lost control of their magic.  It wasn’t as if they were anywhere close to the powerful Elanari.  But, they were at war with them.  It had been a long war so far, at least a decade.  Both sides had realized that neither of them actually wanted to win over the other.  Heka’s people had come to the Elanari for help with their magic problem about a century ago.  The Elanari had refused, and the Tu (Heka’s race) had finally gotten desperate enough to try to force them to help.  After all, they had better firepower and more manpower than the dying race of the Elanari.  And, they desperately wanted their magical abilities back.  Though, how they expected the Elanari to help with that was beyond Heka. 

“Yes, sir.  I believe they may finally deliver on their promise.  The child will be ours soon.”  The general was speaking to a hologram.  He had forgotten Heka was still in the room.  What child?  What could the Tu possibly want with an Elanari child? 

“Of course, sir.  The Elanari will probably try to keep it from us for a while.  They do have three years left before their agreement becomes void and we destroy them.  I will, personally, go investigate.  We should be there in a few months.”  The hologram winked out and the general stood impassively in the middle of the, again, empty room.  Heka didn’t know what was going on, but he knew the general would probably not be happy to catch him still on the bridge.  He backed quietly out of the room, leaving the general to whatever plans he was forming for the Elanari.  Heka actually felt sorry for whatever child the Elanari had finally been able to have.  Apparently, they weren’t going to have it for long.