"Her magic reached... like glowing hands... into his ruined heart."
Gifted with boundless compassion, Iminique loves even when she shouldn't. She heals those who possibly don't deserve it. But her generous heart demands she dispel all the ills that she can.
And thus, in secret, she defies her father's edict that she never use her magic.
At her first royal ball, however, when she's only thirteen summers old, a single mistake sends repercussions across her entire life: she pits her pitiful, untrained, untried, and loving magic against a nameless, faceless mage who is trying to steal the life of a royal infant.
Without mercy, the wizard unravels her magic and seizes her soul. As she blunders inside his magical prison, though, she experiences an agony that is not hers.
It's his.
In her final moments, her healing reaches into him, into the soul of this wrecked man, and she patches up what damage she can.
Abruptly, the mage lets her go, leaving both her and the royal babe alive.
Nothing is the same again.
The mage now has access to Iminique's thoughts. He spies on her life. He can keep her from speaking any accusations that would condemn him.
Though she's still only thirteen, Iminique becomes the royal nanny, caring for the princess she saved—a princess no one wants. The king is indifferent, the queen is hateful, the servants spiteful. Their apathy dooms Iminique to days of thankless drudgery with no one to help.
Except for him. The selfsame mage who nearly slew the infant and her.
Fate makes him Iminique's ally, but he holds his truths close, and as the years pass and she grows into adulthood, she is polarized between his ugly truths... and his increasingly beautiful love.
TW: witness of captives being bred in enemy territory (not experienced by any heroine); a few captives make the decision to give up the lives of the unborn enemies within them; a few brief (non-graphic) scenes of marital abuse (not with the hero and NOT for titillation)
