The Lowest Healer and the Highest Mage by Hiyodori

 

Release date: February 11, 2022

Subgenre: Fantasy romance

 

About The Lowest Healer and the Highest Mage:

 

“I never forgot the sound of you calling for me. Not for a second.”

The Lowest Healer and the Highest Mage is a slow-burn f/f romance set in an original modern-era fantasy world, featuring a magical tower with countless curious rooms. It’s a story of friends to enemies to reluctant allies, guilty secrets, love mixed inextricably with hate, fragile second chances, and the true price of boundless magical power.

In a country where mages have all the power and healers supposedly only exist to support them, Clematis—a talented healer—is despised for her past attempts to defy the mageocracy. In her early thirties, she’s already on year seven of a life sentence for treason.

But when the most powerful mage in the nation suddenly loses all her magic, the government wants unconventional Clematis to help get it back.

The mage is a tall, distant woman called Wist, and Clematis knows her all too well. They used to be classmates. Best friends. Perhaps more. Wist is also the person who reported Clematis for leaking state secrets. She’s the reason Clematis spent the last seven years in prison.

Clematis wants revenge for her betrayal, but she wants freedom even more. She’s got thirty days to recover Wist’s magic: miss the deadline, and she’ll be shunted back to prison for the rest of her life. Yet attempting to resurrect Wist’s lost magic will force her to face the real reason why Wist betrayed her—and to face her unresolved, unspoken feelings for the mage who stabbed her in the back and walked away.

 

Excerpt:

 

Wist put the heavy wet bathrobe down gently on one of the pool chairs. Empty-handed now, she turned to me.

 
“Clematis,” she said, “If I absolutely have to bond a healer, I want to bond with you. But it’s up to you. You can tell me no.”

I couldn’t help myself. I looked up at Wist looming there next to me. Like she had all the time in the world. Like she would be content to stand here patiently bickering with me in the darkness until we both withered away into skeletons. Was she doing this on purpose? I wondered wildly. She couldn’t possibly have engineered a better way to grind my pride to dust. But I could still save myself. She’d said it herself. All I had to do was tell her no.

“How”—oh, listen to that, my voice cracked—“How could you ever expect me to say yes?”

Wist watched as if waiting for me to elaborate. As if elaboration were even necessary. When I turned toward her, she was so close that I didn’t have to look at her face anymore. I could just stare at the round neckline of her dark red scab-colored sweatshirt as if talking straight into the wall of an empty room.

 
She still smelled the same, even after all these years—despite the fact that during my time in prison, I couldn’t have recalled or properly described the first thing about her scent. I just instantly knew that it was the same as before, and it was hers. Wist was still Wist. I’d gladly stab another knife into my leg if only it would let me turn around and walk away and forget her.

“Wist,” I said to her neckline. “Remember when they arrested me? You were there in the room. Nostalgic, right? Remember how I called out to you? You didn’t even turn your head. I kept saying your name. I was so confused. They started to haul me away. I started to struggle. I reached for you. I begged for help. Do you even remember that? Were you even listening?”

I heard her breath catch. Or perhaps it was mine. I felt a hand—tentative, barely there—on my head. “Don’t—touch—me.” By now I could barely get the words out. Wist immediately let go.

 
I had to clench everything to keep it together—my eyes squeezed shut, my fingers gripping the edges of the long bathrobe sleeves, my lungs burning in my chest. At least I managed to force a semblance of calm back into my voice. “Well, I know why you’re trying to choose me.” I opened my eyes again.

Wist actually took a step back. “You do?”

 

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About Hiyodori: 

Hiyodori is not a bird. But she is dearly fond of her namesake, a rather plain-looking brown-gray bird that likes to perch near her Tokyo apartment and unleash the most incredible primal screams. Hiyodori (the human author) loves stories with fantastical settings and complicated, difficult-to-define relationships. The Lowest Healer and the Highest Mage is her first published novel, but it certainly won’t be her last! She is currently busy working on a follow-up story.