"I'm not certain," Ilde lies in response. "It's a strange sensation, stranger still to acknowledge it and receive these results."

A gesture with her hand to the things around them. The truth is that she cannot create illusions of anything she herself has not suffered. She can't reach into anyone else's mind and pull out their fear, only project her own. And she has seen so many an ugly thing. She had absorbed the magic from king Dreus as he lay dying, but it was also his reign of terror over her entire life which had given her so much fodder.

"And I am not very fond of snakes."

In the caravan, as a war orphaned child, snakes had been just one of many ills waiting to pick off refugees in the night.