by Elin Macsen
The hot, stale air of the train and the rhythmic churn of the tracks lulled the young woman into a trance. By the time they reached the station in Cambridge, Evelyn was asleep. The heavy history book lay open across her thighs.
The train lurched to a stop. She awoke to find Victor steadying the tome before it fell from her lap, his eyes filled with caution and sympathy.
“I’m fine,” she snapped, rubbing her eyes.
“Of course you are.” He plucked the book out of her reach and tucked it under his arm. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER THREE
THE PROPHECY
Kingsvale College
Cambridge, England
Impera under Imperium
June 30th, 1943
It was an unusually hot day in Cambridge. The air was stagnant with an oppressive heat. Unlike the university’s other colleges, which only granted degrees in non-magical subjects, the sole Magidae college in England held its graduation ceremony far from the Senate House. The audience and graduands sat in stifling heat in a courtyard on the grounds of Kingsvale College.
A film of sweat clung between Evelyn Gant's shoulder blades in the audience. She wore a white dress that tucked sharply at the waist and flared at the knee. For the first time since her suspension, she did not envy her brother his black academic robe. Still, it was impossible to feel at ease.
Every time she shifted her father winced. Peter Gant stared ahead with ox-like focus, ignoring the heat and the shame implied in Evelyn's every fidgeting motion.
From the stage, Vice-Chancellor Sutton gazed serenely at his audience until his eyes found her. Evelyn was easy to pick out in the crowd. Untamed red curls tumbled around her face and partly concealed eyes that were still swollen from tears. Tendrils spilled from where she had pinned them on her crown. She blushed under her smattering of freckles and looked away as the headmaster's feathery white brows knit into a frown. She felt disapproval from all sides.
Ivar was wrong, she told herself. I shouldn’t have come.
The ceremony was not really for the audience. The proceedings were conducted almost entirely in Latin, a tradition honed by centuries of privilege. Perhaps if she sat among the graduands, Evelyn would have felt the majesty of the ceremony. Excluded as she was, she found the droning hollow and repetitive.
Higher degrees were presented first by the Praelector. Evelyn glanced at her father and noted the beads of sweat on his tan, lined brow. He spoke not a jot of Latin besides that which was required for spellcasting. It wasn’t like him to perspire, even in this heat—it must be nerves. She took a pen and small notebook from her purse and wrote an English translation of the part that concerned Victor:
Most worthy Vice-Chancellor and the whole University, I present to you this man, whom I know to be suitable as much by character as by learning to proceed to the degree of ‘Bachelor of Arts’; for which I pledge my faith to you and to the whole University.
She pressed it into his hand, though he would not take it at first. He must be as nervous as I am, she thought. When he finally took the page from her and read it, gratitude spread across his features. At once, she felt truly loathsome for her refusal to attend the ceremony.
Finally, the Praelector took Victor by the hand and presented him to Vice-Chancellor Sutton. “… Idque tibi fide mea praesto totique Academiae.”
His name was called: “Victor Apollon Gant.”
Victor stepped forward on long legs and knelt before Sutton, who clasped his hands. A gust of wind tousled his hair, throwing a lock of red up in a cowlick as he grinned euphorically. Evelyn did not have to see his face: she saw the answering scowl on Sutton’s. The Vice-Chancellor nevertheless began the phrase already uttered ad infinitum that devilishly hot afternoon:
“Auctoritate mihi commissa—”
But at that moment, a boom shook the ground and sky. Bolts of light pierced the air, striking the earth on either side of the dais. The heavens roared. Plumes of smoke rose from the ground, forming enormous helices that merged with low, purple storm clouds. Shadow and light wrestled in the sky.
In the raging belly of the storm a dreadful music hummed. It was silky and sweet like honey. It was high and shrieking like the clash of metal on metal. The sound became louder, overwhelming the fury of the storm. Gradually, the thunder faded. A dark and terrible voice joined the chorus of the skies:
“Blood rivers bind the worlds,
Their tide stemmed by the Victorious Gant.
In Hell Death’s reign ends
Rising to the bounds of Heaven."
The audience was in disarray. A few parents had drawn their wands but seemed unsure how to use them in this situation. Women shrieked and children sobbed. Sutton was forcefully leading Victor from the dais even before the prophecy finished. As soon as it ended, lightning cracked through the skies leaving a horrible, ugly scar. This remained even as the clouds and thunder receded.
Evelyn fought to get to Victor and found her own father was holding her back.
“Let me go with him!”
“This isn’t about you.” He was firm.
“But I want to know—”
“Know nothing. This is sacred. It’s not a time for your excessive curiosity. We will go back to the hotel and wait for him.”
The ceremony was clearly over. Audience and graduates alike had fled for cover at the first appearance of the cosmic event.
Already the air was beginning to cool. A fine mist came from the sky, a mix of ash and fog. Evelyn looked down at her now-ruined white dress in dismay.
“Fine. Let’s go.”
She led the way. Blood rivers… worlds… Victorious Gant… the words burned into her mind as they bundled into a cab.
CHAPTER FOUR
VALDIS
The Gant Estate
West Hall, Brampton
Cumbria, England
Impera under Imperium
July 6th, 1943
Abarn owl warbled contentedly in the eaves of the hayloft. Evelyn reclined against a bale and closed her eyes as she imagined the spell described in her book. After the confiscation of her wand, this was all she had.
On balance, wandless study of magic on the farm was no better or worse than any of her classes at Kingsvale. Even her degree in ‘Theoretical Sorcery’ was almost entirely the former and only very rarely the latter. When she found opportunities to skulk away from her chores, she rotated through a series of warrens and hiding spots.
Since she began hiding in this attic under the roof of the barn, a mated pair of owls had built their nest. Evelyn took great pleasure in checking on their progress.
Now she turned the words of the spell over in her mind, knitting the syllables together and feeling their power in the flush of her cheeks and the rise of her breath.
Somnificat elemis.
A dark shadow gathered to her thoughts. Even without a wand to guide the flow of magic from her fingertips she felt them tingle with the spark of something. Why, Evelyn wondered, did we never sit in silence like this at Kingsvale and allow a spell to subsume every thought?
Focusing solely on the words, she bit her lip and felt the shadow shift and darken. It weighed on her physically. She suddenly found it hard to breathe as air was pressed from her lungs. As she lost herself in the sensation, her hands began to tremble.
The spell was supposed to conceal the use of magic, though without a wand, she couldn’t test whether it had succeeded. In her heart she felt that it must have worked. Opening her eyes, she reached for the spellbook and reviewed the construction of the charm. She sighed. As useful as this was, it was no distraction from what truly clouded her thoughts.
Victor had not yet returned from Cambridge. Nobody had sent for them or explained anything from that day, so the prophecy remained a mystery. Her father seemed to find her interest in it rather selfish. Perhaps it was; perhaps she envied her brother’s great destiny. Maybe she was a little ambitious after all, even beyond her desire for knowledge.
Pe
ter Gant was a peasant by choice, not by birth. Her grandparents hadn’t worked the vast acreage of the estate. In their generation, the land was left to farmhands aided by magical devices that were now mostly scattered and broken. All that remained of the ancestral spells were runes carved into a post at the head of each paddock and into the lintel above every barn’s entrance.
The door creaked open and a ray of light penetrated the barn.
“Evelyn?”
She jumped up, nearly hitting her head on a beam. It was Victor. One of the owls cooed in dismay at the sudden excitement. In a second, she was scrambling down the ladder to meet him.
“You have to tell me everything. Where have you been?” she ploughed into him and carried her momentum into a hug, nearly knocking him off his feet. He laughed and, after a moment, pried her arms apart so he could escape.
“What do you want to know?” he smiled. “Dad’s looking for you, by the way. He said you were off ‘getting into trouble’ somewhere.”
“What does the prophecy mean? What ‘worlds’? What are the ‘rivers of blood’? And why have you been gone for a week?”
“Let’s go inside. I’ll tell you everything I know, which isn’t much. They kept me for a week to test me against Sentinels. They were trying to see if I possessed any unnatural abilities.”
They loped through fields and cut across pastures on the route to the house. Though it was nearly time for dinner, the sun hung high in the sky’s summer haze.
“Do you?” They hopped a fence and skirted the cattle.
“Nothing more than an exceptionally polished disarming charm, thanks to their efforts at the same,” he scoffed. “I’m not a warrior by nature. You know that. I told them I was hoping for a clerkship in legerdemain, not a prophecy about saving the world.”
Legerdemain, a French term for ‘lightness of hand’, referred to the branch of Magical Law dealing in contracts bound by spells. Evelyn had often wondered whether her brother preferred finance or law. She let this answer settle as they approached the back of the house.
Victor opened the door of the conservatory leading to the kitchen. “After you,” he said. He was always a gentleman.
In the kitchen, Ivar was slicing farm-ripened tomatoes into a salad while a chicken turned over garlic and potatoes in the hearth. It was sweltering in this small room at the back of the house.
“Guess who’s home?” Evelyn announced.
“Why, bless my soul—” but before the servant could go on, though he seemed unable to as tears gathered in his clouded eyes, Victor scooped him into a hug and kissed him on both cheeks.
“Missed you too, old man.”
“It does my heart good to have both you children at home. I didn’t think I’d see you again, Mr. Victor. Now, get out of the way. Wash up. Dinner is almost ready.”
Their father was already at the dinner table when they approached. He brooded over purchase contracts and yield forecasts. When his right hand wasn’t grasping a pen, it performed calculations with an Arithmometer. He was so lost in contemplation that he blandly murmured, “Yes, yes,” in greeting as Victor and Evelyn scraped their chairs back across the wood floor and sat at the table.
“Can I help, dad?” Victor asked keenly. If he was a wizard at anything, it was Economancy. Their father started.
“Victor, you’re back so soon?” His hands were shaking as he pushed the machinery and papers away. Evelyn frowned. Something was wrong. Peter Gant pressed his son’s hand and glanced between his two children. “We’ll talk about all that after dinner. Now. What can you tell us?”
As Victor described the events of the last week, Evelyn placed her chin in her hands and let her food go cold. She could hardly believe the tales her brother laid before them. Rushed to the Vice-Chancellor’s office, he was confronted by Abner Sutton and no less a personage than Magnus Godfrey, who sat at the helm of the High Court of the International Magidae Alliance.
The Alliance managed lands under the control of Imperium. Some corners of the globe were not yet commanded by this omni-powerful government. The wilds of Antarctica were outside its bounds. The forbidding provinces of Russia north of the Sea of Okhotsk were technically unclaimed, and the fringes of Asia hid free cities that were basically run by pirates. Small Pacific islands fell beneath the notice of Imperium. Besides these few exceptions, the Alliance oversaw the world.
Justice Godfrey conducted Victor personally to London. There he met with the general who commanded the Alliance’s military forces. Her name was Nadja Woekoff, he breathlessly explained, and she was the most powerful Felidae mage in the world. She was a war hero, known for her viciousness and fury in battle. Evelyn thought her brother sounded a little enamored with the witch. He described in detail the faint jaguar-like markings on her skin, her shorn hair and vertical pupils, and the ripple of muscle that accompanied her every movement. She wore otherworldly golden armor, apparently, and strode about with legions at her command.
After the Felidae general’s initial assessment, Victor was conducted to a training facility for Sentinels. Sentinels, of course, were Alliance officers who joined the Sentinel Guard of Imperium and defended its most important individuals.
For five days the Sentinels relentlessly trained and studied the young Cambridge graduate. He evoked with awe the barrage of spells, and the tuning of his magic like a diamond in its raw form, that ensued. They interrogated him about his parents and ancestry, though the Gant line had dwindled to this minor trio.
“They asked me all about mum,” Victor said between mouthfuls as he came to the end of his story. “But I don’t even know her surname.”
Peter Gant sat back with his arms folded across his chest.
“Neither did I. She was a nymph, if ever a thing existed. Too beautiful and sweet to live for long. She was alone in the world when I met her on our land, by the brook in the westernmost part of the forest. You used to play there as children, I think. I brought her here and we lived together for the happiest three years of my life. When you were born, Victor, you became her entire world. And Evelyn, you were born so early…” his face fell and turned white.
He never spoke of her birth, but she had seen this expression before when a simple colt’s birth had gone badly wrong. The mare and foal were fatally disfigured and horrifically damaged by the thirteen-hour labor. Peter was covered in blood and reeked of intestines and death when he came into the house for his shotgun. She had happened upon him in the hall and saw him as he was now: grim, crippled with grief, lost and barely human.
“I wish I had more answers,” he said at last, coming back from far away.
“She was a mage though, wasn’t she?” Victor pressed as gently as he could. A Hominidae woman wouldn’t have survived birthing one Magidae child, let alone two.
“Yes, yes,” their father waved this concern away. “Though she was half-wild when I met her, she was as quick with a wand as either of you. No formal training but a knack you wouldn’t believe. You should have seen the farm while she lived. Our summers were longer than anyone’s for miles around, our springs the earliest and most verdant. We had such abundance before the end. The farm you’ve come back to is a shadow of what it used to be. Well, that’s enough of that. Ivar?”
Ivar joined them discreetly after a moment. Evelyn thought she saw a tear in his eye again—she knew he had been exceptionally fond of Valdis—and guessed he had overheard the conversation.
“It will be cold tonight. We’ll want a fire in the library.”
Ivar bowed to his master and felt for the table to collect the plates. Reaching out, Evelyn grabbed his hand. “I’ll take care of it. You two should talk.”
She had every intention of accosting Ivar as soon as they finished cleaning up after the simple meal. After gathering the plates, Evelyn maneuvered the elderly servant to a chair at the kitchen table and set about washing up. She hummed as she worked. When she turned to find a towel and dry her hands, she saw tears glistening in the old man’s eyes once aga
in.
He laughed and wiped at the rims of his eyelids. “Forgive a sentimental old fool. You’ve a sweet voice, my dear. It reminds me of a time when we were happy here.”
“Was my father’s story true? He never talks of Valdis. That’s the most I’ve heard him speak of her in years.”
“Aye, mostly true.” Ivar was hoarse and took a moment to clear his throat. “He was lovestruck the moment he set eyes on her. She was a beauty. Somehow, she was as delicate as you are and just as strong as Mr. Victor. She was simple, though. I don’t know how long she was alone in that forest with only animals for friends, but it was too long. When she saw the farm machinery she screeched—a foul sound, though I loved her like a daughter. But she knew spells they’d never teach at your college, and magic seemed to love her. Your father was right about the seasons... He forgets it now, but they never seemed to have a winter.”
“My birth was terrible?”
“Bloody, but not terrible. Not like the horses. She was sick already. Don’t think your father blames you, miss. He’s lucky you lived. You were so small, sick for months from whatever claimed her…” he trailed off and gave the young woman a sad smile.
It occurred to Evelyn as she sat across from the servant that he might have some idea about the farm’s finances. He had the memory of a bank vault and the insight of a blind man, such as he was. Just as she was about to ask, her father held open the kitchen door and cleared his throat.
“You curious child,” he said in a bemused way. The lightness of his tone did not reach his eyes. He’s still a slave to her memory, she thought. “That’s enough work for one night. Let Ivar enjoy his evening.”
“The library needs a fire—” Ivar started to rise from the table. Peter set a soothing hand on his shoulder.
“Rest, friend. Come along, Evelyn.”
CHAPTER FIVE
PANTHERA & PARK