by R. K. Thorne
“Yes,” she said. “We can.” On another day she might have wavered, but something about the look in his eyes… She didn’t want to fuss or hedge. She just knew. They would because they had to. She knelt down beside Aven and looked at him solemnly. “Are you ready?” He nodded. “All right, let’s do this. I’ll start with the trees and critters around here, but I can only go so far without leaving a blackened crater of death. Then I’ll rely on you. Put this hand on my neck. Yes, that’s right.” She moved his fingers to cover the back of her neck fully. She put her hands on the boy’s arm, his skin cold and clammy under her fingers. “I suggest you close your eyes, but look toward the sun. See it behind your eyelids. Do what feels right, whatever you must to keep focused on the energy and pulling it. You can’t stop.” He nodded somberly. “When it is done, I will pull away from you—or more likely fall away. That’s when you know you can stop.”
He nodded just once, crisply.
“Ready?” she whispered, her eyes locked with his gray-green.
“Thank you, Mara.” His fingers grazed the back of her neck softly.
She did not respond. Words would have stumbled out of her mouth if she’d let them as she felt a flush of warmth.
She tightened her grip on the boy’s arm and began. She pulled slowly at first, feeling herself fill up, trying to give him a chance to catch on. Damn his insensitivity—it would only make this harder. He wasn’t made for this.
But to her surprise, she felt his energies replenish immediately, then a little more. She pulled more. “Faster now,” she whispered to him. “Ready? Going faster.”
Now there was enough to feed a little into the boy. Tiny streaks of energy went zipping from her through his veins, seeking the tears, the blood, the holes.
“More,” she demanded. She pulled more. He found more, somehow.
Now she could feel the boy’s bones, feel the blood coursing through him, the brokenness, the sick blackness that was not the Way. Healing required little thought, just great energy. The body already knew what it should do, how it should be. She simply helped it do what it was already attempting. The boy coughed, then sputtered out the blood from his lungs.
His veins pulsed with magic, his bones shook with energy. The magic coursing through them both was intoxicating. Euphoric. The body longed to heal itself—but it needed more. She was possessed by the magic now, the spell, the process. Her body and the boy’s were one system, magic flowing between them in a vortex. She lost all restraint. She lost all control. It needed more.
She drained energy as quickly as she could. The magic was in control of her now. She was a conduit, Aven was the source—and the boy would be healed.
The bones snapped and crackled in his chest. The blood fizzled. The boy screamed as his body violently and gracelessly rearranged itself. Nerves crackled with snaps and sizzles, alive again, desperately sucking every ounce of energy she had to once again—feel—alive—
She heard herself choke for breath. She saw herself, as if from just above and behind her, fall away from the boy. His eyes were wide and blue, looking around frantically, charged with the energy they’d stolen from the sun. She saw her body fall away from Aven, too, and crumple to the ground.
Chapter 10
Old Secrets
A dull, piercing pain. Darkness. Heat.
Aven’s consciousness returned slowly, orbiting around a dull knife of pain in his temple. Then he could feel his whole head ache, then the dryness of his mouth.
He lay for some time without thinking. Every part of him ached.
Slowly, thought returned. His current situation flooded back to him. He was not in his room in Estun. He was not a naïve prince holed up in a mountain anymore. He was— Mara. Where was Mara?
Nearby, he could hear children laughing, pots clanging, women talking quietly. It sounded like the kitchen in Estun. The smell of morning apple dumplings would be just wafting into the halls. He would have liked to curl up on a library window seat with his mother nearby and had a dumpling with tea. His heart twisted a little, aching at the thought.
Would he ever see her again? Did she know where he was now? Did she know about the Devoted? He had to assume she had been the sparrow watching.
Could the Devoted still be on their trail? At those thoughts, the air around him twitched unnaturally, and to his delight, he could feel that slight cold in his chest easily, right away, without trying. But with that cold feeling, the throbbing pain in his skull also intensified to the point that he had to cradle his head. Yellow splotches like stars flashed against his eyelids and faded again.
The pain stilled his thoughts and, therefore, his magic. Then the pain eased slightly.
He wiggled his toes and feet tentatively; he only felt stiffness. He clenched his fingers into fists and then stretched them back out again; they, too, seemed perfectly normal. He didn’t seem to be bound at all, except by Mara’s invisible chains. The pain in his extremities lessened as he began to move and stretch. Only the pain in his head stayed constant.
He opened his eyes just a crack. He was in some kind of small, dark tent. The only light came from the tent flap that led to the outside.
Wind ruffled the tent flap, sending his head splitting but also his stomach roiling. Apparently, he was hungry. Starving, actually.
Of course. The memory of harnessing the energy so Mara could heal the boy came back to him now. The feeling of the energy coursing through him, the vibrating bliss of the hot sun’s light, the violent cold as the energy left him again. He had been standing between a blazing fire and an open window on a snowy day—but only within his mind.
But where was Mara?
Now he snapped his eyes fully open. The tent was small and barely had room for one person to sleep; no one else was inside. There was no sign of her.
Impulsively, he pushed himself up to sitting and regretted it immediately. His head spun, and the stars in front of his eyes returned. But he wouldn’t let himself fall back down. He was determined to make sure Mara was okay.
“Ho, he wakens!” a woman’s voice called. “Get Regin.” The sound of little feet scurried and pitter-pattered away out of earshot. They must have heard me cursing, he thought.
A figure suddenly filled the slit in the tent where the light came in. He struggled to turn his head and focus, and a bowl was extended toward him. Hoping his strength would not give out, he took it. The visitor was gone.
The smell was heavenly. His stomach demanded he eat.
Could this be poisoned? He had no idea who had even handed him this. What if they’d turned him and Mara over to the Devoted? What if they were the very ones handing him this bowl?
Still, if they really wanted to hurt him, wouldn’t it have been far easier to do so while he was incapacitated and unconscious? Hadn’t they already had their best chance?
His stomach roiled again. There was no guarantee the food was safe. There was only one thing he could do. Eat. And perhaps pray.
Ancestors, he whispered in his mind. He lifted up the bowl on a whim, thinking of his great-grandmother Tena. Let this food be safe, and let us be safe with these people, at least for a short while, and I will do what I must to put an end to these Devoted that roam our lands. If I’m ever free again, I’ll do what I can to end all this injustice.
Then he ate it quickly and licked the bowl dry. He was alone; no one but Mara knew he was a prince here, if she was even alive. He would do what he pleased.
When he had finished eating, he slowly laid himself back down and stared up at the top of the tent. Where was she? What if something had happened? What if she was—
The wind whipped savagely, disturbing the sides of the tent and threatening collapse. A savage pain stabbed behind his eyes.
He couldn’t think of it. He couldn’t think of her until he knew exactly what was going on.
Footsteps approached. Perhaps this Regin had arrived.
Sure enough, a figure leaned in. “Mind if I join you?” came the old man’s v
oice.
Aven grunted, then croaked out with a dry, unused voice, “Please do.”
Regin crawled in and sat, legs crossed, near Aven’s feet, closing the tent flap carefully behind him. He held a skin and two round-bottom mugs, and he seemed completely at home in the tiny tent, as if it were just the right size for him and several more people.
“I brought you some water,” Regin said.
Aven struggled to sit up again, albeit with somewhat less difficulty and fewer spinning stars this time. By the time he’d righted himself, Regin had poured some water and handed it to him carefully. Then the old man poured some for himself.
“That was a good thing you did back there,” Regin said, voice soft.
Aven slurped up the whole cup and held it out for more. “The least we could do,” he grunted.
“You may have felt that responsibility, but it was not you who put the arrow to his chest.” The cup was refilled and in Aven’s hand again. Regin’s voice sounded like it spoke for the ages, having pondered every subject deeply. “I said you would have water, rest, food, and safety, and I swear to you that you have it, at least until you are recovered. We can’t afford a run-in with the Devoted any more than you can, but we are glad to give you asylum. It is also the least we could do in return. A life is worth far more than that.” Regin smiled, a twinkle in his eye.
“Thank you,” Aven replied, bowing his head with the sincerity and formality of an ambassador accepting a very generous treaty. “The boy lives?”
“He is the very one who came to fetch me.”
“Good,” Aven said. “We will not overstay our welcome, I assure you. How long have I been out? And where is—my—” He stumbled. She wouldn’t want him to reveal her name, and he wasn’t at all prepared with a fake one or how to dance around the subject delicately. And what could he possibly call her? Please, sir, I’m concerned about the health of my kidnapper, is she safe just next door? I do hope so!
“About two days. She’s in the next tent. Not awake yet, though. I expect she might have another day or so before she wakes up.”
A cold chill ran through him. This was it, he realized. He should leave. He should run. She’d kidnapped him from his home and was taking him to gods-only-knew where. This was the best chance he was likely to get to run away.
But then again, he could hardly sit up. And beyond all that, he knew it was ridiculous to think he would go. He didn’t want to escape her. He was far more concerned that she be all right. He was an idiot, clearly.
“More stew?” Regin asked.
Aven nodded, a little dazed at the feelings swirling through him, how intensely he wanted to stay with his captor. He needed to see that fiery hair at least one more time. He needed to tell her how amazing she’d been to watch, how a boy was alive now because of her, how much he loved her for that.
How much he loved her, period.
Ah, hell. He might as well admit it to himself. He was hopelessly and stupidly in love with her, and it wasn’t going away. What would his parents think if they knew? What an impossible match. What an unlikely queen. But even as he knew how much some might hate the idea of a foreigner or an obvious mage—and there were probably other reasons, for she was probably a commoner, too—he could also see what a queen she could be…
They’d probably never have to overcome those obstacles because they were already up to their necks in worse ones. He should just shut up and keep the dreaming in check until it was at least the slightest bit within reach.
Suddenly, he realized Regin was quietly watching him eat his stew, occasionally glancing at the way the swirling air around Aven disturbed the tent. He wondered what Regin might think of his little quirk. Did he recognize it as magic as well? Not that they really needed to hide that from him at this point. He thought back. When Regin had run into them in the forest, he’d immediately called them out as mages. How had he known? A good guess, or was it more?
“Are you a mage?” Aven asked abruptly.
Regin hardly reacted or moved, just a slight smile curving his wizened old mouth. “Of a sort, yes. But not of your sorts.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, I do have the gift. I know a trick here and there. Keep the fruit fresher longer, make the buds bloom a little sooner, make the leaves open in the sunshine. But they’re only tricks. Not your sorts.”
“What do you mean by our sorts?”
Regin smiled broadly. “Oh, you know, the talented sort. Well, and she’s a mage slave. I’m a rare freemage, like you.”
Aven stopped mid-spoonful. Could this man tell him what he needed to know? “A mage slave?”
Regin frowned. “You travel with one, and you don’t know?”
“Why do you say it like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like that. Like there’s more involved than riding horses or something.”
“Isn’t there?”
“No!”
“Well, that’s more unusual than encountering a mage slave riding around in Akaria to begin with!” Regin let out a deep chuckle. Aven glared at him. “Oh, calm yourself, son. I mean nothing personal. But really, you don’t know what a mage slave is?”
“Well… no. I’ve gathered she’s from Kavanar. She doesn’t look the slightest bit enslaved, if you ask me.”
“She won’t tell you more?”
“She doesn’t seem to be able to. She says she can’t. Perhaps she just doesn’t want to. I can’t blame her—you saw what happens when people know… more than you might like.”
“Point taken. Well, you know what the Old Ones did, of course, that led to the Dark Days. The king of Kavanar was not forgiving. In line with their sins, all mages would pay. Since those days, all their kin have been enslaved. Many Devoted Knights, the really pious ones, do not kill. They capture mages and take them there to be slaves.”
Aven gulped down the bite of stew in his mouth. Was that the fate awaiting him? “But how can a slave roam Akaria freely like she does?”
Regin gave a dark, bitter smile. “Ah, yes, she looks so normal, does she not? I wouldn’t have known it if I hadn’t met another mage slave, years ago. Those Old Ones—they didn’t lock the king up and feed him only bread and water, did they? There were no shackles. No, it wasn’t a physical enslavement. It was an enslavement of the mind. They took over his thoughts. It was his very being they enslaved, and they could make him do their will.”
Aven felt himself go cold.
“And so when the king was finally freed, he turned their magic back on them. As they enslaved his mind, so he ordered to be done to all the other mages,” Regin said in his gravelly old voice, shaking his head and looking down at his hands. “The last Old One, the last conspirator, before they killed him… they set him to the coals in the smithy and then forced him to use his magic one last time. Not to enslave anyone but to make a tool—a brand—that would allow its wielder to enslave, even if they had no magic. The king himself could do it. And probably did.”
Aven found he was holding his breath. He let it out and forced another deep breath in. “Her wound, the wound on her shoulder, that’s how you knew she was a mage slave.”
“Yes.”
“That brand made it?”
“Yes.”
“It never heals.”
Regin shook his head. “Sometimes it’s almost a scar, sometimes it’s bloody, never makes up its mind. The mage slave I knew was a good man; he told me what I know of this.” He sighed and was quiet for a long moment. “So you see, they do not need chains or locks; they are enslaved from inside their heads out.”
Maybe the stew was bad; maybe the idea was sickening. His stomach turned either way. It all made sense now. Was that why the wolves had attacked and turned away? Had his mother figured this out? “And all mages in Kavanar must submit to this?” he grunted through his anger.
“Yes. Their king made it law, not long after the Dark Days. He supposedly didn’t want them getting out of control again. But some say
it was more than that. Some say he wanted their power to be his alone, and mages were too powerful to tolerate as rebels. And so instead, he found a way to harness their power for his own ends. An excuse.”
“Bastard,” Aven whispered. The thought that a king could conceive of enslaving his people, let alone desire to—that wasn’t just disgusting, it made his blood start to boil. Only a weak king or an evil one would be so afraid of rebellion. A good king wouldn’t need to worry, or at least he hoped that was true. No freemages had ever shown up trying to enslave his father, at least not that he knew of. “How corrupt.”
“Well, don’t say that around the church. Or the Devoted. Or in pretty much any part of Kavanar or half of Akaria. The church has grown into an ally of the slavers. They preach righteousness, they celebrate their slavery. Thank King Demikin for keeping them safe. A right crock of shit, if you ask me. No one is asking, though, of course.”
“I am,” Aven said boldly, without thinking. “I am asking.”
There was a little too much meaning in his voice. Regin could hear the arrogance behind those words, the kind of arrogance that came from someone with power. He raised an eyebrow but was wise enough not to press. Their eyes merely met for a moment, acknowledging the trust Aven showed in revealing the tiniest hint at a very large secret.
“Well, if you’re asking, then I’ll tell you. In the Dark Days, mages using magic to enslave others. That was against the Way. How can they possibly argue that someone else using magic to enslave mages is not against the Way? It’s the same damn thing. It’s as simple as that.”
Aven nodded.
“How can a church claim it’s not evil to enslave hundreds of children before they even know they’ve got magic? Seems like the same thing to me, only instead of being done to one stupid, greedy man, it’s being done to hundreds of innocents. Thousands, for all I know.”
Hundreds, Aven thought. Thousands. If Demikin and his fathers before him sought to harness mage power, Kavanar could be building a military force of thousands of mages like Mara, perhaps some even more powerful. By the gods.