“Very good, Bailaha,” allowed the king. “And now, you will swear your oath to him.”
The words shocked Shianan. He lifted his head and stared in open amazement at the king. “Sire?”
“You will remember your place!” snapped the king. “You may believe because the Court of the High Star did not condemn you that you are privileged above your circumstances, but that is not the case, Bailaha. You will acknowledge and respect the distinction between your position and the prince’s. If you are trustworthy as you claim, you will swear service and obedience to my son.”
The words cut Shianan as if to draw blood. For a moment he could not respond.
“Bailaha!” The king was displeased by the hesitation. “You will pledge your fealty to your prince.”
Shianan licked his lips and clenched his fingers on his bent knee. “Your Majesty,” he began carefully, “I honor my prince as I do my king. But it is you, sire, who are my lord and master.”
“Fealty to your prince will not conflict with fealty to your king.”
“But I am meant to serve as a soldier, for the good of Your Majesty and the kingdom, and I cannot in good conscience pledge to obey a boy who may not comprehend—”
The king’s kick caught him in the chest as he knelt, taking his breath and shoving him backward. “Mongrel!” snapped Jerome. “Swear!”
Alasdair’s eyes jerked wide and his smile vanished. Shianan stared in hurt shock as he gulped air. “Sire...”
“Will you deny your king’s command? Is it true your ambition makes an enemy of your prince?” The king kicked him again, this time striking his shoulder as Shianan involuntarily shrank backward. “Is that why you seek recognition in the court?”
“No!” protested Shianan breathlessly.
“Then swear your obedience!”
Shianan fell forward, his eyes on the floor before their feet. He slowly resumed his formal posture. You are a slave to your master. You do not choose your master; he is chosen for you. “I...”
“Swear now, or declare yourself a traitor.”
You must obey your master’s commands, even when you would not. You are a slave. Shianan licked his lips. “I am a loyal servant of the throne,” he began, hearing his voice quiver. “I solemnly pledge my service to the crown and to those who might yet bear it. I hear and obey my lord the king and then his—son, my prince.” He gulped. “I swear obedience to my lord the Prince Alasdair Laguna.” You must obey without question the orders of a master you cannot choose. “I pledge my service to him, as it pleases my king.”
He swallowed against his closing throat, terrified his humiliation might spill into sight. Above him, he could just see Alasdair’s face slowly lose its horror at his father’s violence and regain its pleased gratification as Shianan, shamed, swore to obey him. Shianan clenched his teeth and his fists, wanting only to flee—flee the room, the fortress, the city.
The king nodded stiffly. “That is acceptable. Now I have your word to respect my son as he is due. See that you keep it in your daily actions.”
Shianan only nodded, not trusting his voice.
“You take too much upon yourself, Bailaha. You presume to appear at our court ball although your presence is not wanted while your queen was here. You treat your prince with disrespect. You recover the Shard in a way to draw the most attention and laud to yourself instead of correctly reporting your suspicions to your superiors, as if you craved glory and advancement. Is your word good?”
Shianan closed his eyes against traitorous emotion, his face bowed toward the floor. “I am your servant, my lord.”
The king did not move. “I wonder if I did not make a mistake in bringing you here.” He sighed. “Bailaha, I have seen you serve faithfully in my army—but within the capital, when you move through the court...”
Shianan swallowed. “I am ever your servant, my lord.”
“You may go, Bailaha.”
Shianan nodded tightly before opening his eyes. He rose and, keeping his head bowed, backed to the door.
Once safely outside, he passed a hand over his face and started briskly down the corridor. He wanted to be away, he didn’t know where, he wanted to be away from the castle and the fortress. He wanted to see Ariana, to hear her talk of things which had nothing to do with the king’s sons. Any of them.
He brushed again at his face. At least Luca had found his freedom. One of them was no longer bound.
LUCA CAME TO A GRATEFUL halt as the wagon’s wheels stopped. Beside him, Andrew stumbled and jostled him. “Sorry,” he muttered. Kitchen work had kept him busy but not conditioned for the foothills.
They had the additional misfortune to be alongside the former overseer, whom Matteo’s overseers seemed to have singled out for punishment. With Andrew’s slow feet and the big slave’s sore back, their line had lagged behind the wagon and the switch had visited them all.
Luca was thirsty. He’d missed his opportunity for water that morning, and the road’s dust clung to his throat. He started to lower himself to the ground, but an overseer was approaching their line.
“Where’s the cookslave?” The overseer frowned at the line. “Which of you is it?”
Andrew raised his free hand. “I am.”
The overseer came to unfasten him. “Hand out bread while we change teams, and you’ll make the mush tonight. Meal’s in the fourth wagon, boy can fetch water with you.” He released Andrew and gestured him on his way. Then he paused and looked critically at the big slave. “And what are you looking at? Keep your eyes down!” The overseer moved back a step and the line flinched as one. The switch struck the slave’s back, making him grunt. “You’ll lose that sniffy look or we’ll skin it from you. Go ahead, stare again—got your eyeful?”
The slave shifted under the residual sting of the switch, eyes on the ground. The overseer stomped on, faced with too many tasks to linger and torment them. The slave crouched and went carefully to his knees, grimacing.
“They don’t like you much,” observed Luca, sinking to the ground as well.
The slave shook his head. “They can’t. It’s one stroke of bad luck that keeps them from my place.” He threw a dark look at the slave chained beside him. “It’s easier to believe I deserve it than to face that they could be here in the span of a bad day.”
Luca nodded. That made a sort of sense. The former overseer was strong, well-spoken—if he could fall from a master’s capricious grace, so might anyone.
Even Luca.
Another stockman passed and, without warning, struck the man again. He grinned at the yelp and snapped, “Get out of the way. We want room behind this line.” He brought down the switch once more, and this time it bit across Luca’s shoulders. “Move up!”
Luca and the others obeyed, bunching against the rear of the wagon. Luca shrugged against the sting, wishing he had a hand free to rub it. Still, the hurt was not what the switch was on bare skin, and almost nothing to the whip skimming flesh from his bones. He would endure.
CHAPTER TEN
ARIANA LOOKED AROUND her office and workroom, breathing deep the familiar scents of clay and ink and the pungent perfume of arcane materials. It would be good to settle into routine again. She had spent much of the morning with Ranne and Bethia, giving them a carefully told version of her adventure—keeping the role of the slave boy Tam artfully minimized, repeating the supposition that she had been released out of respect for the Circle as worthy opponents—and then recounting the ball with Bethia for Ranne, and letting them spoil her with sweets and welcome. But she had been away from her work for long weeks and, as glad as she was to have returned to her own world, she was beginning to feel uncomfortable with all the close attention. She had always thought to earn her place in the Circle and her respect there, rather than to fall into it by ill chance and a concealed Ryuven.
She closed her door, guarding herself against the string of well-wishers and curiosity-seekers who would certainly start again, and turned to her table.
A part of her wished she had stayed with Ranne and Bethia. She felt a subtle unease here in her workroom, which made no sense. That was just the disruption of her absence, and everything would fall into place again now that all was normal once more.
Where to start?
There were a number of projects waiting for attention, including a new ink Mage Renstil had suggested, infused with energy to speed arcane tasks. That might be fun to experiment with.
But they were always in need of healing amulets, long to form, thirsty for power, and familiar in their execution. She could start a fresh set of amulets in her sleep. She pointed at her athanor and sparked the little furnace to life.
Or she tried, but nothing happened. No power leapt at her guidance.
She looked at her hand, as if it had betrayed her, and at the athanor. She closed her eyes, envisioning the magic more clearly than she should have needed, and tried to light the tiny fire.
Nothing happened. She felt nothing.
Confused, she opened her eyes and tried to raise a small flame in her hand. Then she turned and tried to push a stack of papers from the table. She groped for power, feeling as if she were grasping in the dark for an elusive strand. There was nothing there.
The magic was gone.
Her heart raced. What had the Ryuven world done to her? But no, she’d worked magic since returning—she had helped with the creation of the renewed shield.
She hurried to the board of colored crystals in the corner of her room, brushing the white crystal to harmonize with the matching stone in the White Mage’s workroom. But without a little flare of power, she touched only her own stone.
Air wheezed in her throat. She was the Black Mage, a Mage of the Circle, and her power was pledged to the good of the kingdom. She had trained all her life for this, this was to be her life, and she had nothing.
She left her workroom and started for her father’s office, forcing herself to breathe slowly—a count of four in, a count of four out—and to walk instead of drawing attention by running. She knocked and let herself in without waiting for an answer.
He looked up and saw her expression. “What is it, darling? What’s wrong?”
On the edge of panic, she raised an unsteady hand and gestured uselessly at the items on his desk. “I have no magic.” Her voice shook. “I have no magic.”
ARIANA HUDDLED IN A chair at her father’s table, her arms wrapped about herself. She wasn’t cold, but she somehow felt she should be.
Someone knocked at the door. “Ewan?”
Her father opened to admit the Silver Mage and locked it behind her. Elysia Parma went directly to Ariana and sat beside her. “Oh, Ariana. Tell me.”
Ariana had to lick her lips to speak. “It’s gone,” she said simply. “I reach for the magic and—and it’s not there. I can’t see it, can’t feel it. There’s nothing. It’s like I’m not a mage.”
“Show me. Spark that candle.”
It was a simple task, a beginner’s lesson so ubiquitous as to be a joke, and Ariana teared up to think that she could not do it. Obediently she raised a hand and pointed at the candle, and obediently she called the spark. Nothing happened, not so much as a glow on the curled wick.
Mage Parma’s face betrayed no trace of disappointment, and Ariana wasn’t sure if she loved or hated her for it. Mage Parma asked, “When did this start?”
Ariana shook her head. “I don’t know. I suppose it has to be something from the Ryuven world.” She sniffed. “The magic there—it’s so strong. It nearly killed me. That’s why they drugged me, to dull my senses.” She tried to clear her closing throat. “But when I needed the magic, to help Maru, I let it all in, I let it run through me. I must have burned myself out.”
Mage Parma sat back. “And did you use any magic after that, while you were there?”
Ariana shook her head. “Only a little, and it didn’t always go right.” She remembered a moment of alarm as a shield failed to coalesce around her. “But I didn’t try much. I didn’t want to do anything that might appear to be a threat, not when Oniwe had only left me alone because he thought I was helpless and useless.”
“That was wise,” her father said. “You were the first human mage to survive. They might well have ensured that you didn’t.”
“But we can’t be sure exactly when this started,” Mage Parma said. “Though you helped with the shield.”
Ariana licked her lips. “I did.”
Mage Parma glanced at Ariana’s father, who leaned forward. “And?”
Ariana should have felt shame at the admission, but all other emotions were buried beneath the loss of magic. “I was afraid. When the shield came up, and I saw it rushing toward me—just like that day when it collapsed.”
Her father nodded. “That’s understandable. But you did the magic with us?”
“It was hard. I did it, but it was difficult. I thought at the time it was just because it was such a large spell, requiring so many mages, but was it perhaps because I was losing my magic?”
Mage Parma pursed her lips.
“Can you see anything?” asked her father.
Elysia Parma scented magic, and the Amber Mage felt it through the skin, but Ariana was a seer. She watched the Silver Mage cup her palm, as if preparing to throw a bolt, and she closed her eyes. She looked, she hoped, she wished.
“Nothing,” she choked. “Just my own eyelids.” She opened her eyes and looked back and forth between them. “I’m only the Black Mage,” she said, her voice unsteady, “and I haven’t been in the Circle for long. You can replace me.”
“Replace you?” repeated her father. “What are you—”
“The Circle is supposed to be the best mages, the most useful in case of need. I’m not even a mage now.”
Mage Parma put a hand on her forearm. “You are a mage. You have been a mage for years. Now something has happened, and yes, it’s something we haven’t seen before—but we can work to learn what it is. Don’t give up so easily on yourself, or on us.”
“But the Circle—”
“Needs mages who can keep their heads through surprise.”
“Surprise? This isn’t a surprise!” Ariana shook her head. “I have lost my magic. I was only barely in the Circle anyway, and—”
“Why do you say that?” interrupted her father. “You are a full Mage of the Circle. Didn’t you hold Mage Callahan in awe when he was the Black?”
She almost laughed, and it came out as something like a hiccup. “Not just for being in the Circle.”
Her father smiled. “Now be kind. He’s a bit... intense, but that’s all.”
“Ariana, listen,” Mage Parma said. “If we determine that nothing can be done, that you really have lost all magic, then we’ll make the necessary decision at that point. But we are not yet at that point. Don’t you remember a time when you couldn’t light a candle? And didn’t you work your way past it?”
Ariana looked at her in incredulous despair. “I was a child then.”
“And when Mage Odderman broke his leg and could not walk, just like a child, didn’t he work to get better?”
“This isn’t a broken leg!”
“Obviously not. You’re tough; you wouldn’t whine so much about that.”
Ariana blinked at her and then looked at her father, who did not quite betray her by smiling but did nod in agreement. “Don’t panic,” he said. “Let’s see what’s to be done.”
She took a breath, trying to calm her racing heart. Magic required concentration and focus, and agitation would work against her. “How?”
“Let me look over my notes from your return,” Mage Parma said. “I’ll see what I can come up with. Let’s talk tomorrow. For now, go outside, walk around, breathe. I know it’s an impossible task, but at least try to get your mind off this. Clear your head so we can start fresh.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ARIANA CLOSED THE BLACK door behind her and checked the latch. Then she glanced up the hallway and, seeing
it empty, placed her fingers over the mechanism.
Previously, the bolt had always flashed a bright yellow in her mind’s eye and seemed to interlink with the jamb. It was probably foolish for the Black Mage, lowest of the Great Circle, to attempt a magical lock on anything within the Wheel. The higher mages could unwork her spell in a moment. But she liked to think her workrooms were secure from any patrolling soldiers or passing grey mages who grew curious, and it could do no harm.
Today, however, the latch was only a latch, the bolt only a bolt, and there was no arcane lock overlapping the ordinary one.
She swallowed her panic and turned toward the exit, holding her chin rigidly high.
She left the Wheel and started across the courtyard toward the gate. There were vendors within the grounds, of course, but there would be a greater variety of offerings in the city markets. Clear your head—as if such a thing were possible.
A hooded figure, head bent against the weather, was crossing the courtyard. Despite the billowing cloak she recognized his movement. “Shianan! Wait a moment!”
He must not have heard her through the wind, for he didn’t slow. He was going toward his office and quarters, and she cut the angle to meet him. “Shianan!”
His head lifted and turned slightly toward her, but the sheltering hood shaded his face. “My lady mage.”
“Oh, don’t be so formal. We’re old friends.”
Speaking would make it too real. She couldn’t say it yet, and not in the street where all could see.
“I was going for something to eat. Do you have a few minutes?” She took a step around him, trying to find his eyes. “Here, stand still. I can hardly see you.”
“No,” he began, and his hand moved from beneath the cloak. But Ariana had already caught sight of his expression. He blinked and looked away. “No, I’m afraid I won’t join you in a meal.”
“You look as if someone had died,” she said bluntly. “What’s wrong? Did your meeting with the prince go badly?”
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