Voice of Power (The Spoken Mage Book 1)

by Melanie Cellier

  And so I did.

  “I want to try again,” I said at the end. “But I want you to set up a shield first.”

  Walden smiled. “A wise idea.” He spent a moment rummaging in his desk before emerging with a small piece of parchment which he quickly ripped in half. A whoosh of power swept around us, settling in a circle with my chair in the center.

  “That should do us,” he said.

  But ten minutes later I slumped into my chair. “I’m sorry for making you waste one of your compositions. This is no different from all those other attempts.”

  “Don’t give up yet,” he said, tapping his lips. “Go over it again. Every thought, every word, every motion.”

  “Well, I was plummeting through the air with a bunch of giant stone shards. So I don’t remember everything that precisely.”

  He smiled. “Do your best.”

  I repeated it all again, this time considering exactly what had gone through my mind as the floor fell away.

  “So you thought about the standard shielding composition. And then you spoke your own composing. But it wasn’t the same words…” He muttered to himself as he considered it from every angle.

  I sat up straight. “Wait. You’re right. I thought of the words I’d seen written out for the composition. I was watching Coralie write it only two days ago. I could see the words in my mind. And then I spoke them.”

  He frowned across at me. “But you said you only spoke two words.”

  “Yes.” I chewed on my lip as I considered it. “I didn’t speak all the words. But I spoke two that I saw.”

  “But what about the other time? Back in your village. We’re looking for similarities, and you couldn’t even read then.”

  “No, I couldn’t…” I narrowed my eyes. “But I did see something. Something printed that a mage had dropped. A…a dispatch or something? I’m not sure what you would call it. Does that sound familiar at all?”

  “A dispatch?” Walden gave me a curious look. “It sounds more like it would have been one of the news sheets some of the disciplines insist on circulating when they become worked up over some issue or other.”

  “Are there many of them? Would I be able to find the old ones somewhere?”

  “We keep copies of all of them here at the library for record-keeping purposes.”

  I sat up straight. “Do you know which ones a mage might have been carrying at the start of autumn?”

  Walden slowly rose to his feet, his face confused but curious. “Wait here.”

  He was gone for several minutes, and when he returned, he had only three pieces of parchment in his hands. I snatched them from him before he could even hold them out and scanned down the single sheets.

  The first one I let fall to the ground, but the second I gripped in a shaking hand.

  “Look at this.” I thrust it into Walden’s face.

  He gripped my wrist, steadying me enough that he could examine the paper more closely.

  “It looks like a standard anti-Kallorway sheet to me. Every now and then the Armed Forces feel that enthusiasm for the conflict is waning and have such things dispersed. What does it have to do with you?”

  “I couldn’t read then. I can’t be sure. But look at what the first line says.” I stabbed at it with my hand before realizing that I must not make any sense. I forced myself to take a deep breath and speak more slowly.

  “You might remember that the men who attacked my family’s store were worked up because they believed the mages had left writing behind them. Well, it’s true. They had. One of these. It was found by a small child and could have brought disaster to the whole village. But thankfully someone older stumbled on the child before any harm was done.” I looked up at him.

  “And I was there too. We burned it, of course, immediately. But I did get a brief look at it first. Since I couldn’t read then, it didn’t mean much to me, but I think it must have been this one. It looks similar to my memory. And more importantly, look at the first line.”

  I held it out again.

  STOP the Kallorwegian Aggression!

  The bold title instantly caught the eye now as it had done then, when I couldn’t understand it.

  “I saw them,” I said. “I saw the letters in my mind before I commanded the men to stop. And look what it says!”

  Walden rocked back on his heels, his eyes wide. “And last night you pictured your friend’s composition and spoke two of its words. But this is remarkable. I never imagined…When you couldn’t read…”

  “We have to try it.” I stood up and checked that I could still feel the slight pressure of his shield around me.

  “Shall I write something for you? What shall I write?” Walden almost buzzed with excitement, as he crossed back behind his desk.

  I didn’t need him to write me something, though. I could easily visualize something simple without a written prompt. So as soon as he left the circle of the shield, I took a single step forward, the cocoon of his power following me and enveloping a half-empty cup of tea resting on my side of his desk. Staring at it, I called up the image of a single word in my mind.

  “Boil!” I had to resist the urge to point dramatically at the cup.

  A surge of power filled the air around me, poking into every corner of the space enclosed by the shield. When it reached the cup, the entire thing shattered with a resounding crack, boiling tea splattering up onto the ceiling and splashing back against me.

  I gasped, relieved that the drops had landed only on my arms where my long sleeves protected me from scalding. I looked up guiltily at the liquid dripping from the ceiling, and then down at the shards of the cup.

  But I couldn’t prevent a smile spreading across my face. “I did it. I actually did it. I’ve worked out how to control my ability.”

  Walden gave a small cough. “Control might be something we need to work on.”

  But when I looked quickly up at him, he was smiling.

  “Well done, Elena. Very well done, indeed.”

  Of course then the real work started.

  “You obviously have an innate level of control,” Walden said as he located another half-full old tea cup on a side table and moved it into the middle of the floor. “Otherwise that attempt would have ended in disaster when everything liquid inside my shield boiled.” He looked up to fix me with a stern stare. “Including your blood.”

  I gulped as he went on.

  “But that’s what we’ve already seen in your two previous workings. Normally, control like that without training would indicate a very powerful mage indeed. But in your case we have no way of knowing if it’s simply a byproduct of the way your ability manifests. Of course with a sample size of one, we hardly have the capacity to run any meaningful tests on the subject…”

  His voice trailed away into indecipherable murmurings as it sometimes did when he got distracted by some technical train of thought. I cleared my throat, and he looked up, startled.

  “Ah yes.” He grinned. “To our test.”

  We kept at it all day. It turned out that despite his mutterings about greater levels of control, my compositions worked much the same as those of my year mates. If I wanted to direct the power properly, I needed to be specific. And to be specific, I needed to first master a set of binding words that would hold the power in place until I had spoken the entire composition.

  Except it turned out to be a lot more difficult to properly envision the words before speaking them when I was trying to speak sentences, let alone whole passages. By the end of the day I was utterly wrung out and hadn’t managed anything more complicated than successfully boiling the leftover tea in my sixth cup.

  “Everyone speaks as if verbal compositions are the key to everything,” I said, staring grumpily at the steam rising from the liquid. “But it doesn’t seem very practical to me. A normal mage can release a stored composition in the space of a second. But how am I supposed to do that when I have to get off sentence after sentence? And I’ll have to think of them
on the spot, too. I can hardly pre-store them! A lot of good this ability is going to do me next time someone decides to drop me off a building.”

  Walden looked up at me sharply, but then shook his head. “Give it time, my dear. You’ve made excellent progress for one day.”

  I tried a smile but knew it came out lopsided. I wanted to recapture my excitement from the beginning of the day, but exhaustion weighed me down. My head felt fuzzy, and a sharp tension headache behind one temple was rapidly growing.

  I had hoped to be further along by now. Because while I knew I had succeeded twice now with hastily constructed compositions, understanding the dangers changed everything. I didn’t think I would dare try composing with a single word again. And lurking in the back of my mind was the knowledge that someone had just tried to kill me. Or possibly Lucas. But that was only slightly more reassuring since I lived and studied with him every day. And if he was the target, whoever it was clearly hadn’t been worried about taking me down with him.

  I had thought if I could unlock my powers, I would be safe. But it turned out to be a lot more complicated than that.

  “What a surprise,” I muttered to myself, “I should have known.”

  When the dinner bell rang, I stumbled blearily from Walden’s office. I paused at the door to thank him for his efforts—he’d given up his whole day for me, after all—and he clapped me lightly on the shoulder.

  “Elena…” He paused and then just shook his head. “Get some rest. You deserve it.”

  Rest sounded like a good idea, but my stomach had other priorities.

  “There you are!” Coralie pounced on me as soon as my feet led me mindlessly into the dining hall. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.” She seemed to have recovered from her earlier exhaustion.

  “I was with Walden.” He had ordered our lunch brought to his office, so I hadn’t seen Coralie since breakfast.

  She rolled her eyes. “All day? It’s a holiday, Elena. You’re not supposed to spend it studying.”

  I just shrugged and filled my plate. She regarded me with narrowed eyes, so I quickly asked a question, hoping to head her off.

  “How was the rest of the party last night?”

  She clasped her hands together, her eyes glowing.

  “Utterly, utterly incredible. I danced and danced and ate and ate. And walked out in the gardens with the nicest of my dance partners. He’s a student at the University.” She giggled. “And I might have let him steal a kiss.”

  I suppressed a groan. Hopefully this wasn’t the start of a new crush like some of the girls back in Kingslee used to have. Ones which required their friends to listen to endless enumerations of the crush’s virtues along with equally endless wondering as to the level of interest on his side.

  “His name was Edmond,” she added.

  The name brushed against my memory. “Wait. I might actually have met him. Was he tall and seemed more like an apprentice Player than an academic?”

  “That’s him!” Coralie clutched at my arm. “Does your brother know him? Next time you see Jasper, could you ask for me? Whether Edmond has said anything, I mean.”

  “My brother’s in Kingslee, remember?”

  “But when he gets back?”

  Reluctantly I nodded. I doubted this Edmond would still be talking about a dance partner from the Midwinter celebrations by the time my brother got back—if they were even friends to begin with, which I wasn’t so sure about. And I didn’t like the idea of being the bearer of bad tidings. But neither could I refuse such earnest pleading.

  Coralie took several bites, seemingly satisfied with my unenthusiastic response, until she suddenly rounded on me, fork stabbing the air accusingly.

  “Don’t think you can distract me! You were standing on a balcony that collapsed! I want to hear everything.” She lowered her voice, glancing around us at the tables that were considerably more full than they had been at breakfast. “Everyone was talking about how old the palace is, and how fortunate that the prince was on hand to prevent disaster. But don’t think it escaped certain people’s notice that you must have been out on that balcony alone with Lucas.” She gave me a significant look, and my thoughts flew immediately to the two generals towering over me, the queen and princess at their sides.

  But Coralie’s eyes flicked meaningfully toward the table where Lucas sat with the twins, the Stantorn cousins, Lavinia and Weston, and the brilliant but aloof Dariela. My heart rate slowed to its usual pace. If that’s who she meant, they could think what they liked, as far as I was concerned.

  Especially since neither Lucas nor I made any effort to hide our disdain for each other. I couldn’t imagine any of the people sitting at that table would harbor any concerns about me and the prince for long. Not when every one of them clearly thought I was unworthy of their precious Academy or of interacting with their important mage selves.

  I had far more dangerous people to worry about. And not just people. After my breakthrough, my mind had been consumed by an entirely new worry. After a full day of composing and forcing myself to visualize my words, I kept seeing letters dancing in front of my eyes. A hazardous phenomenon that I needed to find a way to rein in before I ended up unintentionally speaking one of the words and destroying half the Academy by accident.

  I could only be glad now that I had never been given the opportunity to learn to read as a child. My illiteracy had no doubt saved my life many times over.

  “At midnight they cut this enormous cake, and the king gave a speech about his son.” Coralie was chattering on about the night before. “And then Lucas gave a speech thanking everyone. And then he disappeared.”

  She gave me an excited and intrigued look, as if expecting me to dive into speculation with her. None of which was helping with my ongoing quest not to think about Lucas. Or look at him. Or talk to him. Or talk about him.

  I said nothing.

  “So, where do you think he went?” Coralie waited expectantly, but when I still said nothing, she hurried on. “I overheard Natalya talking to Lavinia. She was not happy. Lucas didn’t dance with any of us from the Academy except Dariela. And I think Natalya was convinced he was just waiting until after midnight to ask her. You should have heard the cutting things she said about poor Dariela.”

  I couldn’t resist a quick glance at their table. Dariela looked entirely unconcerned—as she always did—and an amiable peace seemed to exist between all parties.

  “I don’t know that I would describe Dariela as poor anything,” I said. “Aren’t the Ellingtons all excessively rich? She’s also tall and beautiful and beyond brilliant. I bet she’ll end up head of whatever discipline she ends up choosing.”

  Coralie shrugged. “Most of them are rich, but everyone has some poor cousins somewhere. You’re right about Dariela, though. She’s no poor cousin.” She grinned. “And that’s what makes it so excellent. Natalya doesn’t want to alienate her, but she’s by far her biggest competition. I think that’s why she’s so particularly nasty to you—you’re her only safe outlet.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m pretty sure I inspire the nastiness all on my own. I’m commonborn, remember? And I’m also entirely useless and unable to compose a single…”

  My words faltered as I suddenly remembered that was no longer true. A tiny spark of my earlier exhilaration fought its way up through my exhaustion.

  Coralie stared at me.

  “Wait,” she whispered, leaning forward. “What is that look for?” Her eyes widened. “You said you were with Walden all day…Don’t tell me you did it!”

  I hesitated only for a moment, biting my lip, before the whispered words burst from me in a rush.

  “Yes, I did it. I can verbally compose now. I actually did it!”

  “Eeee!” Coralie dropped her voice guiltily when I glared at her.

  Several of the other trainees looked over at us with idle curiosity—but one gaze bit into me. Lucas’s eyes were sharp, his expression assessing. I quickly looked away, shaki
ng my head at Coralie.

  “Please don’t say anything to anyone. I’m not ready to share it yet. I want to work on my control before I start getting asked for demonstrations.” I scrunched up my nose.

  “Demonstrations?”

  I filled my friend in on the happenings of the night before the balcony collapse.

  “Oh wow! Both the generals and the queen and Princess Lucienne? I’m glad I’d already left, I would have been quaking in my slippers.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Oh.” She grinned. “Of course I actually mean I would have been standing loyally at your side, the picture of dignity, strength, and support.”

  I shook my head with a smile and cleaned up the rest of the food on my plate. “I just can’t believe how tired I am now. One day of composing, and I feel like I could sleep for a week.”

  “A day? What do you mean?” Coralie took several more huge bites, rushing to finish her own plate.

  I described my day of exercises.

  “Wait, what?” Her voice sounded muffled around her mouthful of food. She paused to quickly chew and swallow. “You worked it out straight after breakfast. And then you were training all day?”

  I nodded, my brow creasing as I stared at her in confusion.

  “Yes? So what?”

  “So what?! Elena, composing is exhausting. That’s one of the reasons we have to spend so long at the Academy training. We have to build up our stamina as well as our skill and control. Why do you think mages dislike wasting their stored compositions? Of course the effort for us comes when we compose them and not when we work them, but still…It’s incredibly draining. Don’t you remember how I was when we first started actually composing in class?”

  I shook my head. “I was with Jocasta then, remember? For weeks.” I considered it. “And it was just after I arrived, I didn’t have anything previous to compare it to. I guess everyone seemed tired in general, but I don’t remember noting it in particular.”

  “Elena.” Coralie dropped her voice even lower. “Lucas is by far the most advanced in our year level at composition—although Dariela is catching him fast. I’m fairly sure he’s been having private tutoring ever since he turned sixteen. It’s generally frowned on, even for those students who turn sixteen well before the autumn intake, but I guess the rules don’t apply to royalty. But even he couldn’t spend an entire day composing non-stop and still walk afterward—let alone carry on a coherent conversation.”