Icestorm

by Theresa Dahlheim

  Now Selena seemed to be at least somewhat satisfied, and the sense of her in the link turned thoughtful. Something else had occurred to Marcus, though. “When you were announced to the kingdom, they said you were of the ‘royal Torchanes senior line’. But any sons of Roberd’s would start cadet lines. Maybe. They’d be bastards, though I can’t imagine anyone calling a sorcerer’s child a bastard. Anyway, was the announcement a mistake? Or did it just sound better to say ‘senior line’?” He didn’t seem judgmental, just curious.

  “The Torchanes princes often married girls who were their third or fourth cousins, to consolidate the cadet lines,” Graegor explained. “So I think I’m probably from both.”

  “I wonder,” Koren sent, and then paused as their attention all turned to her. Her thoughts slipped under the link for a moment before resurfacing. “Maybe it’s just Graegor, and just Patrick, who could’ve done that with the spell. If Graegor’s pattern’s just a little less complex than the earth magic pattern, and if Patrick’s pattern’s a little less complex than Graegor’s. Stepping down.”

  Rose nodded. “For any of the rest of us, it’d be too big a jump.”

  The link fell quiet as the magi digested everything that he—and Jeffrei and Rose and Koren—had fed them. Occasionally, one of them seemed about to ask a question, but didn’t. Graegor could feel their vague anxiety, and didn’t blame them; he found some of the implications of the nature of his magic to be disturbing too.

  Roberd could have taken the place of Iseult in the Seventh Circle. If any sorcerer in Graegor’s own Circle refused to join the Bond, he could take that sorcerer’s place. And that was probably preferable to dragging one of their own back to Maze Island in chains.

  That was really disturbing.

  He looked at Brigita, who was settled with more dignity on the grass now. Her breathing was regular. She seemed a little pale, but her skin was very fair anyway. Her wine-red magic was intact, returned to her but for the small loop that remained part of him. Because she was a maga and not a sorceress, their bond was not nearly as strong as his with Tabitha; because he barely knew her, their bond was not even as strong as his with Jeffrei. But it was real. He had no doubt that if he sent to her telepathically, she would hear him.

  He tried it—not much, not more than a feeling, a sense that everything was all right. But it woke her. He felt guilty as she gasped and jerked her hands from the ground, blinking her eyes over and over, and he pulled back his mind as Rose leaned over her and made soothing noises while everyone else turned to them.

  Rose helped Brigita to sit up. Her dress started to slip forward, and Rose grabbed hold of the two edges of the cut fabric in the back and held them together. Selena and Errie both moved forward to help, and Koren hopped up to run back to the saddlebags. Brigita tried to look over her shoulder at what Rose was doing, but then winced and put her hand to her neck.

  Graegor and the other boys looked away as the girls fastened the back of Brigita’s dress with pins and buttons and string. Visiting the hospitals with Contare had given Graegor many opportunities to see unclothed women, and Contare had been very insistent that he should never let his feelings about it show. “If a woman thinks you’re looking at her body that way when you’re supposed to be healing her,” he’d said, “then your healing becomes nearly as humiliating as a rape.” Graegor wanted no part of that, so he concentrated on keeping his face from flushing until the sense in the link was that Brigita was decently and completely covered. As Selena and Errie moved out of the way, Marcus asked worriedly, “Is she all right?”

  Now that he could see her, Graegor thought that Brigita really didn’t look all right. She didn’t seem embarrassed, but her face was even paler than before, her expression distant and confused. She was still holding the back of her neck, pressing her fingers into it, squeezing them into the roots of her dark, damp braid. Rose still sat beside her, murmuring to her as if she was a spooked horse, and eventually, Brigita again tried to turn her head, but again stopped and winced as if in pain.

  “Should her neck still be hurting her?” Errie sent.

  Jeff and Rose didn’t think so. Eventually, Brigita let her hands, and her gaze, drop down to her lap. She bit her lip. Everyone waited for her to ask what had happened, but she didn’t.

  “How are you feeling?” Rose asked her.

  “I’m fine.” Her voice was rough.

  They waited, but she said nothing more. Rose tried again. “Are you in any pain? Your neck?”

  Brigita clutched her hands together and shook her head. Rose reached for her shoulder, but she flinched away. “No pain,” she whispered.

  Even if she was telling the truth, something was definitely wrong. “She died,” Patrick sent. “Did it … change her?”

  That was a scary idea. Rose glanced at the rest of them, then turned back to Brigita. “Do you feel like … yourself?”

  Brigita started laughing, but the edge of despair to it made Graegor feel cold. “Yes,” she half-whispered. “I feel exactly like myself.”

  Koren leaned forward. “‘Tis us?” she asked softly. “We … did something to you?”

  “You saved me.” There was accusation in Brigita’s mumble.

  Graegor saw Jeff’s eyes widen. “She was trying to kill herself,” he sent. “She meant to fall.”

  Horror and protest filled the link, and Graegor felt it down to his core. He leaned forward and seized Brigita’s hand, so suddenly that she did not pull back. She looked at him for a long time, and then raised her eyes toward the treetops and blinked over and over, trying to stop the tears. Her wine-red magic rippled like wind over water, but she kept her mind away from his.

  “Maybe we—” Jeffrei began, but stopped when Rose sent, “Wait.”

  The tension in Brigita’s shoulders shifted, and her hand in Graegor’s went limp. She pressed her lips together, and then said, “I’ll say it, then. I’m a spy. I’m a rogue spy.”

  In the link, another flood of shock swirled around Graegor’s own. He instinctively squeezed Brigita’s hand harder, but she didn’t even seem to notice. “Lord Pascin knows,” she said. “He knew I was. Not about now, I didn’t think.” She seemed to realize that she was making no sense, and she bowed her head. Graegor felt her hand pull back from his, and after a moment he let it go.

  She was a rogue. He could barely put the words together in his head.

  “I was captured,” she said, and she sounded exhausted. “Jen Idre. Last autumn. The magus in charge thought I could be ‘turned’. I was sent here.”

  They all knew what had happened back in Adelard after the Hippodrome attack. Not many rogue magi had escaped Pascin’s net. “It fits,” Rose sent. “Her first term was after the Equinox.” She spoke aloud, gently. “You were with a rogue group?”

  “They took me in.”

  Rose spoke even more gently. “Were you in trouble?”

  “I was trying to go to the academy at Jen Idre,” Brigita said dully. “But I don’t have healing. The healing talent. And no money.”

  “Only healers are accepted there?” Selena gave words to the general confusion.

  “They accept all magi girls,” Rose sent, “but if you aren’t a healer, you have to pay tuition, and it’s very high.”

  “My mother,” Brigita said, as if starting a sentence, but she didn’t finish it right away. Everyone waited while she stared at her hands. “There was nowhere to go,” she finally murmured. “We came such a long way and then they wouldn’t take me. It was too much for her.” She raised her eyes to meet Graegor’s. “The shovel-men burned our house and killed my father. He was a knight. He sent us away, but he wouldn’t leave my brother’s grave. He stayed, and they killed him.”

  “I’m sorry,” Graegor whispered.

  Brigita dropped her gaze to her lap again, silent, and as the silence stretched long, the link filled with hesitant questions. Had the rogues been helping her or taking advantage of her? Could Brigita have gone somewhere else? Why hadn’t she
tried to come all the way here, to the Academy, where all magi were accepted? Had they run out of money, out of food? Had her mother killed herself in despair? Did Lord Pascin know any of this?

  That was worth asking. “You were brought here,” Graegor said, his voice low and soft. “Did they take you to Lord Pascin?”

  Brigita nodded. “He … delved my mind.” The way her face twisted, the way her gen darkened, made it clear to Graegor that being delved was painful. “Once, when I got here.” Her shoulders curled forward, and her voice shook when she added, “And again, during the lockdown.”

  None of Graegor’s friends had ever been delved. Delving had hurt Brigita, exposed her in a way that Graegor could only imagine, and didn’t want to imagine.

  He remembered Miriam, which made him remember Jolie. You didn’t, he reminded himself. You stopped. His cheeks flushed, and he looked down at the grass.

  He heard Brigita’s sudden gasp, and he looked back at her to find her staring at him. “They attacked you,” she murmured, panic growing in her face. “It wasn’t me. I wasn’t part of it. Lord Pascin knows, he delved me, he knows I didn’t know about it. I didn’t.”

  “I believe you,” he assured her, and the group around him nodded while the link flooded with concern at how frightened she was. Did she really think Graegor wouldn’t believe her? What had she heard about him?

  Graegor knew where she may have heard something less than complimentary. “Lord Ferogin,” he said, and the panic that had been retreating from Brigita’s face rushed back. She looked at him, waiting for him to finish, so he did. “Did he delve you too?”

  Now she looked away, down to her hands again. “No,” she said. “I had to make a link with him, though. Lord Pascin told him to keep his eye on me. Headmistress Judita too. And Lady Josselin.”

  Everyone looked at Koren, but her surprise matched theirs. “You’ve a bond with Josselin?” she asked Brigita.

  Brigita shook her head. “No, but she watches me. Like she asked you to do.”

  Koren’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “No,” she said. Her red hair was still damp and messy. “I didn’t know any of it. She told me you’d a rough time and she asked me to be a friend.”

  Brigita thought about that for a moment before slowly nodding. “I guess if you’d known the truth about me, you wouldn’t have tried to save me.”

  “Of course we would,” Graegor interrupted before Koren could. Everyone joined in his protest, especially Marcus. Graegor could feel that Rose and Jeff were offended at the very idea that any magi healer would have refused to help her.

  “You don’t know me at all,” Brigita said, blunt and almost harsh.

  “That doesn’t matter at all,” Patrick murmured. “Everyone deserves healing.”

  Brigita burst out laughing. It was a high, almost hysterical laugh with no mirth, and the sound of it was so upsetting that both Koren and Graegor cringed. In the link, they could feel their friends’ swirling emotions, dominated by disbelief and helplessness.

  Koren waited for Brigita to finish laughing, and then stated, “You let yourself fall.”

  Brigita didn’t say anything, but she didn’t need to. Marcus reached toward her, but Jeffrei gently pushed his arm down.

  “Why?” Graegor asked her.

  Still she made no answer. She didn’t even move.

  “What triggered it?” Errie wondered. “What made her decide, all of a sudden? I don’t think she came out here with suicide in mind.”

  “Why did she come out here?” Logan asked.

  “That’s the question,” Selena agreed. “I don’t mean to sound snooty, but Rose, I’ve never seen you spend any time with her before. Why did you invite her?”

  “I didn’t,” Rose admitted. “Not exactly. It was Koren.”

  Koren was already nodding. “Yes, ‘twas. We were together when Rose called to me.”

  “It surprised me that Brigita wanted to come,” Rose sent. “Frankly, I thought you asked her just out of politeness.”

  “I did. I didn’t think she’d say yes. I didn’t mind, but yes, ‘twas surprising. She found me at the library after her botany exam. I’d helped her prepare, and she wanted to tell me about it.”

  “She sought you out?” Logan asked sharply. “And she wanted to come here, once you invited her?”

  “Yes …”

  “Like she knew about it?”

  Sudden suspicion flooded the link as everyone realized what Logan was suggesting. “I didn’t tell anyone else about this,” Jeffrei sent. “No one who isn’t here now.”

  “Me either,” Rose hurried to assure them.

  Patrick and Logan got quickly to their feet. Graegor did too, his heart pounding, opening his gen to the trees and the pond and the life around them, searching for other magi, other thought. Marcus sent, “You can’t be serious!”

  “I’m dead serious,” Logan answered, turning in a slow circle to scan their surroundings. “She said she’s a rogue spy. Maybe she felt so terrible about luring us here, she couldn’t live with herself.”

  “She didn’t lure us here!”

  “There’s no one around,” Koren announced. Once he was sure it was true, Graegor agreed, and the brief panic ebbed. Marcus said nothing, but Graegor was sure he was suppressing an I told you so.

  Graegor sat back down, and Patrick and Logan did too, but they both positioned themselves to face outward. Beside Logan, Selena did the same. Through it all, Brigita had looked back and forth between Graegor and Koren, and now her brown eyes were huge. “What?” she whispered.

  Hoping Marcus would stay out of it, Graegor asked the obvious question. “Have any rogues tried to contact you since you’ve been here?”

  A tiny gasp escaped Brigita. She covered her mouth, and her shoulders heaved in a sob as her eyes filled with tears. After the brief scare a moment ago, the mood in the link was still jumpy, and everyone reacted—maybe overreacted—to Brigita’s revelation. Would she have told them if they hadn’t figured it out? How had the rogues known she was at the Academy? Were they coming even now? What other secrets was she keeping? Or was she totally innocent, a piece on the board that could make no moves and only served as a sacrifice?

  Jeff’s voice cut through the link. “We don’t need to guess.”

  Brigita had forced herself still, her eyes shut tight, her hands clenching her upper arms, her breath held in. Graegor knew that Jeff was right, that they needed to know what Brigita knew about the rogues. But he really didn’t want to ask her any more questions. It felt cruel.

  Fortunately, he didn’t have to. Brigita let out her breath, then said, “It was two weeks ago.” Her voice was very low, and Graegor sensed it was the only way she could keep it steady. “I was supposed to tell Lord Pascin if any of them called to me. I didn’t, because I didn’t want to betray them again.” She paused. “I was afraid he would delve my mind again. The second time … it was worse, and … and I was afraid.”

  The hard purple knot of Graegor’s gen was spinning, but he kept it in check. Somehow, he had to make sure that it didn’t happen again, that Brigita never had to worry about another delving. That none of his magi friends ever did.

  “It was two weeks ago,” Brigita repeated. “I felt a call from a magus I knew in Jen Idre. Metyas. I thought he’d been captured too. He asked if I could help him. I told him no, that he had to stay away from me, that Lord Pascin and Lord Ferogin were watching me. I broke the connection. I tried to pretend it hadn’t happened.”

  Graegor just nodded. The group link was quiet, expectant. Brigita went on. “He called to me again, four days later.”

  “Do you know … did he say where he was? Is?”

  “No. I don’t think he’s in the city. I don’t think he could get in.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said … he said he didn’t know if he could trust me, but he still needed help. He said that Rifir, from our cluster, is in prison here on Maze Island. I had no idea. Metyas said that Rifir w
as corroded, no threat anymore, and that his wife is very sick, back home.” She paused, staring at nothing, remembering. “I felt sorry for Rifir,” she said eventually. “I said … I told Metyas that I couldn’t ask Lord Pascin or Lord Ferogin, but … but that Lady Koren was kind to me.”

  Koren tiled her head, and when Brigita didn’t continue, she said, “That’s why you asked for help with the botany exam. And why you came out here with us.”

  Brigita nodded. “I thought … since Lady Josselin already knew about me, that you did too. Maybe I could find a way to ask you about Rifir, if I spent more time with you.”

  Koren nodded. “But when we got here …”

  Brigita bit her lip hard. Graegor felt her embarrassment, and the memory of her shocked dismay when the girls had ridden up to the pond and found half-naked boys here. Found him here, a half-naked sorcerer, one she’d never met, a wild card. She had no idea what he might know about her. “The horses, though,” she murmured. “The horses had to be watered.”

  “I’m sorry,” Koren said. From their bond, Graegor knew that she felt she’d been selfish. “We should’ve gone back once they’d rested.”

  “I thought you were trying to trick me,” Brigita said. “I thought you knew about Metyas and knew I hadn’t told Lord Pascin like I should have.”

  “Why would we do that?” Rose asked.

  “I don’t know. It just felt, here, like … like everyone knew something I didn’t.”

  “See what happens when you arrange coincidences?” Marcus sent, mostly to Jeff.

  “We’re sorry,” Rose said. She did feel bad about it, and Jeff nodded to add his apology to hers. “It was just a joke, and it wasn’t directed at you.”

  No one said anything for a few moments. Then Errie sent, “But how did she go from feeling embarrassed to feeling … suicidal?”

  She was right—it was such a dark and seemingly sudden turn. There was a missing piece. “It was too much for her,” Logan suggested. “One thing too many. Like for her mother, maybe.”