Beatrice followed the direction of my gaze and then hustled the three of us into the carriage. As we drove off, I caught a glimpse of my parents out the window. They were following in our wake, but their expressions made me more uncomfortable than those of the rest of the villagers combined. I might no longer belong with the commonborn, but surely that didn’t include my family. With them I could never be out of place. With them I would always belong…Wouldn’t I?
I tried to reassure myself that it had not been fear and mistrust I glimpsed in their eyes. I knew they felt that way about mages, but they could never feel that way about me. But somehow I couldn’t quite convince myself.
Chapter 3
When we reached my home, I ushered the two mages inside and offered them cups of tea. For a brief second I felt embarrassment at our humble house and limited hospitality. But the feeling was immediately overwhelmed by shame. My family worked hard, and our house was neat and clean. I had nothing to be ashamed of except for the change in me that had allowed for such a thought in the first place.
It was an uncomfortable reminder that it wasn’t the villagers, or even my family, who had changed—it was me. And if I wasn’t careful, I might change into someone I didn’t want to be.
I had expected Clemmy to greet us with high excitement, but there was no sign of my younger sister. And when I climbed into the loft where she and I slept, I found it empty too. Frowning, I looked around, trying to hide my concern from Beatrice and Reese. My sister was sick and should be in her bed. Where could she be?
But it didn’t take much reflection to know where she must have gone. And when my parents pushed open our door, Clemmy trailing behind them, all doubt was erased. I smiled at the three of them even as I scolded my sister. My words came from habit more than anything—my heart wasn’t in it. Not when I was too busy searching her eyes for any sign of fear. If Clemmy had been hidden in the crowd and had also seen me compose…
But she greeted me with the same clear smile and eager words as always, and my heart lightened. I should have known nothing would ever make my sister turn from me. I had been her protector for almost as long as I could remember—it had always been Clemmy and me against the world.
“Is it true?” she asked breathlessly, wide eyes fixing on the two purple-robed mages. “Are you here to heal me?”
Beatrice nodded and smiled, putting down her cup of tea.
“You must be Elena’s younger sister. I can see the resemblance.”
Clemmy nodded. “I’m Clementine.”
“Is there somewhere comfortable you can lie down, Clementine? The healing could take a while.”
A brief flicker of alarm crossed my mother’s face, and Beatrice directed her next words at the whole family.
“It won’t hurt, I assure you. It’s just that in complicated cases such as I believe this one to be, we must spend some time first diagnosing the problem. And that may take a number of compositions to achieve to our satisfaction. Once the diagnosis is complete, there is every possibility we will need to compose a new working specifically for Clementine. And that may take some time as well.”
I hoped they meant to let me watch. I had never seen such a complex healing, and the process fascinated me.
In the end, Clemmy was settled on my parents’ bed, and Beatrice, Reese, and I all managed to squeeze into the bedroom to join her. Reese had grumbled a little at my inclusion, but Beatrice had overruled him. For all he had apparently been sent to mind her, there was no question as to which of them held the authority.
Beatrice took the time to explain the process as they completed each step, and she even allowed me to work a simple diagnosis composition to assist. Reese grumbled the whole time that I was only a first year, and that he for one wasn’t going to look after me if I overextended myself and fainted, but I ignored him.
Regular mages expended energy when they composed rather than when they released a stored composition, and they spent their four years at the Academy gradually building up their stamina. Most new mages exhausted themselves all too easily. So mages tended to assume that since I had no way to store compositions, I must have a severely limited ability to compose.
Only a very small handful knew the truth. I had always had stamina far beyond a typical first year mage and could work simple compositions for hours without coming anywhere near collapse.
In fact, I had only overextended once—and that after doing multiple major workings in a row, several performed in a life or death scenario where I had rattled them off without sufficient limitations.
Once the diagnosis was complete, however, it was my lack of medical training rather than any weakness that held me back from further participation. Reese had finally become absorbed in their task, seeming to forget who they performed it for, and he and Beatrice descended into a long and involved technical discussion.
I remained, sitting quietly on the bed and squeezing Clemmy’s hand, but I couldn’t follow what they were saying. And when it came time to actually compose the healing, I had nothing to contribute. They debated for almost as long again over the specific wording, Reese hovering over Beatrice’s shoulder and giving constant suggestions and recommendations. I didn’t know how she bore it, but she remained patient, accepting his input with good grace.
I didn’t need to understand everything to recognize that she was far more experienced and skilled than him, however, and when she had pulled out the long sheet of parchment to begin the actual composing, he hadn’t argued that he should do it in her stead.
She took her time, and I began to wonder if there was a reason she showed such patience for his input. She moved slowly, her pen constantly pausing, and I was watching closely enough to see her growing visibly more weary as she worked. Did she need the small breaks more than she needed his suggestions?
I remembered his earlier allusions and felt the creeping fingers of guilt. Beatrice might be a great mage, skilled and experienced in her discipline, but clearly something had exhausted her. And now she was draining herself further for my family.
What did it take to exhaust a mage like Beatrice? Reese had mentioned the front lines—had she been there long? How many healings had she done? And how exhausting must they have been to leave her still like this now?
I wanted to ask her, but good sense reasserted itself, and I knew I had already pushed things as far as I dared with these two. Beatrice, at least, appeared to have more compassion for common folk than I had yet seen in a mage, but I couldn’t allow myself to forget they were both Stantorns.
The Devoras family didn’t seem to like me much either, but it was the Stantorns who had led the campaign against me, as far as I had been able to tell. Certainly my Stantorn composition instructor had loathed me from the first time he laid eyes on me.
Finally the composition was completed, and Beatrice handed it over to Reese to complete the actual working. Clemmy’s hand spasmed inside mine, and I murmured to her reassuringly as I felt the first stirrings of Beatrice’s power break free of its binding and settle like a mist over my sister.
She twitched, each of her limbs jerking, although she made no sound, and then her eyes drifted closed, and she went still. I leaned closer to her in alarm.
“Don’t worry,” said Beatrice, her voice soft and strained. “It has worked as it should. She is sleeping now as her system finishes healing itself. It was a complicated working.”
She ripped a much smaller parchment in front of her, flicking her fingers toward the bed. While I felt her power, I could see nothing, but she nodded her head in satisfaction.
“It has worked. When your sister awakes she will be as strong and healthy as any other twelve-year-old.”
A soft sob sounded from the open doorway, and I looked over to see my father enclose my crying mother in an embrace. I slipped off the bed, gently detaching my hand from Clemmy’s.
“We cannot thank you enough,” I said to Beatrice. “Both of you,” I added reluctantly.
“We didn’t d
o it for you,” snapped Reese, although he kept his voice low, at least.
I itched to ask who they were doing it for, wondering if they knew Finnian was behind the duke’s request, but I managed to hold my tongue for once. Beatrice’s visible exhaustion was a reminder of what I owed them.
My mother recovered enough to offer them a meal, and although Reese clearly wanted to be gone, he glanced at Beatrice, who was sitting back in her chair, her face slightly gray, and accepted for them both. My parents hurried away to prepare, and I turned back to Clemmy. How long would she sleep for?
I was about to ask, when Reese pulled something from a bag and approached the bed. He pulled out my sister’s arm and was about to press a long needle into it, when I rushed forward.
“What are you doing?”
He jerked, pulling back just before he made contact, and glared at me.
“My job. What are you doing?”
When I didn’t move away, he sighed.
“I’m just taking a vial of her blood. For testing. This is how we learn and expand our capabilities. It’s the price of a complicated healing—and most are more than happy to pay it.” He gave me a significant look.
I turned to Beatrice for confirmation. She was watching Reese with somewhat narrowed eyes, but she made no attempt to refute his words, so I sighed and stepped back.
He worked quickly, drawing her blood and then stoppering the vial and placing it in a small, padded bag. From the cold air that rushed from it when opened, clearly one or more compositions had gone into its crafting.
Reese barely spoke or ate during the following meal, but Beatrice had considerably recovered by the end. Unlike her young cousin, nothing in her manner suggested she would rather be elsewhere, and if I ignored Reese, it was actually quite a pleasant meal. Although both my parents and I tried to hide how often we glanced with eager interest toward their open bedroom door.
Beatrice commented that the Academy year was to start soon and offered me a place in their carriage to ride back to the capital, but I wasn’t ready to leave home yet. Not that I had much to pack, but I couldn’t leave Kingslee before Clemmy woke up.
Beatrice seemed to understand, and she assured us as she left that my sister would wake at any moment. I alternated between wild joy and a lurking sense of dread. It was all just a little too good to be true.
But Clemmy did wake—a bare few minutes after the departure of the healers—and woke full of energy, too. There was no sign of the illness that had been plaguing her before their arrival, and while it was too early to be sure if all their claims were true, she certainly looked to be healthy, strong, and full of life.
The next two days she proceeded to bound around with more energy than I had ever seen, and I began to believe that our worries for her might be truly over. I had planned to stay with my family until the last possible day, but the visit of the healers had put the thought of the Academy firmly in the center of my mind, and I found myself constantly itching to compose again. Plus, the more I watched Clemmy, the more I wanted to thank Finnian for what he had done for us.
Finally, I gave in and announced to my parents that I planned to leave the next day. I had expected protestations and pleas to stay just a little longer, but neither made any attempt to dissuade me. Contrarily, I immediately wished they had been a little less amenable. Were they so eager to get rid of me?
But when it actually came time for our leave-taking, they embraced me warmly and gave no sign of any discomfort. I hugged them all back—Clemmy longest and hardest—and set off down the dirt road in the opposite direction to the village.
The road would join the great paved South Road soon enough, and the walking would be a little easier after that. But it was still only the beginning of autumn, and the dirt had yet to bog into mud, so I made good progress.
I had packed light, and my few possessions were easy work for the new muscles I had spent the previous year developing. All trainees spent their mornings on combat classes, so I had returned home for the summer far stronger than I left. Several of the village boys—those who expected to fulfill their family’s conscription responsibility—spent large portions of their days on makeshift combat practice of their own, and I had made sure to join them regularly over the summer. They had been afraid to spar with me at first, but when I dumped a few of them on the ground—and showed no sign of composing while doing so—they had begrudgingly let me practice with them. They had always remained wary, however, and it had been nothing like sparring with my friends at the Academy, but I persisted anyway. I had spent far too much of the last year at the bottom of my class, and I had no desire to return to that position again.
I joined South Road, walking along the edge of the paving where I would be out of the way of passing wheeled vehicles. My first and closest friend from the Academy, Coralie, lived in Abalene, a southern city near the mouth of the Overon River. Her journey home had started on the South Road, and she had dropped me at the Kingslee turn off at the start of our break. It meant this was the first time I had made the full trek into Corrin on foot.
As one hour turned into two, I had to admit that my light pack had begun to feel somewhat heavier. I had brought home none of the practical outfits given me by the Academy, leaving them locked in my room instead, alongside my white robes.
Damon, the head servant at the Academy, had explained that I could leave what I liked in my room. The top floor of the Academy held rooms for first years on one side and second years on the other. I had assumed I would have to change rooms, but he explained that the incoming trainees would take the side vacated by the second years, and that consequently I was welcome to use the storage in my room over the summer.
In truth, the clothes I had left behind were finer quality than any I owned in the village, but I had known I would already stand out among the villagers and had no wish to further highlight the changes in my life. Fitting back in had been a hopeless task, however, and I resolved to bring my clothes home with me next summer. Right up until I remembered that I wouldn’t be completing second year at the Academy and returning home for the summer. In spring I would enlist in the Armed Forces, and I had no idea what my future might hold beyond that.
I pushed the thought from my mind. My birthday would come soon enough and thinking of it would do me no good now.
As the third hour wore away, and I began to approach closer to the capital, the traffic increased slightly. We were nearing the hottest part of the day, however, and I passed an increasing number of people stopped by the side of the road for a midday meal and rest.
Many of them called cheerful greetings as I trudged past, and I relished the sense of anonymity. None of these people knew me and, dressed in my own Kingslee clothes, I looked just like any other commonborn girl.
My parents had been concerned about it, in fact—unhappy that I would be traveling alone. But I had reminded them that the road was well-traveled, and that, if it came to it, I was hardly as defenseless as I looked. I hadn’t told them the full story of my previous year—not wanting to cause them worry—but they had taken me at my word anyway.
But walking alone now, I felt a great deal less confident. Not that I doubted my ability to protect myself, but somehow the knowledge that I could do so didn’t abate the creeping feeling of discomfort that had been steadily assailing me. It seemed my instincts had yet to catch up with my new mage status. I had spent far too much of my life as an unremarkable common girl, and they were reminding me of it.
Attempts to remind myself of my new powers did little good. I might be able to defend against attackers, but I hardly wanted to find myself in a situation where I had to do so.
I focused on my surroundings, trying to identify what had alerted my subconscious to potential danger. None of the travelers around me looked threatening, and none approached uncomfortably close.
But as the next mile passed beneath my feet, I noticed that those traveling near me changed. Some who had just joined the road fell away, moving at
a slower pace, while others moved faster and soon passed me. A couple even managed to hail a ride on a passing wagon. Still others found a pleasant looking place to stop for a midday break.
I pressed on, however, the prospect of stopping on my own unappealing, and I soon noticed that two men behind me continued on also. They kept pace with me, although they kept their distance, and now that I had focused on them, I thought I had first seen them soon after I joined South Road.
I slowed my steps, forcing my body to move counter to the wishes of my now wildly beating heart, and waited for them to pass me. They did not. After a sufficient tense interval, I glanced backward and saw that they maintained the same distance behind me as they had since I first spotted them.
Biting my lip, I changed strategy, increasing my pace instead, the weight of my pack forgotten in the rush of energy and fear that I couldn’t entirely suppress despite my best efforts. I didn’t wait as long this time before glancing surreptitiously back.
I told myself that the men would have fallen away, the distance between us increasing, and I would soon be laughing at my folly. Plenty of people might have a reason not to stop for a meal, just as plenty might travel at the same pace as me.
But when I peeked backward, my heart sank. The two men chatted to each other, neither watching me, but there was no denying the gap between us remained the same. As I had increased my pace, so had they.
I was being followed.
Chapter 4
I considered turning and confronting them but hesitated. They didn’t wear the robes of mages, but then neither did I. I had composed my way free of both of my attempted abductions the year before, so whoever my enemy was—and I strongly suspected they were a combination of Stantorn and Devoras members—they were unlikely to make the mistake of underestimating me again.
Voice of Command (The Spoken Mage Book 2) Page 3