Syphon's Song

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Syphon's Song Page 21

by Anise Rae


  The Council’s envoy interrupted. “Look at your daughter, Lady Casteel.” The steely blonde’s cold voice could have frozen the air. “Poised, calm. Good breeding, despite her power. But you kicked her out. So she’s likely seething under it all. Ready to take you out in a flash of mage vibes if you don’t grant this wish to be transferred to Rallis Territory.” Her voice was full of threats—heavy and scary. But there was no point to it. The envoy was misinformed. Bronte had no weapons against her mother.

  “She doesn’t have mage vibes!” Phyllis screeched. Leave it to her mother to straighten everyone out, Bronte thought.

  The icy blonde laughed. “Oh, right. I’m getting confused. Who knows what I’ll say if I keep going?” She leaned forward in her seat. Her dark blue eyes pinned Phyllis with a malicious stare. “I’m sure your daughter will continue to live quietly as always…if you make the right choice and transfer her to Rallis.”

  The judge chimed in, “The court recognizes the wisdom of the High Council envoy’s advice to Casteel to transfer the mage to Rallis.”

  The envoy nodded once in acknowledgement and then turned back to Phyllis. “If you do not sign her over, who knows what your daughter will do?” She smiled coldly. “She knows so much about your household. I wouldn’t trust her to keep her mouth shut about family secrets and the like.”

  Bronte knew only one family secret—that the Casteel daughter was a syphon. That wasn’t such a secret anymore. Her brother looked as confused as she felt.

  Phyllis snorted. “Fine. They can have her. She can die by their hand instead of mine.”

  “Mage transferred by law,” the judge immediately declared. The same power washed through the room. A thousand pounds of pressure pushed against her ears.

  “It is left to Rallis to bind her to the land,” the judge said.

  She’d forgotten about that part. Since Nons were not invited to binding ceremonies, she had never witnessed one. She rubbed her temples, dreading another dose of spells. How else would a mage be bound to the land? Glancing across the table, she caught her mother’s gaze. Phyllis’s small, evil smile sent a shiver through her. Her mother stood. “Judge Eaton.”

  Bronte knew what was coming. Of course she knew.

  “I call for the death of the syphon mage for causing irrevocable harm to another mage.”

  “Your evidence, Lady Casteel?” The judge’s put-upon sigh sounded as if she’d expected this too.

  “I place before you records of energy readings of my son, the Casteel heir, taken when he was fifteen years old.” Scrolls floated down to the judge, one of her mother’s talents. Phyllis waited for them to reach the judge and carefully lowered them to the shiny table. “As you can see, his levels spiked quickly and then leveled off, sadly short of his potential. Bronte was born the moment they leveled off. She sucked the energy right out of him and permanently restricted the growth of his mage power. Her syphon destroyed his potential.” Her eyes narrowed on Bronte as she sneered. She sat down slowly, her glare staying in place.

  The reader to the left of the judge picked up the scroll and examined it. She nodded. “The energy readings are Truth.”

  Judge Eaton nodded back and then stared at Phyllis. “And where are the records of Bronte’s energy readings when she was born?”

  Phyllis scoffed and gestured with her hands. “No one has records of infants. Everyone knows babies have no discernible energy until three days after birth. Even at that time, nothing showed up on her recordings other than the background energy of the land.”

  “Exactly.” The judge’s voice was as sharp as her hairdo’s spikes.

  “No one knows how syphon mages function,” Phyllis spat. “They could be different from the rest of us. She was syphoning power from the day she was born. I know it!”

  “You have no proof that a brand-new infant caused your son’s power to level off before he was strong enough to suit you. As you said, babies have no power when they are born. Therefore, the death warrant is denied.” The words cracked through the air. Though they seared like hot, slender knives slipping into her eardrums, they had saved her life. That was…easy. Too easy. She glanced behind her. Gregor and Dane were focused and alert.

  “Judge Eaton, this girl has warped your mind! Her presence affects everyone. I told you we should finish this before she arrived! Can you not feel it? We should all be scared, frightened, to know a syphon is in our midst. And yet you sit here calmly, as if she is not consuming your power by the megajoule.”

  The judge’s gaze hardened. “Fear of the unknown, legends, myths…none of those things has a place in the law or at a death warrant hearing. This is not a witch hunt, Lady Casteel. That would go against the sacred, founding laws of the Republic.”

  “I’ll tell you what goes against the laws: a judge who won’t enforce them!”

  “There is no antisyphon law on the scrolls.” The High Council’s envoy spoke. Her cold voice sent a shiver down Bronte’s back.

  “What? Of course there is!” Phyllis steamed, though instead of growing red with anger, her faced paled and tightened.

  “The High Council has erased them. Look at your Scrolls of Law when you return home. There are no longer any laws prohibiting any type of mage power.” The judge nodded. “It is our own fear that holds us back. That has no place in the law.” She flashed a glance toward the recorder mage. “Strike this next part from the record.”

  The recorder mage bobbed her head in consent.

  The judge turned a withering glare on Phyllis. “Lady Casteel, you are as sour as the energy radiating through your territory. You have embarrassed both your children at this farce of a hearing. Go home. Address the problems that dwell in your land if it’s not too late. If everyone in Casteel is as affected as you are, I don’t think there is much hope. The least you can do is cease to contaminate the rest of us with your ill-will.”

  Phyllis stepped back, her chair falling. “If you will not listen to me, then I invoke the Right of Creator.” She pointed a finger at Bronte.

  Bronte had no idea what that meant. Nothing good, though. Helen and the judge gasped. Edmund’s mouth dropped, his usual witty comeback absent. Dane and Gregor each stepped forward and put a hand on her shoulders. Bad signs all around. Phyllis had taken them by surprise. Only the High Council’s envoy remained unaffected.

  “Lady Casteel.” The judge’s voice was hard. “That law is intended for long-term spells. Dangerous spells. It is not intended for children.”

  Phyllis’s eyes glowed like flames. “There is no description in the law limiting it to spells or potions.” Phyllis lifted a scroll, already twisted to the correct part. “Whoever brings into existence a creation formed of universal energy shall be responsible for it throughout its lifespan and has the right to destroy it even if it is no longer resides in their possession.”

  “Again, Lady Casteel, it is intended for deadly spells and aggressive potions.” Judge Eaton leaned on the table. Her fingers pressed against it. She wasn’t afraid of leaving fingerprints. “If the creator no longer wishes to allow such negative energy to hurt or kill, then they are allowed to destroy it. It’s a salvage-your-karma kind of law. Not a kill-your-baby law.”

  “You did not create her alone.” The white blonde spoke. “It took two universal energies to make Bronte.”

  “My cocreator agrees with me.” Phyllis looked down at her husband. “Don’t you?”

  The future Senator Casteel twitched. It might have been a nod. It might have been a spasm.

  The Council’s envoy glared at both elder Casteels. “Do you want the mages of Casteel Territory to know you willfully killed your daughter? Such an action is unlikely to soothe your people. The High Council has reports of riots, of bounder mages leaving their posts and general mayhem in your cities. They are planning to place an envoy in your territory to evaluate the state of your rule.”

  Phyllis gasped. “That’s unheard of! And unlawful. The High Council has no authority to do that.”


  “The High Council does whatever is necessary for the good of the Republic.”

  “I’m hardly going to take the word of their insignificant little flunky.”

  “You don’t have to, Lady Casteel. The Lady Glender will tell you herself.” The mere name radiated authority and power. “Her summons will arrive soon.”

  “So be it.” Phyllis dismissed the Council envoy. “To the topic at hand, I hereby invoke the Right of Creator.” Ritual words. They vibrated with power. “Bronte’s presence in our family has been a burden since the moment her complete lack of mage power was revealed. To discover that she’s a syphon, that such a creature would be born to a family like ours, ought to strike fear into each of you. Mayflower families have no place for such an abomination. We have done a disservice to our great country by letting her live. In the name of our great ancestors who survived the Inquisition, I erase our world of you.” A buzz vibrated through the room.

  Bronte clapped her hands over her ears at the pressure.

  Phyllis lifted her hand, pointer finger extended. Bronte’s chair was yanked back—either Gregor or Dane, she couldn’t see. Hard hands grabbed her. The Council envoy shot up. Bronte was tossed from her chair to the ground. A heavy body pushed her into the rough carpet. Chaos sounded above her. One loud scream, a high grunt. A splinter of wood cracked like a gun. She burrowed against the floor as if she could dig through it.

  “Stay down, Bronte,” Gregor commanded.

  As if she wanted to stand.

  “Get that woman out of here!” Edmund’s shout reigned over the room. The noise faded until the loudest sound was Bronte’s heartbeat.

  “Clear.” Dane threw his voice to them with a spell. Gregor rolled away and stood.

  Bronte watched from the floor as he scanned the room and then offered her a hand up. She accepted with a shaky reach.

  The judge and her two people huddled against the far wall. Helen’s hand hovered in front of her chest, as if she was ready to throw mage energy. Edmund mirrored her. His gaze followed Lord Casteel, who carried Phyllis’s limp body out of the room. A chair lay crumpled against the floor on the other side of the room.

  Most frightening was the Council’s envoy. She lay in the middle of the table, her back to Bronte. Her silvery hair splayed across the dark wood.

  With a soft click, the door closed, shutting out the Casteels and leaving the room frozen in shock.

  “What happened?” Bronte finally asked. No one answered. Shock drifted through the air like autumn leaves, settling among the witnesses and sealing them in silence.

  Bronte brushed past Edmund and shuffled around the table. “Is she alive?”

  He found his voice. “No one could have survived that spell.”

  The envoy’s blue eyes stared at nothing. A drip of blood from her nose blemished the pale perfection of her skin. Bronte reached out, slipping her fingers under the woman’s collar to feel for a pulse. A tornado of power zapped into her. Her ears popping with the explosion, she jerked back. Her fingers stung, so charged they might shoot lightning. The envoy sat up. The collective gasp was a chorus of shock.

  “Are you alright?” Bronte’s hesitant words dripped

  “Yes,” the envoy hissed. “You took the edge off.”

  * * * *

  Creamy walls enclosed Helen’s private sitting room, a stark contrast to the dark formality of the dining room. The envoy lay on the couch where Edmund had deposited her. She didn’t move. She didn’t talk. Her face was a perfect blank. Bronte wasn’t sure if she was in terrible pain or just the silent type.

  After a few minutes, Bronte broke the silence. “Edmund is summoning a healer. He told me what happened. You took the spell meant for me. Thank you.”

  The woman said nothing.

  “What is your name? I feel like I should know the name of the person who saved my life.”

  “Selene. Glender.” She added the last name as if it were a separate entity. Her voice was as sharp as ever. She didn’t sound as if she had just blocked a death spell.

  Bronte smoothed her skirt, unsure how to proceed. “Is there someone you want me to contact for you? Friends or family?”

  Selene huffed a laugh and tented her hand over her eyes. Her fingers were long and thin. Good musician’s hands. “No friends. And family? The High Council disapproves of things like that.”

  “Oh.”

  The blood still dripped from Selene’s nose. Bronte handed her a tissue from a basket on the side table.

  “Not many people want to be friends…or family…with a necromancer, a bone witch, a corpse whore, whatever you want to call it. The High Council’s official term is ‘forensic mage,’ but no one’s fooled.” Bitterness leached from her lips.

  Selene’s loneliness reminded her of Vincent, except there was no resentment in him.

  “I understand having a mage power people are afraid of.” Mage power. Those words felt strange on her tongue. “There are some people who’d like to kill me for it.”

  “Obviously.” Her voice was void of sympathy.

  Considering Selene’s disinterest in the social niceties, Bronte let her own curiosity have its reign. She leaned forward against her legs, bringing her closer to the necromancer. “You weren’t…dead before I took the edge off, were you?”

  “That’s a stupid question. Of course I wasn’t dead.”

  “Oh. Well, how did I take the edge off?”

  “I was clogged up with our mother’s killing spell.”

  Our mother? Bronte barely caught the rest of the woman’s words.

  “It’s hard to use a death spell on a mage who resonates with death’s energy.” Selene shrugged. “You’re her syphon daughter. I’m her necromancer daughter. It only makes sense that all of our powers vibrate. Though you certainly didn’t take much of the power off. If you’re a typical example of a syphon, they’re not very powerful.”

  “You’re my sister?” Bronte sat stunned. The insult in the envoy’s words only half registered.

  “Don’t tell. The Rallises might not want you if they know you’re related to a bone witch.” Selene laughed with bitter glee. “Yes, you’re the favored Casteel daughter. You got to stick around for sixteen years. She threw me out three days after I was born, when my necromancer power surfaced. The Council took me in. So don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”

  To throw out a baby—how could they? Bronte’s estimation of her parents dropped to the darkest pits of the universe.

  Selene stood and walked to the door. “Be at the gyre’s edge at seven thirty.” Her voice was as icy as ever.

  16

  Bronte chose a rock the height of a chair, three rows away from the center of the gyre. The sun streamed through the branches of the white guardian trees as it headed back to the horizon. She’d endured Helen’s company at the big house for as long as she could. The news that she had a sister burned her tongue. She’d kept quiet, though Selene was wrong about the Rallises. They’d still want Bronte regardless of her necromancer sister.

  She had a sister. Bronte sat on her white rock, the words reverberating through her mind. She was due some peace to think it all through, and no one could get to her in the gyre. The only other person in here was dead.

  Dane and Gregor lingered on opposite edges of the gyre, frowning and frustrated that they couldn’t get to her. She ignored them and opened her violin case with a flick of the clasps. The case’s velvet lining was worn and dotted with bald patches. She pulled out her instrument and bow.

  She was a mage. It was officially on the Republic’s record books. And she was going to play like one.

  She tuned the four strings until they vibrated with perfect harmony. It was the antidote to the tension coiled inside her. She caught her first deep breath in hours. The rocks of the gyre absorbed her notes and sang back to her. Constant and steady. The only constant in her universe at the moment. She had no idea what was next in her life other than pulling the bow across the strings and letting the song buildin
g inside her have a life.

  The notes danced out of her one at a time. The gyre’s power magnified and stretched the music until it seemed as if her creation would go on to infinity. The first stars in the sky were reaching for it when she heard her name. She lifted her bow from the strings and noticed night’s darkness for the first time. The dropping temperatures penetrated her skin.

  Her time to herself was at an end. Selene stood among the trees enclosing the gyre. After playing for so long, it took Bronte a moment to bring her into focus. The shadows complicated the task. She studied her sister and waited for some sense of connection to form. It didn’t.

  Selene disappeared back into the trees. The gyre’s vibes were probably too uncomfortable standing that close.

  Bronte packed away her violin and stowed the case against a rock. She started toward the tree line, weaving in and out among the petrified tree trunks in an uneven maze to the gyre’s edge. The tight trees standing sentinel let her pass through. A mass of mages gathered on the other side.

  The Rallises were all present—except Vincent—as well as the judge and her court. Bronte wasn’t sure why they needed to be here, but she wasn’t going to ask. With a twist of bitterness, she noted her parents’ presence. Phyllis sat in a chair that someone had dragged through the forest for her. She certainly hadn’t performed the task for herself. She either still suffered from the effects of Selene’s defense or had fooled them into believing it. A Casteel sentry, his uniform silvery-gray with a yellow sash, loomed behind Phyllis. Bronte remembered dozens of them guarding the Casteel house. He watched her, his focus visible in the moonlight.

  “You’re late.” Selene’s flat tone didn’t carry far in the damp night air, but Bronte heard her clearly enough. The necromancer had changed out of her black suit and into brown canvas pants dotted with pockets and tucked into short boots. Her fleece jacket buttoned on the diagonal and had two more pockets. A black stocking cap hid her hair and accentuated her pale face. Bronte would have asked her how she was feeling, but she didn’t think the frigid woman would welcome the inquiry.

 

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